cross-border solidarity and cooperation and political party level cross-border solidarity and cooperation, and local government cross-border solidarity and cooperation. ..

sitting together and brainstorming about what it is they can learn from each other. >> i'm terribly sorry. >> finishing up, and again, what i've seen from central and eastern democracy promotion often times it is not just about what those countries have done at home but what they have done, that didn't work and maybe their counterparts should not repeat. >> great. thank you very much. what is your takeaway? what stand out for you? >> well, be kind of dispirited but i definitely agree that there is a lot to be done with the central european ngos as they are well-equipped. they're relatively cheap to run. they are not corrupt too much. so definitely a lot to use but the problem is that there is a

growing gap between those who would work for the ngos and the frustrated society at large. frustrated and apathetic. and i mean there's a lot of losers in the economic transformation in eastern and central europe but there are those who are trying to use this frustration and change it into a better grip over the state or society. one question maybe to melinda, i think that was the way you were heading but there was something about pulling back mon from the most closed regimes. i completely agree with the logic but how to make sure -- the societies are not monolithic which you know much better than me. how to make sure that those who are striving for democracy in those regimes, that these are alive or they have some money to distribute, whatever they have to distribute. so how to make sure is it

through net or how to make sure this will happen. one last remark, coming back to the first panel, we did not address the fact that i mean we used poland or central europe as a reference point for good transitions but we didn't say that, this happened when, when pro-democracy promotion was highest priority of both the european union and the united states. i mean there are some structural elements in the societies in the region. so that might help it but we should realize that this is the not case anymore. i mean the democracy promotion is not that close to our hearts as it was in the 1990s. so we should not blame everything on the countries or around the societies but we somehow kind of scaled back our own ambitions. >> so, melinda, maybe you could respond to that a little bit? >> absolutely.

i will do my takeaway and respond to michael. on sarah's points i think she is right, conditionality is really important and this is a point made in the literature over and over again. the democracy promotion is lot more difficult because we have less conditionality. maybe we need to learn how to create new conditionality. let's see. i hear you on delivery, there is tendency to focus on programs that are results heavy. there is tension. you want to give implementers enough room, this is difficult work and often takes years and years. so i think there is a tension in delivery. i think you're absolutely right to point to that. tsveta i love to hear you, i heard her speak before, when she talks about local ties and knowledge. she makes an important point. she didn't give example today, she observed a program, a usaid funded program, a global

governance program, and usaid was trying to take a local governance program to ukraine and it didn't fit at all in the contest. she said we would be much better served if we take the polish model which is more similar and applied it in ukrainian context. i think there is a lot of wisdom in that. michael's point programs tend to be technical, not political. carl said this morning the political part is extremely important. we shouldn't shy away from that. i like michael's point looking at small and medium-sized business owners. to answer your question, i see a division of labor. i don't think we should cut off aid to even very hopeless countries. we should con to use the national endowment of democracy to keep the flame alive. they know how to work in authoritarian regimes than anyone else and ambassadors have small funds they can give out as well. >> great. thanks for that. i wish we had a bit more time but, let's open it up for

questions. this woman here. >> national endowment for democracy. melinda, thank you so much, for bringing up azerbaijan which i think is timely, excellent case study for a lot of the themes that have come up here. for the pull of europe, the argument about central europeans being such a great model the idea that europe is not only a model but the idea of membership can promote better democracy in the applicant countries. azerbaijan has carried out the worst crackdown ever. it arrested dozens of activists, the best human rights people, the best journalists, are in jail and this happened while asker buy june was the -- azerbaijan was the chairman of council of ministers, the chairman of the council of europe. it only works, europe as a magnet, a prize, can only work if europe is, true to its

values, if -- >> question? >> so what do you think of that? is it a counter example? for you melinda, also on azerbaijan, with these people in jail, some refunding from usaid, and european donors. donors are announcing new grant. with a opportunity -- what should usaid, what should european donors, others do with people like this? all the best people are in jail? you have millions of dollars to spend. european commission announced new $3 million competition? how should people handle it? >> so, melinda, i think that one is for you. >> i think the second part is for me. >> why don't you tackle it. >> i will jump right in. i really share your concern marion. i can't believe many of the people i worked with in

azerbaijan are behind bars. tom was clear on this point, we need to use our political and moral leadership to stand up for these people. carl made this point. democracy isn't just programs. it is also using our moral leadership to say that you can't get away with this and holding states to the commitments that they have made. so i've seen that azerbaijan and these donors have more money and i've seen horrific programs. i think mostly aid-funded programs in uzbekistan and azerbaijan funding gongos. i don't think we need to be funding them and we need to do a better job who is a gongo and who is not. you can't someone like kareem seriously as democratic reformer. >> for those don't speak the language. a gongo is fake ngo sponsored by

authoritarian government. >> there are plenty of them in the regime. we need to do due diligence before we get h give out money. we have to do due diligence. put money in countries where there is more openness. in this region in ukraine and georgia. >> very good. miriam, does that cover it. i think we'll have to move along. this gentleman in the middle here. >> thanks, ire raw straus. i'm head of something called the democracy international which is a legacy organization from the cold war era democracy promotion. i have a question about the connection of this with the first panel. it has been wonderful on the specifics of democracy promotion effort but there has been a a question about multiple standards, double standards, multiple considerations in life. tsveta said it's a weakness of

central european democracy promotion to have strategic purposes. i would say that's a strength. the first wave of democracy promotion had clear strategic conception in the '80s, and legacy after the '80s, when communism collapsed. >> to the question, though. >> the question have we gone doing more good than harm and we knew what they were about and answered to criticism. we were controversial. have we done more harm than good because we forgot constraints that make us sometimes do more harm than good. >> who would like to tackle? tsveta? great. >> i run out of time otherwise i would have elaborated on that point. the way i see the geostrategic angle here, it is a double-edged sword. on one hand if there is a clear security rationale that backs democracy promotion it makes a country provide efforts that are resolute, that are sustained and that in that way have a positive

impact. on the other side however such a geostrategic rationale often times served to make those efforts inconsistent because those countries are tempted to back the pro-their guy rather than necessarily watch out for improving the democratic process. so to me there is a tradeoff there. and just as we discussed in the first panel, it is something that the country has to educate its public about, have a conversation and decide how, where, along the continuum its willing to sit. >> i actually have a question i'm going to ask very quickly and it's a question for michael. also tsveta whoever wishes to answer. we talked about hungary. we dawned about it. the prime recently gave a speech. we want a liberal democracy. we're tired of this liberal democracy stuff. so it would seem that western democracy promotion efforts in hung todayry have failed.

let's just say that. how did they fail? what did they do wrong? i realize the answer may be a long one but let's try to boil it down. >> first of all, we should be declare that when victor was denouncing liberal democracy, what he actually was doing was denouncing democracy. he kind of took parts of liberalism here and there but what he was attacking the idea of democracy and i think that the failure was basically the stuff of my presentation but i would say one more thing that -- >> sum it up for us, one sentence? >> well, sum it up. >> he is an academic. >> two sentences. >> but i would say one more thing about the presentation. the famous polish historian said that history is like a pendulum in central europe. we are always too much pro west and look up to the west but we are hurt by never giving to the standards so we try to denounce

west. this is the dynamic that is going on for ages. i'm afraid that hungary is simply getting pendulum back now night is not really our fault? it is the dialect? >> well, it is our fault because we thought that the pendulum is never going to go back. so we set everything on autopilot. that is why i was criticizing the technical aspect of assistance. >> got it. sorry about that. how about the gentleman from the second row in the end there. yes, thank you. >> hello. i'm ed reagan, fellow at the national endowment for democracy and problem i think one of the only africans in here. i come from sim bock way where, you know the state is captured all institutions as you know. but i see the international community, including the united states, supporting the same programs. i think you spoke about same

programs. civil society being castigated for being too political but we know that from recent evidence that a dictatorship that has captured institutions will never reform. but my question is, on the role of the neighboring countries in aiding democracy, particularly south africa? in the case of zimbabwe, on one hand south africa is supporting the victims of political persecution by take them in. but other hand it is aiding robert mugabe's regime. what do you think of the role should be of neighboring countries particularly in the south african context promoting democracy in country like zimbabwe? thank you. >> sarah, you want to tackle that? no? >> i can say a word. maybe others can say something.

one of the things i take from tsveta's comments, neighboring states have a lot to offer but don't always seize the opportunity. without knowing so much about this specific case, i would say it's, it is a shame for neighboring states not to take the opportunity to play such a constructive role with better insight perhaps into local, political dynamics and, one would assume a lot of economic and other forms of leverage. so, would you like to weigh in. >> i think again, i'm not original expert but what i have seen is that regional actors have a very important role to play and sometimes it takes encouragement to realize that potential. sometimes that encouragement is by the people in the recipient country that are struggling for democracy reaching out and

asking both fellow civic activists as well as politicians, articulating, helping them articulate the rationale why democracy should be aided in their own country. other times it takes international actors, often times through regional forums or powerful actors such as the u.s. to encourage such democracy promotion. the fact that is, south africans are always bigger than zimbabwe i will not take as discouragement but as a challenge that could be resolved. >> very interesting. yes, right here, please. >> following on the last question, does government funding lead to tame programs? because government has other interests? and if so do private sector groups and foundations are they more likely to be aggressive and can they pick up the bulk of democracy funding if government chooses not to do it? and then if the u.s. government is not actually promoting it but

private u.s. foundations what's the impact in recipient countries? does it help or hurt the cause of democracy promotion? >> so who would like to take that? >> go ahead. >> i will say a word. so, yeah, that's what i think. i think that government programs face a lot of competing interests that make it difficult, at least in certain countries to fund and design programs that that would be most effective supporting democratic change. i think private actors have much greater scope to pursue those kinds of programs. that certainly my perspective. i would also add, however, it is not just the governments, the government on our end of things plays sometimes a difficult role and has competing interests. it is obviously also the governments in the countries where the programs are going to be taking place and i think that's where the comment about

the field-based, versus grant-making model is also relevant because for, no matter how the program is being funded, the program is, if it is based through a field-based office may have certain pressures that will also kind of tame as i would put it, the programs. so i think that the delivery makes a huge difference but it is not the only factor that i would highlight. >> i would say having a field office is a real thing. country directors worry about, especially in authoritarian and semiauthoritarian countries. we worry about the field staff. there is security all the time. you get threatening phone calls. people are followed. this is a real thing in these kinds of countries. i have a slightly different answer than sarah. this is a $3 billion industry. i can't see how you will raise $3 billion a year in private interests. and i would also worry if the money is coming from i presume companies? i looked at some corporate

social responsibility programs and companies have interests as well. we would be naive if we didn't recognize that and i, with corporate social responsibility programs a lot of these are oil companies or they're going to have interests that will probably produce the same kind of lame perhaps that we've identified. >> the gentleman way back there in the white shirt please. >> my name is shamar of the democracy foundation. i would like to play devil's advocate mere. we all know the congress has a very low rating in this country. what, 15% or 14%. which is kind of a shame because actually democracy depends on congress, not an dictatorial president that we have here. finally, we try to spread democracy throughout the world through violence which is, i mean, to somebody just mentioned

that some dictators use savage violence. we use super savage violence invading afghanistan, invading iraq, invading yemen. that does not bode very well for a country that claims that they're spreading democracy. and our own democracy is regressing too. just as many other countries. >> i'm terribly sorry we have so get to the question. >> yeah. given that what is the credibility and most of our, also, 99% of our ngo including wilson center are also congo. i'm glad you explained that to me, i was not aware of that term, given that where are we going? >> who would like to tackle that maybe? >> just a few words. i would take this criticism very seriously and that is exactly what i meant when i said we have to reflect politically what is wrong with democracy and why these arguments are being presented at forums like these because this is something that

we have to take very seriously. to the question of violence, it was made very clear, who said it in the first panel, that democracy through violence is not, is not a way, and think we discovered that, now even, i mean we have to use that as a reference for what not to do but i wouldn't use that as a reference for, that for not making democracy help to flourish in different countries. once again, i think we really have to start at home. that was actually the whole point of my presentation. and to, to think hard about our own democracy and are we ready to sacrifice for that and so on, so an. i thank you for your critical remarks. >> i think we probably have time for one more question so this gentleman right in the middle. >> thank you, my nameis tabish.

i'm a fellow at national endowment of democracy. i'm a fellow from afghanistan. i was not interested in putting questions because the context was quite different but looking to the recent questions i'm interested to ask melinda about her comments that she actually advocate for closing cases of -- countries like afghanistan. i was just wondering wondering e going to support democracies in the countries where the ground are paved and, like a piece of cake, you are ready to go there, why you're not interested in support of countries who are vitally supporting and advate indicating for democracy. look at afghanistan, it was military approach. recently it changed to a civil approach. closing the case of democracy in case of afghanistan that means you're wasting billions of dollars you supported and media,

dependent organizations and civil society in afghanistan. and it means led me to call it the way we're calling it in afghanistan, it is narrow-minded pakistani narrative of afghanistan. that afghans don't deserve to be demock advertised. do that through the taliban up shoots. which is totally not correct? >> what is the question? >> my question how are you going, how are you going to close the cases while there are many interested and many functioning civil society organizations and democracy activists in the field? of course looking to easy examples like ukraine which has open society and georgia as your own example is quite a different history. but why not supporting countries who are, who need the support? >> thank you. thanks very much. >> thanks for that question. so i'm, i want to get back to this question of division of labor. that's what my remarks were primarily b i'm not saying that

the u.s. should not give any assistance to afghanistan and to courageous democrats there. to the contrary i think that should be. i think that is role for national endowment of democracy and not the role of multimillion-dollar program that has been highly ineffective. there are lot of examples i could point to, usaid programs. i view these as sunk costs. as larry diamond will probably say at lunch you have to a state in order to do these programs. you have to have a functioning state. that is a key part of this. we haven't talked very much about that but i think most of us in this room would draw a large distinction between nation-building and encourage democratic transitions. nation-building is something entirely different. that's, i'm not an expert on nation-building and i think it is extremely hard. it is extremely difficult. you have to be fully committed to it. i think, my comments are mostly

directed at encouraging democratic transitions. >> so often the biggest question comes up at the end. michael, you wanted to say something very quickly and we'll go to the next -- >> okay. let's talk about that among ourselves then. thank you very much. i am going to call, will back up here. and he can take my place and tell us what we're going to do next. >> i want to begin by thanking this panel so much. you were asked -- [applause] we were asked several questions at the beginning of this conference what is the future and what is the alternative in terms of democracy promotion. i think we just learned a huge amount here in terms how to approach this issue. i again thank the panel. now we'll be actually able to move to lunch and hear what larry diamond himself has to say about some of these issues. what i ask everyone to do, go across the hallway. grab your lunch. we'll keep going into the

cafeteria. and hopefully we'll be able to begin lunch by 12:40. thanks to all the panel, all the participants in the first panel as well. we move on to lunch. [applause] >> what did you want to say? >> c-span's campaign 2014 is bringing you more than 100 debates for the control of congress. stay in touch with our coverage and engage. follow us on twitter,@c-span and like us on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. p candidate events and campaign related programing all part of c-span's 2014. one of those races that we're covering is for the georgia governor. as republican nathan deal is running for a second term against democrat state senator

jason carter. "real clear politics" rate this is race a toss-up. average of recent polls show governor deal ahead by three points. there will be a runoff if no candidate reaches 50% of the vote. coverage starting tonight at 8:00 eastern on our companion network, c-span. last friday night, governor scott walker and challenger mary burke squared off in a debate as they talk about drunk driving. >> i am on record i think it should be a misdemeanor. right now there are not enough consequences for that first offense. i think we have to make sure that there are consequences, not only is it 115 deaths, 5,000 crashes that have alcohol-related. this is costing us, costing our society. a lot of money, a long with the type of personal injury that it causes. so we have to take a tougher stance on this i've been endorsed by the wisconsin professional police association and i will work with law

enforcement to make sure that we have in place what we need to cut down on the number of fatalities. to cut down on number of crashes to make sure it doesn't overburden the justice system by having alternative methods to address it. we need to make sure people with addiction problems need to get treatments in order to do this right now we don't have tough enough consequences that will make a difference really addressing this. we haven't moved the needle enough. it is time for wisconsin to join the rest of the country to realize this is important to ensuring safety on our roads. >> governor walker. >> >> this is it one of those tragic issues out there and one of the problems, i remember years ago i was first elected official from wawatosa, one of the most heart-wrenching cases a family in our area lost a son

from a multiple repeat offender. even more so then and now, some the problems you just talk about aren't the numbers, but people out on the road multiple times committing drunk driving. that is something we have to crack down. i agree with the other two attorney general candidates, first time offenders, criminalizing that isn't the answer. it is going after the repeat offenders. tough ening up repeat offenders. i worked with jim ott i think this is issues republicans and democrats can come together to work on. i will work with the law enforcement and i'm pleased to have the endorsement of the men and women of police department here in milwaukee, milwaukee police supervisors and wisconsin troopers association. who are people out on the roads we have to crack down on people repeating this criminal activity over and over again. >> miss burke, your rebuttal. >> governor walker had four years in order to address this you would avoid a lot of repeat

offenders if you had tougher consequences on the first offense. people need to know right off the start before they get into habits of drinking and driving there are real consequences that come from that. >> moderator: governor? >> i was at our annual governors conference on traffic safety which involve this issue and many others. with good work with first-responders and department of transportation and others across the state we've seen traffic accidents go down and some safety factors improve over last year or some we want to continue to build off of that. the way to do that is crack down in this case on repeat offenders. show the consequences are serious but particularly for those who continue to go back on the road even after they have been pulled over and ultimately brought to justice. >> tonight at 9:30, baseball and american society. columnist george will and supreme court justice samuel alito, both avid baseball fans. they're among those taking part in that discussion. the world series of course

begins tomorrow night in san francisco between the royals and san francisco giants. first ladies have also been baseball fans. here grace coolidge shares her love of the game. it is from our first lady series. >> one of the letters she wrote to her friend dating from october 22nd, 1946. yes, i was much excited over baseball and terribly disappointed that the red sox lost the world series. i had a grand time at the games in boston and met many of my old baseball friends as well as some of the players. she was a lifelong baseball fan, starting out as early as an undergraduate at the university of vermont where she was the official score keeper for the uvm baseball team. and this continued on of course, being in massachusetts, and vermont, they were big boston red sox fans. when they went to washington, they had a little allegiance to the local team down there, the washington senators.

in our collection we have a number of the season passes that she was given bit american league. usually they were issued to her either in a wallet or pocketbook. some of the pocketbooks are wonderful art decco in style. of course he was given the 14-carat gold season passes. we have them as part of the display as well. and we acknowledged the president's interest in the sport but, focused most especially on grace's passion for it. one of the items in the exhibit is the certificate that she was given by the boston red sox and the washington nationals as they were called in 1955, designated her, first lady of the land, first lady of baseball. another object in the exhibit is a very fine baseball that was given to john coolidge, the son of grace and calvin and it is signed by both babe ruth and lou gehrig. >> our look at influence of

baseball in american society also features sportswriter christine brennan and "new york times" columnist david brooks. it took place in may at the university club of washington. you can see that entire program tonight starting at 9:30. last month, harris-stowe state university hosted a media event after the august shooting of teenager michael brown. photo journalists and town official blogging on the protests talking about whether the media fueled ensuing protest, effects of local and national media on a local story and media diversity. this is just under an hour. >> evening. unfortunately in a horned nation we use feedback. we need feedback. so good evening. >> good evening. >> my name is dr. duane warm mack. i serve as present of harris-stowe state university. on behalf of faculty, staff and

our students we would like to welcome you here today. we're excited to partner with this program tonight. this is our fifth town hall meeting we sponsored here at harris-stowe regarding the aftermath of ferguson. i will be attending a meeting in the morning with the regional chamber in emerson to talk about systemic, community, socioeconomic things that need to happen to insure we restore this community. so we're excited to partner tonight and we're looking forward to the fruitful dialogue that will go on, that will continue to have systemic impact on our community. thank you again for being here. we look forward to a great program. [applause] >> good even being, everyone. my name is aja williams. i'm the president of the greater st. louis association of black journalists which is one of the partners for tonight's town hall meeting. i'm here to actually be very brief and introduce you to our moderator and get us underway. tonight our moderator is mr. bob

butler, who is the president of the national association of black journalists. he flew all the way here for this event from california. he has been in the industry for more than 20 years where he currently works as a reporter for kcbs in san francisco. bob was truly instrumental during ferguson coverage as far as being able to help journalists on the ground when journalists were arrested such as wes lowery, not only na b.j. member but he was the award winner for emerging journalist of the year at our recent convention. he immediately released a statement on behalf of our organization and helped in anyway he could in making sure journalists on the ground were having their rights protected essentially. so i'm pleased and welcome him and hope you welcome him as our moderator tore for the evening. mr. bob butler. [applause]

>> thank you, aja. we're back to the kicking it. that's i didn't hear my name. good evening and welcome to this town hall meeting. it is on how the media covered ferguson. it is following the shootth death of michael brown. this is being brought to you by greater st. louis association of black journalists and president aja williams and national association of national black journalists. i'm bob butler, reporter at kcbs in san francisco and president of. nabj. we have a twitter, hashtag. hashtag ferguson mead yay. you can submit the questions. they will collect the questions on the screen. we also have a card if you have a question. at the end i have a couple of questions from the panel. we'll go to your card.

we have want a mic for people to get up and ask questions but we don't have that, some i want to introduce our panel to your far left is mariah stewart. covered the st. louis metro area and is ferguson fellow for "huffington post." graduated from lynwood university in may and started covering ferguson like right after her graduation. sort of covering the michael brown shooting. that is mariah stewart. [applause] next to mariah is christopher ave. national and political editor for the "st. louis post dispatch" and ftla.com. he is instrumental directing coverage of the government and political ramifications of the shooting and resulting protests in ferguson. christopher ave. [applause] >> next to chris is bill fry vogel. director of journalism at the

university of illinois at carbon dale. are those the salukis? got that right. he has award-winning career covering national politics and supreme court. publisher of the gateway journalism review. bill freivogel. patricia bynes. ferguson township. she watched some of the looting that took place. she appeared on national media outlets to discuss among other things clashes between the police and the community. patricia bynes. [applause] bradley rayford is freelance photographerrer and student at st. louis community college. he is graduate of greater st. louis association of black journalists for high school students, a journalism workshop. some of his photos were shown on national television. mr. bradley rayford. [applause] some of you all may know britney

noble jones, kmov 4. was one of the first reporters. she drove the media coverage not just locally but nationally. how many followers did you have on twitter at that time? >> yes. first i started with 1500. then -- >> how many do you have? >> 13,000. >> 13,000. twitter does work. i've known britney since a student member of nabj. a student reporter in our convention in 2010 in san diego. i must point out she covered verge son while planning her wedding which took place how many weeks ago? >> like two. 30th. >> two weeks ago. the wedding, by the way i was not invited to? >> you didn't get one? >> i did not get an invitation. anyways this was your panel. we want to talk about the media coverage. we've had a lot of town hall meetings here talking about the police. talking about the city leaders. talking about voting, not voting. what about the media.

how did the media cover this? let me ask you each, from your perspective, did the media get it right? mariah, i will start with you. >> i feel like the media did do, they did the best that we could in the situation. or i know i did and a lot of the people up here did. >> you were out there. i mean, probably seen some of the coverage of ferguson when you, did you see any of coverage? you were out there for a long time, weren't you? >> yes, i did see the coverage. the only thing i would have to say negative about media coverage is the actual attitudes towards public officials when it came to press conferences, press meetings. some of the reporters, cameramen, were nasty but, as far as overall coverage, i think we did a decent job. >> chris, you actually directed

some of the coverage, not so much the coverage of ferguson during the protests but the results and the ramifications of. that what are you seeing? >> well, i think in many ways the jury is still out on how the media, how we covered ferguson because when we say ferguson, of course it is really shorthand for a wide and ever-growing range of issues. this wasn't just about an incident between an officer and an 18-year-old. this was certainly it was a fatal shooting. it was an incident of, may have been a crime. it was something, then of course it was a reaction to that but then what happened in my view opened up all kind of deeper issues of the sort of division in our society. it is fascinating the ways, the reactions varied depending upon one's background. i think it really revealed some

real problems that we have in everything from the use of, proper use of force among police to the proper way to handle when there is a protest, which is the constitutionally protected right by the way to assemble and petition and protest. all the way to the disparity in sentencing. all the way to fines, criminal fines for small, small legal matters. this crazy system, you may not be familiar with here, there is something like 80 different court systems in st. louis county. it is crazy. we have the most crazy, unfocused, balkanized system of government that i have ever seen and i've worked in five or six states. so, wide variety of issues. we're doing our best to get to all of them. it is not easy but it is certainly important. >> bill, you actually rate the media. you do a journalism review.

what have you written about ferguson, the coverage of ferguson? >> i will get to that in a second but i just wanted to sort of start with, whatever we think about how well the media has done, it's clear that most people in st. louis think the media has done badly. there was a, there was a survey the other day that showed about 70% of the people thought that the media had made things worse rather than better. now i wouldn't, i wouldn't necessarily agree with the majority sentiment there. i think that some of the things that christopher just finished pointing to were, ways in which the media has really helped. this is opposed to local and national media, really helped focus on important issues, you know, balkanized courts, the fines, and with the arrest warrants. police use of, police profiling of african-american citizens,

and the need for cameras on, on officers, video cameras on officers for accountability. so, and the broader, really what i think is the most important issue which is, the conversation about race which this town never has quite actually had i think. so those are ways in which i think the media has done well. to answer your question what have we written about in the journalism review, some. things, i said in some of our stories what a great job the post-dispatch photographers have done. i think they have been amazing images and they have been very brave in the way they have have covered, have covered the story. i've been pretty critical of some of the parachute journalism. there was a new republic reporter first went into a barbecue place in olivet, interviewed five white folks who had very negative feelings about

african-americans. and that was, that was her story about what was going on in st. louis. i think "new york times," they had a story first, sectioned of the coverage, i think it was called circle of rage, about, that st. louis was encircled by these segregated suburbs and, it didn't just quite get things, they didn't really quite get things right. for example, they portrayed ferguson as having, as a segregated community and, person i know out of stanford, actually pulled out the census statistics that showed, ferguson is one of the most integrated communities, if you look at the entire bondaries of the city. i thought some of, citizen journalists did a really good job. i don't even know if that is quite the right word. patricia would be one of them. antonio french had some very,

very excellent posts i thought. of course they all had a point of view but, but they were reporting, reporting from the scene. i quoted a, in the journalism review i quote ad young journalist named ryan, i think he was working for al jazeera america, he was very put off by the way journalists tended to make the story about themselves. cameramen making jokes about where michael brown had died. cameramen who were yelling at people in the community to get out of the way. chris hayes being out of the way of their shots. chris hayes, msnbc guy out there with the people but actually behind a wrought iron fence. i thought that he had quite a number of good points there. >> i'm going to go to bradley and britney, these are the journalists. you will tell us what really

happened out there. bradley? >> great. i'm lead experienced guy out there. -- least experienced. >> don't say that. >> okay. it was, not funny to see but interesting to see a national, international story unfold before me. i have never seen so many journalists in one spot at one time. so what kind of bothered me a little bit because we were becoming a story and, the, the actual story was being overshadowed out the police were arresting journalists. how the journalists were being in the way sometimes. so, i think that it is important from now on that we learn from the situation and to learn to report the story and not become the story. i think, like bill said, there is a mixed review from citizens in the area about how the media covered it locally. i do believe that the best was

done with the resources they had. in any situation things can be done differently but, the story was unfolding so, at such a high pace it was kind of hard to please everybody with the story. however, like i say, things can be done differently, so i hope this would be a learning situation, not only for the police but also from the folks in journalist industry, to learn from these things and do things differently next time. >> about theey you were out there early and boughten on the scene. >> this is funny under bradley and i sit next to each other we were talking with my photographer taking my engagement picktures and literally in the middle of the session, what is this going on. my fiance says, you are not

leaving? i said i think i am. we headed out there. bradley later weren't out there taking his own pictures. that is now we started covering the story. i think you hit it trait on. i'm not one to take side but i know it was tough for me not to stay out of it, i'm a reporter. i'm emotionally removed from situations, any situations i'm covering on a day-to-day basis really, but a lot of people thought that i was trying to become the story, just because i was putting out so many instagram posts because i was out there in the mix. so, kmov, we're very brand-driven station. we're always watching out for you. we're holding people accountable. you know, digging for answers. we're an emotional brand. and when you put that brand into an extremely emotional, what became a very national case, now it is almost like i'm the emotional reporter. so you just have to take a look

and how, i had to take a look at myself and how i was covering it and how i need to step back as far as our brand and, just, you know, i absolutely was reporting the facts. i know how some people said, reporters are trying to become the story. and don't forget, there were a lot of reporters out there that were trying to, this was their name to fame, if you will. a huge national story. not just reporters. like i've seen vendors out on the street selling t-shirts. trying to make a profit off of this too. so it is just how did the media cover this? did we get it right? i think that is such a very broad question. there are some media outlets. i had never seen anything like it as we, bradley. for both of us, these are the biggest story we ever covered in our career. i can't speak how everybody else covered it. i can only look at myself, how i covered it. what i think i did good and

think i can improve on and go there. >> so, pat, patricia you're out there in the middle of it. doing a double duty not just as public official. also you were blogging what you were seeing, the violence and all that. so when you look at the national coverage, and there is always a difference between national coverage and local coverage. >> right. >> this happened for anybody that is reporter, you know that you'll be in town and then national media comes in and things change. so, from your perspective how did things go? >> well, i have always kind of been, i guess a news connoisseur. i'm always reading, keeping up on what's going on and i tweet. i'm patricia licious and that is how i found out about the shooting. because i get such a diverse view of the news, i read the local, i read the national. i look at international things, to me it is cute to see you guys so hard on yourselves but there

are so many types of ferguson stories that were covered and some of them were done well and some of them were not. i definitely want to give kudos to the local coverage that was here because i know no just like for myself, i had to school a lost national media on how st. louis worked. they did not know that. and i know that this was a crisis situation and people just jumped but i would like, i would certainly hope that in the future in a crisis situation before national media jumps in they have to do some home work. that way they can can start getting story right. initially i saw posts, no, no, you don't understand. we had to explain government, municipalities. they got ferguson police and st. louis county police mixed up. and if they, and, it is a huge difference in what was going on and it changed the entire tone of the story. and as ferguson, and it is

continuing to unfold. the coverage is not over. and as it continues to go on you can tell which news organizations and which reporters were trying to get it right. who was actually doing the homework. who was asking the hard questions and doing the deep digging. and, as far as the reporters many about the story, i think that, i don't, there may have been some people trying to become the story but i think an important part of the ferguson story is the violations of first amendment rights that, if they don't care about how they treat the media, imagine what they're doing to the people that actually live here? so what is considered being in the way to the police versus to the media, versus to the people? i think that was important. yeah, please lock up some national reporters and have them talk about that experience just so that they can get a taste what dealing with st. louis county and ferguson police is

really like. so i don't, there may have been some people who injected themselves but what has come out is this real eye-opening experience, whoa!, what is going on down there? if they are doing it to us, what is it like to live there? once they really started trying to dig, to see what is all this anger all about? and it became not just the shooting of a young man and leaving his body out in the middle of the street four 1/2 hours. it became understanding of police harrassment, ticketing. where does the ticketing come from? the courts. just everything kept rolling out. all of st. louis's dirty laundry came it for everyone to see. none of this was new to anybody who lived here. >> so from what i hear you say is that we should not have been surprised reporters were arrested is that what i hear you saying? >> that is exactly what i'm saying. >> is that common of the police, i don't want to say bad but

it's, i have covered protests for yea. i've never been arrested. never even been threatened with arrest. one time a police officer came at me but saw my microphone with the mic bug on and i think that is what saved me. when i heard about reporters being arrested i'm like, what? what for? and, so you're saying it is not a surprise? >> no. they're quite brazen and don't appreciate any pushback to their authority. and that is certainly how we feel, you know in the streets, so you guys get a dose of what it is like. and see for yourself. >> great any. >> i was very surprised to hear about reporters getting arrested. i was very surprised t took me back like what? what happened to you? it took me back. >> i think just like with, i think the original story uncovered a lot of more

deepstories. -- deeper stories. not only was the unarmed kid shot by a police officer. now you have the response of police towards citizens that pays their salaries. now you have the response towards the police, towards media members that cover the stories. now you have the, now you uncovered the racial wound there st. louis has for this story has uncovered so many more stories beyond what happened to mike brown but now we have other stuff to deal with because of mike brown. >> do you think, i've done this before. i mentioned this before but the media sometimes drives the protests? they might be sitting around not doing anything but a tv camera shows up and microphone shows up and people start going crazy. do you think the media contributed to that in ferguson? anybody? >> well i think the night that thomas the tank engine showed up in the middle of it selling something and, local well-known,

homeless advocate and minister showed up, to raise money and, i'm not sure of the t-shirts that were being sold, yeah, absolutely. there were a lot of people trying to manipulate the media and you know we in the media, we can all agree about this, we hate being part of the story. that is not why we're there. that is not the goal and, even the thought that we would be part of a story is just, makes us extremely uncomfortable but the phenomenon that you described undoubtedly accurate and will continue to be accurate. people see the notebook, camera or microphone and act in a way they otherwise would not have acted and that sun fortunate. >> agree with christopher in general reporters don't like to be the center of the story, but i have to admit i have the same reaction i think bradley was

describing earlier, sometimes the reporters were just, were really happy to make themselves part of the story. i was a little bit, i mean, the day that those two guys were arrested in, in mcdonald's i had really divided feelings. i felt as though the police in general at that point, way they were handling the protests and way they were handling reporters were violating the first amendment. on the other hand i knelt as those, when i looked at "huffington post" and world war iii headlines, about these two guys getting arrested after they basically refused to vacate mcdonald's on police orders. suddenly the story was about those guys and i was not, i found that sort of offensive to be honest with you. and i was, you know, seemed like it was at that point the story took off. the story should have taken off for what it said about race in st. louis. not what it said about a couple of reporters who got themselves

arrested in mcdonald's. >> any questions from the audience? you can tweet to, at ferguson media. we'll pick up questions on the screen. i think there are cards. do we have the cards for questions? say it again? >> pound. >> pound, yeah. >> showed my age, didn't i. we have a question? so, we talked about national versus local media. how much do you think this would have been, how much less of a, of violence do you think it would have been had it just been the local media? do you i think the national media drives this? when the big boys show up as they say, now you have the big trucks, the big cameras. you have all the fixers and everything? pat? >> it was local at first. everything was local and what drove, what got the national

media's attention was social media. >> right. >> that's where your stories are. that is where it came from. so to see the tweets and pictures and videos that were out there, you can't help but be like, oh, my gosh, what is going on? so i will tell you, the local media was out there. they came out there. they were live streaming whats going on at night. the reporters and the photo journalists, we were all out there running together and, it was amazing but, the local was there first. and then, it was the response from social media. that is what got it -- >> let's not forget that what tipped me off the story because i wasn't at work when i found out about, yeah, the death of mike brown, it was social media. it was not reporters, it was people that had seen this, these images, all over instagram many

and twitter and they're asking what the story was. it was not just the local media that starred this whole thing. it is really how social media really took a part in the story. . . >> you could not avoid seeing those pictures. the fact that those pictures were out there kind of made the story bigger than what it is now. >> and then even just the video, i mean, even while reporters possibly were sleeping, if we

did sleep, there were other people that just lived in the neighborhood that were out that are still on instagram, still on facebook, and they're still capturing these moments that we missed while we were sleeping. i mean, local media did their best to try to cover the story, but i think people in that area in st. louis really quickly picked up on it and just shared it with the world. >> chris, have we seen a shift? because remember there used to be a time when there was a big story, it would be on page one on -- >> the next day. >> the next day. >> yeah. >> and that's why i like working in radio, because i can go on the air, like, immediately with my telephone. >> yep. >> but are we seeing a shift? because no longer do you have to wait until the next day. in fact, how much pressure is it to get it on the web as soon as possible? >> oh, intense pressure for all of us, no matter what platform a journalist works in. the deadline, you're right.

when i'm old enough to where when i started in this business, in my grandpa voice, when i started in this business, you know, you had a deadline, it was probably around 5 or 6:00, you could take your time, get everything right, have it edited, rewrite it, submit it again, and then you go home, and the story till doesn't get out -- still doesn't get out until 6:00 the next morning. those days are long gone. deadlines all the time. and so here's the point i want to make about this, patricia's factually right, and she was one of those people, by the way, getting the word out by social media. it exploded around the world, literally. that's not a metaphor, that's actual truth. antonio french, patricia and others were there and tweeting, taking photographs and sending them out. that's a huge element. so it's much different than it was. however, if you just got your news -- and i use the term

loosely -- about ferguson from social media, you would have quickly seen things that were just not right. in fact, not only were they not right, they were dead wrong. there was a rumor that was spread like wildfire, again, around the world literally, that the police officer in question had suffered a fractured eye socket. you probably saw that, right? >> the picture, right. >> oh, yeah. and someone mocked up a falk picture and put it on twitter. well, it's on twitter, my gosh, i better share it. okay. we never ran a word of that until we could track it down, and we found out it was false. and then we were very happy that we hadn't done that. and what's the difference there? the difference there is that, you know, journalists -- and i know there are some nabj members here, and god bless you, young journalists, young smart, aspiring journalists. you have to save us here. our society here from this trend of just spreading rumor and spreading opinion about things

and not getting to the fact. because traditional journalism as wizened and wrinkled as it seems to be, traditional journalism still holds that the most important thing's the truth. the truth. and so you don't report things that you just see on twitter. you go and check it out and you figure it out. and you do it fast. because you're still competing against all oaz folks -- those folks. so it's very fascinating how this has developed. >> okay. got a question. do you believe that the citizen response to the media presence was exceptional? and if so, what might that say about the desperation of the citizens to, quote, have eyes on a dire situation? who wants to take that one? >> um, i guess the citizen

journalists, are they journalists? i don't think that a citizen journalist is going to hook at a story or -- to look at a story or something happening the same way that i would because i'm in search of the truth, i'm impartial, i'm taking my feelings and my emotions out of this, and i'm just trying to find out what happened and how to get those answers. and i don't think that -- i think citizen journalists, they can insert their own emotions in it, and so that just makes my job and their job very, very different, to me. >> and that was the next question, what makes somebody a journalist? because we hear the term citizen journalist all the time. those of us who went to school for journalism, and there's, you know, i know that some of the purists will say if you didn't go to school for it, you're not a journalist. i don't believe in that. bradley? >> i believe what makes you a journalist, the fact that you want to tell the real story from a perspective, either your

perspective or a perspective of others makes you kind of a journalist. that's a good question. and that's a very good question, what makes you a journalist. i believe the fact that you want to tell the story from a perspective other than your own gets you to be one. >> bill, i'm going to throw this to you. >> yeah. i think i agree. and, you know, we don't want to be so exclusive about who gets to qualify for the, you know, the club of being journalists that we turn up our nose at citizen journalists who, i mean, maybe they're, maybe they are recording events from a particular point of view, but still, i mean, if you were trying to figure out what was going on on the streets of ferguson the nights of all the protests and the riots and the looting, you -- the tweets of

antonio french and of patricia were really crucial to figuring that out. i mean, we had at public radio, we had kelsey proud and she was backed up by erica smith who were, you know, putting together all of the most responsible tweets they found from, you know, from patricia, from antonio french, from post-dispatch photographers and reporters who were on the scene, from st. louis public radio reporters on the scene, and really to get the whole picture it required the eyewitness accounts of all of those folks. so, you know, i'm -- i know patricia's, i asked patricia before we came out here, are you a citizen journalist or are you a politician? she sort of said, both. i sort of go with her on that. >> i would add i think before the days of twitter and facebook

people who would be considered citizen journalists would be who the appropriators would be coming to, the -- reporters would be coming to, the journalists would be coming to for the story. and i think citizen journalism kind of evolved from the need of another voice, a different perspective. i think maybe what's not told sometimes is reporters, in order to do their job, they have to develop some level of relationship with the persons or the entities in that they're reporting on x. through having to develop that relationship, sometimes everything isn't told. so there are other people, hey, i don't have anything to lose, i'm going to put it out there, and what are you going to do? it's a different kind of reporting because sometimes everything can't be told at the time that it happens with journalists because of those relationships. so it's a kind of a balance that needs to be struck, but sometimes to hear a different

perspective or see a different perspective, i think that's important in giving people a full picture of the story. it's a voice that they wouldn't have before. >> another question, after the night of unrest, i would open the post-dispatch the next day and read the accounts. often the chronology in the story was based on the statement, quote, police said. many times the series of events were just not factual. for instance, statements about when police moved in and when they fired tear gas was used. having been there, the repetition of these falsehoods was disconcerting. didn't the police department have somebody on the scenes those late nights, and why were the police statements taken at face value? >> well, since that was opposed to statute, i can try to address that. it's a good question. why do we just put what the police say in the paper? and i've heard that question over the years many times, and it's an excellent question. i would answer it this way: the

police -- you need to ask the police what they did and what they encountered, but you don't need to take it at face value. you don't, you don't just believe it. that's like asking a politician, no offense, patricia, asking a politician and getting the answer and just being a stenographer and putting it down and then walking away. you can't do that. however, when this is an event -- when there's an event that happened that involved the police and the reporter was not there, the reporter must check with police, or the reporter's not doing his or her job because the police were there. that doesn't mean the police were going to tell the truth, and we know that over the years police lie in certain crucial situations. we also know that police sometimes don't lie, but they don't exactly get the truth. and this goes back to what patricia was talking about, and i totally agree. you know, you have to go beyond the official statement. you, if you're a journalist, you

go and and you find the person that actually was standing out there. you look on twitter, and you see the photos that people are actually taking and putting up. you know, that's a piece of evidence. that's a testimony. that is an eyewitness account. and then i think the ethical journalist weighs all of these factors as best they can in the time allotted. and that's a key phrase, in the time allotted. you know, we may not have had time to check out every detail of the police account of what happened over an eight-hour period or ten-hour period or twelve-hour period. you know, we do the best we can. there's an a old saying -- again, i'm dating myself here -- journalism is the first rough draft of history. and that's exactly right because it is not what's in the paper tomorrow or what's on our web site right now or what's on stl public radio or the st. louis american or any number of other web sites and news organizations is not necessarily the total story. in fact, it probably isn't the

total story. but it's the best that we can do for now. >> another question. there are a variety of examples of how the media portrays white suspects and killers better than black victims moving forward, if any, what steps or solution is the media taking to stop these types of portrayals? how are we combating stereotypes in the media? >> well, um, that's a question that i think all of us battle. for myself, for myself trying to come into the industry being a student, i think you notice that. i do believe it's an oversight most of time. you often -- i think they ofte e used to describe certain people in certain situations. but i do believe that it's up to the people that are watching and

viewing those particular avenues of media be it online, broadcast or even on social media. it's important for those views to be spoken up because oftentimes media only covers stories or produce material that people -- that they feel people want to see. and so if you feel, if i'm the editor of a paper or if i'm the news director of a tv station, i want to try to feel the vibe of my community. and if the vibe of my community says, you know what? they're saying black people are, they're giving adjectives or words to describe plaque people that are -- black people that are way worse than white suspects, well, maybe we should start thinking of redoing that kind of approach. those people that are speaking up are the ones that are viewing the material, so -- >> yeah. i think that viewers should remember that you do have a voice. and during the ferguson

coverage, we were literally, like, nonstop, 24 hours a day ferguson, ferguson, ferguson until many of our viewers pointed out, like, what else is going on in st. louis? i know there's other news. and we said, okay, let's look at our newscast, and let's see how we can, you know, make this a little bit more neutral. and so that was because viewers called in or they e-mailed in, and they shared their opinion with us. and we don't know unless you say something. >> this is a question along the same lines. why, given that other black men have been unjustly murdered -- trayvon martin, oscar grant -- has the death of michael brown been the flashpoint for national concern and media coverage at this level? um, i think given that i'm also local, i'm also national, i can tell you that when you have the pictures and you have the community out there taking the photos, putting them on social media and it becomes a story, i

mean, the first word that we got is a young guy was trying to give his hands up saying don't shoot was shot and killed, you know, shot six times. that becomes the kind of a story that you say, wait a minute. it wasn't like, you know -- he was unarmed, he wasn't even running away or was -- that's one of the things that makes it a national story, in my view. >> yeah. i was going to say i think it's partly the fact that it's, it was the latest in a series of all these, you know, other events. it was also the four and a half hours that he was allowed to lie out on that street which wasn't required by any kind of police protocol.jf

>> always been a hostile environment between police and citizens. everyone has a story. you go to these town hall meetings, everyone has a story to tell, or they know somebody who's been directly affected by

the police relationship here. so everyone was emotionally attached when it finally happened here. and it has happened here before, it was just, i guess, people were bottled up, and this broke it loose. like bradley said, the reaction that this community had, that's what put this story over the top. because it has been said before by some of the protesters i talked to, they said, you know, if trayvon martin was to happen here, we know manager was going to happen -- something was going to happen x that's what happened. >> another question. why has the media not identified the this excessive police brutality as a product of our society which has been progressively declining internally due to failing systems? um, we know there's trouble with police all cross the country -- all across the country. we've seen it. i don't -- i'm not sure the if it's because of declining systems -- >> may i speak on somethingsome.

>> please.mq$

. >> without those voices this the main seem media, being in the editorial rooms, you know, writing a lot of the op-eds, you're not necessarily going to hear about excessive force and police brutality. but in our neighborhoods and our experiences, you will. >> brittany. >> so i was a reporter that would always, um, in the beginning leave race outside, say police are looking for a man, manager along those lines -- something along those lines. and so when i'm making friends with my police contacts and sitting down and talking to them and being real, one of the officers said, brittany, if i tell you we're looking for the this black guy and he's on -- i'm giving you a description of

the person i'm looking for, i want you to put that out. i don't want you to sugar coat it. and this was an african-american officer that was talking to me. he said, i don't want you to sugar coat it, this is what i'm looking for. and so we're going to be on the same team, we need to work together. so i understand where you're coming from, but i just think there is another side to that story. >> i think it's also important to note that often people criticize things with just the idea is just to criticize it when no one hopes to do anything about it. i'm personally -- if i want to talk about something, i want to make sure that i have a plan to change what i'm talking about. so a lot of times there are often not enough african-americans applying for police jobs, there are not enough african-americans applying for elected positions, there are not enough african-americans definitely applying for media jobs. and so if we want to, if the

voice of the african-american community wants to be heard, it has to be african-americans are willing to stand up and be that voice. >> so nabj is very big on diversity in the media not just on the air, especially behind the scenes. because your media coverage is not determined by the reporters out in the field, the news agenda is set by the news managers. and i can tell you that in st. louis the last time we had a report on media diversity in the tv newsrooms, it was almost none. in fact, i think of one person who was an executive producer who was at 2 and is now, i think, at 4? >> she's gone. >> she's gone. so maybe there's nobody. but the reality is you said more people have to apply for jobs, that's one of nabj's major missions, is to be a clearinghouse for jobs and promotions for our members, for

african-american, black journalists. if you look at the tv stations we've looked at, just looking at tv, the last report we did we looked at almost 300 tv stations, and 12% of managers were people of color, african-american, latino, hispanic and native american. 12%. now, as i've said very many times, i've got no problem if you have no diversity in your newsroom in a place where there's no diversity in town. the you have a 92% white population, i'm not going to say anything about it. i've got a big problem if you have 40% diversity in your market and there's nobody of color on your management staff. so that's an issue we have been addressing, you know, forever. one of my major jobs is to go out and talk to people, news managers, about hiring more of our people especially in management positions because that's where the power is. i have a lot of questions coming in, and thank you very much. i think this is one story -- two stories have emerged after the shooting and its aftermath. one, the officer who we now know

to be darren wilson had his skull crushed. this came from fox. now we've been told by reliable students that six young black men were killed in the 18 hours after michael brown was killed, and these stories were not reported. where did these stories come from? is the story concerning six killings an urban myth? did michael brown actually suffer a crushed orbital eye socket? i heard that, too, and i don't know the answer to that. >> no. i think that's referring to the officer. >> i'm sorry, i'm sorry, darren wilson, correct. >> that was the false, the false yet often-repeated rumor, that the officer had suffered a broken eye socket or orbital socket in some kind of confrontation with michael brown. that was flying around social media, and it was not true. and somebody even went to the extent of -- and i don't know

who -- but somebody went to the extent of geing an x-ray of minute else, somebody else's eye socket and putting it out there and saying that this was the officer's. so that was completely wrong. six black men killed in the 18 hours, i haven't heard that. i don't believe that's true. i though we write about every homicide that occurs within the st. louis area. sometimes we don't write a lot about every one, but we write about every one, we keep account of it. it's definitely part of news report. i'm sure that kmlb and others do the same kind of thing. >> do you remember right after the, there's a lot of things that social media, somebody else had been shot and killed. and so i remember, do you remember? every time we got a sweep, we would go there, another tweet,

so it might have been just been rumors circulating again on social media. >> it just says six black men, doesn't say where, that could well have been true. this wrings up another issue. the officer, somebody put his address and his house on the air. right or wrong b? >> wrong. >> ksdk did, and they apologized. and they were, i mean, they put -- i think they put the officer potentially in danger. that's my opinion. >>ed had they, had they shown te house and not shown, not put it out, would that the not have been appropriate? >> no, i don't think any kind of visual of darren wilson's house or car, any kind of things because that's, that's making -- i love to, i love to get justice for things, and what justice

means to me is you do what's just. and so that's not doing what's just by showing his personal house or belongings before the process is done. so i believe that's wrong. >> i'm not putting down the fact that we know his name, but i've covered lots of officer-involved shootings, and i don't know any of the officers that, you know, took part in a shooting or fired the shots, because that information's urinally never release -- usually never released. i remember when we knew the name was coming out, i remember there was discussion in our newsroom, like, are we even going to report this? ..

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>> everyone in the news women -- newsroom and we are still the largest in the st. louis region and almost everyone has been involved in reporting what happened to michael brown, what were the consequences, what happened afterwards, all of the various trails of the story that we have been talking about, and one of those pursuits was

sparked by a false rumor and one of those was that michael brown, at the time of his death, faced a homicide charge. i think it was second-degree murder. that was false. we never reported that. but in the case of figure out michael brown was 18 years old when killed. when you are younger than 18 and charged with a crime it is in the juvenile system and it isn't open. that is when a person is alive. when they are no longer alive the records are released so as part of had journalistic efforts we wanted to see everything that existed on michael brown and we were told we cannot do that.

as we often do, and do it every week or month at least, we filled a lawsuit saying no actually the law says you need to release this. this is public information. just like the name of the officer is public information and should be released and i will tell you a story about the name of the officer in a minute. we were not trying to distort the storstory. that is not our business. we try to find the truth. i will tell you the story about the office. we were talking about how it took a couple days to release the name of the officer. after they released the name of the officer we found inmysteriously his name -- mysteriously -- his name disappeared from the internet.

it was like he never existed. that is interesting. how did that happen? i don't know for a fact but i suspect someone went in there and swept out the information from various websites. you can employ a company to do that. we suspect that is what happened i don't think that is right. if that is what happened and we find out that is what happened we will report it. >> what i suspect is doing a pra for all expenditures for the company. i would suggest a public access record request for all of the spending done by the month of august for ferguson. >> that is a possibility. watching keith jackson on sunday and on the following days after, and watching the whole ferguson

event, i believe as with any situation from a pr perspective, or having a knowledge of pr, you do want to cover yourself. so to say that ferguson didn't do a cover-up to a certain extent, for them to deny that, any situation you will have to make yourself look better. so ferguson, it is fact, they cannot deny that. any kind of person that does a job right in pr would try to make ferguson look better or try to recover ferguson from the situation so i do believe there is definitely a cover-up that is going to be exposed. >> on the lawsuit regarding the juvenile record, is there any record? >> at this point they have not released -- we are not sure there is a juvenile record, let's be clear. the may be nothing on the

record. but the judge has said we are not releasing the record but we will tell you he did not face a major felony and in fact he didn't face as an adult or jive juvenile, the most serious felony he wasn't charge would. lesser crimes he may have been charged for. >> have you done the same thing about the officer? i have not seen anyone about him and other charges or allegation rather it is this department or another. >> the one thing that is public is we won an award. we have a team of investigative reporter and among their chief task is to figure out the story on the officer and they have been working it and will continue to work it.

the center piece story last sunday was the story of how it was that michael brown's body laid there for like four hours and 15 minutes according to the official records. that was the product of this investigation team. we had a lengthy story that was talking about witnesses that actually saw the shooting and how they described it. we worked on getting the witnesses for days and weeks and convincing them to talk to us. these efforts are on going and we are not stopping >> i just saw a question on twitter. it has to do with talking about michael brown being accused of strong armed robbery -- why was it labelled strong armed robbery in the media? >> it may have been labelled as much because it looked from the video as though he was pushing

the store owner. >> that is a term the police use. >> i think it means the weapon wasn't used, right? that is the difference between strong armed and armed. strong arm means it is just your physical presence and there wasn't a gun or knife. >> trisha, you were going to say something >> i wanted to say chris i was mad at you for going after the juvenile record of a dead guy. it came off -- i am not saying you, but the act came up like they were trying to dig up dirt. we know they cleaned the officer's record and mike brown and his family didn't have that opportunity. but to try to get a record that is closed just because he is dead to try to make him look

like -- it didn't sit well and came off bad. i don't know in the future if that can be fixed with the legislature. what you did as a kid should be closed. so the idea you are dead and we will open up your records, if there are any, we need to look at that because it comes off as you are trying to smear the victim. and on the strong armed robbery, using that term strong-arm robbery, that might be the legal definition but a lot of us saw aggressive shop lifting. it seems like there was a taint to try to make what happened in that store more than what it was and it had nothing to do with my he was shot so it is another

smear job. why that got released even? that outraged the community at a tremendous level and that was irresponsible and that is when people called for chief jackson's job. that is what did that. >> well the fact the term strong armed robbery was used, it was used by the police first. so it would be unethical were the folks in the journalism department to change up the terms used by the police department. that means they are trig to persade and your job is report fact and if there is a potential police report saying there was a strong armed robbery that thatnd you have to report that. -- that happened -- and it is up to the people watching that. you saw the video. just because you see the words

strong armed robbery doesn't mean you have to see it as such. you have an option to have your own opinion about it. but as far as people in the media, they have to do what the training says and that is to be non-partial so if the police are releasing that we have to report that. >> i am going to border line play devils advocate. we are in search of truth. people are asking us what is happening, what is going on, what don't we know, and all we know is what the police can con firm. what happened? what led up to the altercaation in the car? and we were outside in the park and we were like why are you just telling us this and the chief says well, you guys asked for it. we had to release it.

you all kept asking for it. i will not say that is the right decision. but my job is to find the answers and what led up to the death and what police knew that we didn't know. was everybody happy with what they found out? no, but i am just playing devils advocate. >> i thought the way the police handled the release of the video was poor. they were trying to play defense for office wilson and just trying trying to drag brown -- make him look bad, you know? on the other hand, i think it is potentially relevant to what happened. it sort of depends on whether or not officer wilson knew about the robbery at the time that he

and brown had their fight. i have heard it said one way and then the other way. if he did, it goes to the state of mind, potentially to wilson's state of mind and to brown's possible state of mind so it could be relevant and could end up in a court trial. >> the chief said that he didn't know about the robbery before. i remember asking him that. >> my recollection is the chief said at the time that wilson first told brown to get out of the street that he didn't know about it. but by the time he had heard about it by the time the fight occurred and this was the reason wilson backed up and further engaged him. i don't know if this is true, i

am just saying there are different accounts. and if the account of him knowing about it is true, it is putting relevant information out there. >> i think it is important to note the officer encountered michael brown of the video but then it is said he didn't know about it. so you have to be not trusting of stuff and do your research beyond what you are told and be ready to dissect whatever is told to y told. i think it is important that people have their own lives and

ability to find out about things. so it is important if i tell you what happened on north st. louis and if you want to know what happened on north st. louis you can be your own research and find out what happened >> have they released the police audio and radio calls? i heard they released the video bud they said he didn't know about the robbery when he stopped them. but then later he did >> there is no indication the police radio was recorded so we don't know if that exist. they have not released it. what was released was a guy was making a recording for his lady friend and in the course of making this, you know, what he intended to be romantic recording, it happened to be at the moment of the shooting. so you heard a burst of gunfire,

pause and then another burst of gunfire. and that is refuted to be that shooting. and i cannot tell you for sure that is what that is but i saw a report someone that has values because it shows there were two different burst of gunfire. that is interesting. a burst, then a pause and another burst and the bullets came fast. it was boom, boom, boom. that doesn't mean that the officer is guilty. it doesn't mean the officer is innocent but it is interesting. it is information. i want to get back -- may i get back to patricia because she expressed anger and i want to tell you i hear you. i mean i would never try to talk you out of your feeling about

something we did that you feel is wrong. that is your feeling. and that is valid. i am not arguing. but i will say this. that if we start deciding what kind of information the public shouldn't ever see. be careful. because who decides in the end what information the public doesn't get to see? guess what? it is the government. you start to stay well don't letthem -- let them be public. and this is what government wants to do. this is the natural.

i am not negating your feelings but explaining where we come from. >> i think there is a time and place to release information also and sometimes it is out in the public and other times it should be done through the court of law and through the proper processes because what wind up happening is that you dirty a potential jury pool. people are watching the news and when they are called to jury duty they cannot erase what has been shown whether it is relevant or not. there is a time and place for information and we need to go through the proper channels for that so we don't mess up the justice process. >> i agree. let's take your example. let's say officer wilson had had four complaints in the last six months, and i am making this up -- >> don't tweet. >> don't put this on twitter.

but let's just pretend officer wilson faced four different complaints of using excessive force in the last six months. let's say the police department decided you know what that information could poison that grand jury that is hearing that case and we better keep it secret because we want to be fair. that would be a complete injustice to keep that secret because it might be relevant. >> we are talking apples and oranges. a juvenile record that is closed while somebody is living, i do not think should be open because they are dead, to the public. >> another question coming. i have a whole ton of questions. there is a lack of trust between the public and the police but also between the public and the media. how does this coverage change

that relationship? or does it. how does this discussion change the dynamic? >> this discussion here? i don't know if our discussion today -- the coverage hasn't changed the public's mind since according to this remington poll they this happening -- they think the media hurt more than help. so we have a long way to go before they think we are doing a good job >> you have the power to control what you see. if you are not liking what is going on, you can do something about it. >> i saw a question on twitter that i wanted to ask. i will wait for it to come back but it had to do with the

integrity coming into play and your emotions. i have to find the question i can ask. a panelist mentioned the role of social media in making ferguson a national story. a twitter hash tag of ferguson showed a spike. at what point did the shooting and arrest become nationally? what moved the story to the issue of national media focus? they fact they let mike brown lay there for four hours, he was unarmed, he was shot six times. how do we keep the coverage going about something that is so important? i understand the coverage is still continuing in ferguson. i have not seen much more

national coverage on it. >> i still get press calls. i want people to know that the world and when i say the world, seriously the world is still interested in how we are doing. while everyone has left, i still get call probably about every other day whether it is from national reporters or from international reporters wanting to know what is going on. so, i guess it is not glared across the tv screen and on twitter all of the time now, but people are checking in because i don't want people to get the sense that the media wants their clicks and pictures and they have taken off. i have ship -- relationships are reporters and it is what is the next step, next protest, next meeting. so the interest is here, which doesn't feel like much after

what we have been through, but people want to say st. louis and the region moving forward. >> my whole role with huffington post is to keep it going. the big news people are gone. but there is going to be coverage, i am vowing to continue and locals will be here. we need to know how ferguson changes after the verdict, after everything so that every city in america that is going through this can know what to do when it happens or how to heal. >> i don't think this is a story that is going to die down any time soon but to give you a look into my life, i am a general assignment reporter so we are taking a look at what happened in the city every morning and

today i was doing a double shooting outside a church in river view. for that community that was the big story of the day. it doesn't mean i am loosing sight of what is going on in ferguson. i am keeping close tabs on what is happening, i am still following everything and if tomorrow i need to be in ferguson, then i will be in ferguson. but if the other bigger story in the st. louis region i get it. >> i don't think this story is going to die down. just last week there were segments on national public radio about trying to change the way the fines were rooted out. there were several stories about the handling of the grand jury in st. louis county. so i think the national folks are keeping their eye on it and think of the stories out there.

there are developments in the criminal case and if there is an indictment or a trial and no acquittal or federal investigations and holder announced, the attorney general, announced a pattern of practice investigation that is going to go on for months about police practices, and that is just on the police end of things. what about the whole big issue of race and i mean, don't we want to look at the schools in that area? it is not just a coincidence that normandy school district wasn't credited and that is where michael brown graduated. are we doing everything we need to be doing in those schools to educate our students? there are just a million related stories. >> in my story today, all of

people i interviewed were people coming from ferguson who moved to get away from the protest and they are living in river view and there is a double shooting. so i am talking about ferguson and i remember saying i may not have been in ferguson but there were reads back-to-back and ferguson was still coming up through the newscast. it isn't degioiaing -- going to -- die down >> how does the traditional media educate the public on where to go to get fair coverage? how do you combat the negative posts online? what is the post doing to educate young consumers who tend to get their news on social media. >> that is a great question. it is very complex.

we have seen in our society in the last five years especially traditional journalism challe e challeng challenged. mainly for economic reasons. the business model of journalism is in the craper, sorry for the horse language. people don't want to pay for news. they think news should be free. there is an increasing tendency to say if it is big news it will find me. my friends will link to it. it will come to me. right? okay. so how do we react to that? one, i would say the most important think we can do is reaffirm our principles of ethical journalism and the search for truth. because if all that is left is the fox news people trying to

give their opinion and then what is left is msnbc giving their opposing opinion, then where are the facts? there has to be a radio station, television station, news website or someone you can go for real information. so like the post dispatch and others exist to provide that unbias and real information. we are trying to get better on twitter and facebook. because i said that is where people expect to find their news. they don't want to search for it. it needs to be there when they want it instantly. we report fast, get stuff up on the website, and more importantly push it out there on facebook and twitter. visit at stltoday on any of those outlets and learn what we

are doing. you can be angry about it. i get it. i am thrilled you are angry about it because you care and you are in it and living this life. i would say that is what we have to do. >> this is for bradley, the entire point of you as -- you made is the media is supposed to fact check and not leave it up to the public to fact check later. this mindset is why citizens are blaming the media. >> whoever said that, the way i heard it is you are saying it isn't up to you the fact check the media. if i am wrong, if you want to stand up if you said that, you can. >> i think the entire point is the media has to fact check and not leave it up to the viewers. >> i disagree with that.

if you say that you are a person that is easily controlled. it isn't up to the media to always fact check. if i tell you something, if i tell you the bathroom is on fire, are you going to believe me or go check yourself? it is up to you to hear thing and get it from different p perspecti perspectives. >> it is a relationship. you grow a relationship with the reporter or news station. you get the trusted relationship like i know i can call kmov and they can give me the facts. if you see something randomly on twitter and you don't know who the person is or who tweeted this or if this picture is accurate maybe you do need to do little digging >> this reminds me of the fourth

night of tear gas where it was said this isn't tear gas and it was people like me and others saying we know what tear gas is, we have experienced this, this isn't a smoke bomb, this is tear gas. and all of us were saying this is a lie. this isn't right. we are out here this is tear gas. and then the story changed sociali sociality -- so there is a time to say you didn't get this right. >> i was off and you have the police saying it was smoke bombs not tear gas and you are going to report what you think is true. but that is why it is important for you to fact check. weller if we are saying it is tear gas and the media is saying this, well it is up to you to call the station and say this is

actually what is going on >> you only have to smell that sweet smell of tear gas once to know tear gas. okay. how are media outlets who allow readers to comment on stories help lead the stories? stltoday has a history of racist driven comments on any story involving african-american victims. do they encourage the negative edit editorals? >> i agree with that. some of the opinions clearly need to stick to themselves and i wish they would follow that. but having said that, we allow comments on stories and that includes comments that piss me off but i don't get to pick and chose the comments and nor do i have the ti