giving out exactly what happened. i spent the next year and a half actually try to track that everyone who we been there, and one of those reassuring things in the year-long process was that when i found a powerpoint of the bomb scene which is where everyone was lining, and that confirmed to me that my memories of where i was laying and he was treating and who's talking to me, that i had it all right. it was very reassuring. so after those five weeks in, my nightmare stop. my hypervigilance stuff. i stopped being afraid meal cart was going to blow up. i didn't like the food. that's 80. went didn't fade was survivor's guilt and grief. i lost my guys. i never expected to lose somebody in the field. when i found out the families were all furious with me, the families of the dead soldiers, the families of the cameraman

and the sound man, i blamed myself, too. the other thing i found is that one of the things in the stages of grief afterwards is you find someone to blame, and in my case it was me. finally, what released me from that was bob woodruff had been hit for months to the day before i had, so -- abc news correspondent. he came in to see me. no, no. we talked on the phone he was still in recovery. the bomb hit them in the head. he said look, paul and james, i understand you feel bad that you lost them. paul douglas and james rowland, our team. that those guys choose where they went, when they went, why they went. if you try to take responsibility for them being there that day, you dishonoring

their memory. you didn't order them to be there. i found that was like, that became one of these lifelines that i realized he was right. but i still, every memorial day, i basically go into a fog because that's when we were hit, memorial day. now i just know, it's going to happen. check out for the next three days, i'm going to be miserable, i'm going to be depressed, i'm going to be asking myself why i still hear and to amazing professionals who survived so many wars and had families and children, why are they gone? and then i will try to keep paying it forward when this holiday is past. so i could past all that. the hardest part was coming out of it to find that no matter how far along i thought i was, that the american public that i met

on the street when i got out of the hospital would not let me out of the injured box. everyone thought i was a walking ptsd timebomb because of what they've seen in hollywood, because of some of the stories the media had put out. we did this yeoman's effort of trying to teach the public that there were people within the military who needed help from there were injuries, and yet we somehow tarred full force with that brush. i've shared this a few times with other folks who have come back from overseas, and there's only like knots around the room, including in the special operations community. one sergeant major who has been everywhere from mogadishu to all the worst places across afghanistan and iraq said yep,

the miami times i tell my mom i don't have ptsd she doesn't believe me. so the hard part is it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. if you are experiencing bad symptoms of post-traumatic stress and you are not in in an obnoxious over talkative like news correspondent in her 40s from the opera generation, are you going to seek help like i did? are you going to fight to the wall? that's what i'm worried about that we bring this message out there even with, you know, that very dramatic and provocative poster for tonight's event, that's not an image of someone you want to be. it's a guy like this. i want people to see the post-traumatic growth part so that they know there's an endpoint to shoot for. i don't know, we've got to start shifting balance from while not come everyone is broken, to there's some people, 10%, 8% who

have something that may always be with them. and then there's a larger part of the bell curve of people who will take this experience, make it part of their wisdom, their resilience, their life story, and they will be able to share this lesson to help people through every of the hard thing in life. >> i think we want some time for your questions, and that seems like an opening to your questions. >> we will begin the questions and answers. if you have a question, please raise your hand and wait for jason to bring you the microphone.

>> the microphone is traveling across the room. room. >> what are any thoughts on like the high rates of ptsd or ptsd from like urban combat and jungle combat versus, say, the traditional like open plain or open field? like, the jonathan chase book, what he talked about the constant drool, not the psycho but the constant journal has to be vigilant in the jungle and private when you can't asiana suspect similar in city fighting. that that creates a greater reaction. what are your thoughts on that? >> could you -- >> i think david was going to talk about -- >> yeah, i just wanted to validate what you were saying. in both iraq and afghanistan, i

think the majority of firefights which i witnessed were one way, which was a sniper would open up, there would be an ambush or there would be an ied or a car bomb, and then it would be nobody to shoot back at. it just makes guys -- when i say guys by the way, i mean men and women. it makes guys go berserk. i was with a marine battalion once and we're sort of hunkered down in his farm compound and somebody shot an rpg, and it exploded right in sort up amongst us. nobody was hurt but man, you should've seen those marines boiled up out of there. finally get fight back. we looked out there and it was quiet, nobody out there. it was such a huge amount of frustration, and that happens day after day after day after day after day, and you know,

which explains some of the incredible violence in the firefights with the defined an enemy and they just go after them tooth and nail. i think that adds up to a bridge significant psychological burden after a while. i know jonathan has talked about this quite a bit in relation to vietnam, and you can find this, i think you mentioned, that goes way, way back. this is not new stuff. but i think these wars in particular because the enemy has been so elusive have been particularly hard psychologically. >> based on what you were saying about pts versus ptsd, do you think the difference comes from the treatment, like the media treatment like what you received, or is it more kind of dry from actual incidents that caused it? >> as it's explained to me, it's

all post-traumatic stress but only gets diagnosed as a disorder if it interferes with your daily life, and that's generally after four to six weeks if it still keeps going. >> and typically, the post part of it when you're talking about disorder has to do with the arrival of the symptoms. it may not be immediate. it might be months or years down the road before you actually start to have symptoms. what you it probably was more accurately called acute stress, but because it was immediate. and that's actually what i was thinking is a so much of the semantics of this are almost irrelevant to the person who's going through it, and really for lots of the treatment as well. we have clinical practice guidelines that tell us what are the best treatments, the evidence tells us what are the best treatments for ptsd.

we don't have that for acute stress are pts are what we call in the army combat and operational stress reaction. we don't have that necessarily but it doesn't mean you can't pull from those other aspects. >> wait a minute. you don't have a way to treat stress? >> i did not say that? >> i understand to a i misunderstood. >> we have clinical practice guidelines that tell is based on evidence and research what are the three best ways to treat ptsd. >> and what are the three? >> they are prolonged exposure -- >> and i guess that's what i actually did, prolonged exposure. going over and over and over the incident. >> there is cognitive processing therapy, and then there's another therapy called emd are. are usually without? eye movement -- are you familiar with the?

eye movement, desensitization and -- i always forget the last. >> what's strange about this is two of those three are things that -- people ask about what these methods were communing absence of these particular notes. he worked individually with people. he was patient with him and stayed up all night talking to them because that's how long it needed to be. he listens to people talking about their fears and their experience. he didn't think it was magic but it was very humane. one of the things that's frustrating to us now is that medical systems are delivered in the key minute increments or that we don't have enough time to follow through with somebody, and this is true in civilian life as it is military life.

it's going to take as much as it takes to do this. just in terms of the social compact, we have to be willing to pay for what it costs to do the wars that we do, and i was really what it was about, wasn't it's been this huge mental health crisis that we saw in the wake of the first world war and insisting that it be something that was painful. >> pretty give us a quick dick and jane up with the rapid eye movement thing is? >> i will not explain the mechanisms of it but it is a process that uses -- you may be up to explain this better than i can, but it's a way, people have to be trained how to do it. on top of having a ph.d in clinical psychology, it's additional training. but you get a person to focus on, for example, my hand, how it's going back and forth like this. there something that happens

while they're doing that and talking about the event that seems to -- remember i mentioned hardwiring earlier. there's something about that that seems to break this is able to process the event better. >> so by having the i follow something that back and forth, and must be active in the left and the right side of the brain. >> i don't know, and i'm not sure there's any but he knows exactly what the mechanism is. but with the research tells us is that there's evidence that it works. >> we have a question from an alum who is watching via live streaming. so are there any other observable differences in ptsd between male and the muscle to? do they cope with a different, and are there symptoms similar? >> the diagnostic criteria are the same for men and women. so an individual might have a different constellation of symptoms but really the

diagnostic criteria are the same for men and women. i think that women are more likely to have a concomitant depression with it than men are, but that's only speaking very generally. so between individuals i don't think you can specifically say that there are differences between genders. >> of individuals suspected of having pts or ptsd, give it immerse themselves in violence of war because you talk about the hypervigilance, anxiety and fear. you can't act that way in a wal-mart so do they want to go back to war so bad so any sort of violence they feel they're acting normally or they are being comfortable? >> i think it's accurate to say they feel more comfortable back in a combat environment. it's not necessarily that they want to be engaged in combat but they feel more at home in a

department oftentimes is what i have heard. >> my experience, i mean, i know guys who only feel comfortable in combat. >> i have to say some of the reasons you like to go back to a combat zone, it's not particularly account that can these people you're with and a shared mission which is very hard to find stateside. there's a sense when you're overseas, whether you're in a news crew or diplomats our soldiers, that there's this shared mission that you need each other for your survival, and there's almost nothing like that back in the states that i know of. and so a lot of people really miss that and then they get here where most people go from their jobs to the grocery store, home to the dvr, and they don't have

much interaction. they miss when you are living with 11 of the people and junior their business and then you yours and you always had company, and that's just -- >> it's even more than at. i think we all know, that is that people in combat units develop love for each other. i think that's not too strong a word, although they don't use it. this idea that you're responsible for your buddy no matter what, the first in a camper basic training, event that becomes a shared moral value and they are bound to each other and close to each other in many ways than they are to their wives or parents or children. when they come home and get out of the military, bang, they lose everyone they love most in the world. so the veterans out here today are walking around with a lot of

grief and sorrow and sense of loss, and that adds to the difficulties, whether it's ptsd or moral injury or something else. >> i know of some folks have gone back knowing they have pts or ptsd and shouldn't go back but got to go back for the team. >> i want to thank you for putting this all together. it's so exciting, especially your research. i'm learning a lot by want to tell you, thank you to all the veterans. my son-in-law was injured in the fourth infantry division, part of the captured saddam hussein. that is good, he came home. he came home well. he has no problems. but his wife, my daughter, had problems, especially with postpartum expression --

depression. army war college by to take her there from missouri but that ws at the beginning of the war. i have a strong passion for mental wellness, and there is an international program that is called mental health first eight. have you heard of it? well, i left you some paper should because i'm so excited about it. i was one of the first 100 trained in the country, and that was in 2008. i couldn't get my daughter help. she had a brand-new baby, a war hero, and nobody gave her help. okay? she was probably one of the first ones that use telemedicine with the war college psychiatrist. my question is, you don't know about mental health first eight, but i hear you say listening is very important. support when you get home is very important. mental health first aid is international and there's now a mental military member veterans

and families mental health first aid module. the whole aspect of the mental health first aid is listen not judge millett isn't it. you feel that the people here at home could know how to help someone like you or, because you came out, who helped you? spent i think you misunderstand me. i received great help within the hospital when i asked for it. i continue to ask for it. and now what you have is a resource of some of these veterans have come back and have 80% have incorporated their post-traumatic stress on their combat experience, and they have reason to offer all of us and that's the message that needs to get out. but i would love your question. >> i know you talk about them having wisdom because of him going through strengthen the ticket will you meet people who

are support systems for you. if we don't have them for the people in their families, if the husband does not help the wife who might have come home with post-combat stress disorder. i'm asking you, do you think that we and our country could do a better job of helping our military veterans, or active military service people, get well from their issues that they have because they went on and suffered for us, for our freedom. is there more that we can do to help them get well, or do we have to just let the professionals do their job? >> yes, we can do more. >> it's such a huge subject. hello? if suc such is subject a bit ofa great time to go into tonight. we have to talk afterwards, but i really feel strongly that it's

everybody's responsibility to be part of the solution. i understand what you're saying about you got great professional help. the medical care and mental health care that our government provides in the departments of defense and veterans affairs is actually superb. it's the best that there is but it can't possibly be enough. at some point veterans come home back in our communities. we need to be in touch with them, and i'm reluctant to say we can help them because, you know, i don't know if we're smart enough to do that but we can certainly welcome them back. >> i'm so worried, i don't want people leaving this forum thinking oh, those poor veterans. they have things to share with us. they have wisdom and experience and the sense of building a team that isn't really so resident in our population back here. so yes, it's great to be willing

to help them, but i would like people to look at them with a preset notion that they're one of the 80% who is more resilient than the rest of us, and they can be leaders as opposed to people we need to pick up off the ground. because also those who are out there who are still struggling, if they know that that is the vision of what they can be and what the country thinks they are, they are going to reach out to do the hard work to become that. >> we have time for two more questions. >> i think ptsd like by its very nature is like, it's a very physical mr. ellis. so i was just curious what you think might be an effective

treatment approach for the more physical symptoms. like there was some discussion sort of unrushed that kind of kicks in automatically. >> well, i'm not a psychiatrist, so i don't have an m.d. i have a ph.d but i do know the army tries not to use benzodiazepines as a way to decrease that hyperarousal and physiological arousal. we try not to use that because there is a possibility of potential to become addicted to it. what we typically do in addition to those therapies that it mentioned earlier we be to teach someone how to do kind of relaxation, deep breathing, to regulate their physiological arousal with that, if we can do it without medication. >> anyone can download the u.s. army's mindfulness at on their

smartphone, and it walks you through guided meditations we can listen to usher walking around campus and -- >> but not driving. >> not driving. >> i'm a vietnam veteran. i was a medic in vietnam. i met my wife there, who was a combat nurse, and we both have been diagnosed with ptsd. earlier they told her that worse is were not exposed to combat. yet my wife is one of those highly decorated nurses that served in vietnam. the question i have is, i interact with a lot of people in the medical area who did not develop ptsd or the symptoms for 10, 15 years.

can you explain that? we had each other. we had each other. she wanted to go back to vietnam. i didn't want to go back. she volunteered to go back to vietnam. i didn't. the va center to alter front facilities throughout the united states, being tested for ptsd. nothing was ever successful in treating her for ptsd. a lot of people i work with, doctors, nurses and other people saying they have the rest of their life. they say the reason it's different now in iraq and afghanistan, they usually go over there as units and come back as units. in vietnam you fly there one day, you fly back. you don't know who's on the

right or on your left. and you were saying, doctor, that 80% of the people of ptsd get better, great? >> 80% of people go through a complete course of treatment. [inaudible] we are not like world war ii, korea. >> if we didn't have each other we probably -- sound like i think we're in a unique situation. the most important thing that i was looking at recently is ptsd, tbi and developing dementia in the last two or three years. a lot of literature coming out. in fact, one study across 2000

veterans with ptsd shows that there's a twofold chance of developing dementia later in life. i would like you to address the. is there anything being done for that right now? >> so you want to know if there's anything being done for veterans who may develop dementia later? >> there's three or four major studies out the last two or three -- in europe a few much ago that was on top of their agenda, ptsd, tbi versus -- >> i am hearing to questions from you. one is for the cases of people who were not diagnosed early on and are still decades later exhibiting post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms, acute systems are in his eyes with her daily life, is it something you the you all are trying are recommending, or is it those

three courses of treatment? >> in the army we wouldn't be necessary treating a pattern, first of all. so the three that i mentioned are what is shown by the evidence to be the most effective, but obviously they are not going to be effective for everyone. there could be something else that's more effective for your wife. or could be that she's always going to carry this with her. we have many people still in the army who have ptsd, but they're able to function with it and they're able to get through, whether it's with our colleagues or because they know how to manage it, they continue with it. but they still have some of those symptoms. that's another thing i think that goes along with what you were saying, is because you have ptsd doesn't mean you are out old with all kinds of

disabilities. but it could be that it is something that it impacts your sleep or -- >> like nightmares of one incident that keep coming up every couple months or something like that. >> right. and where ptsd and traumatic brain injury over the a lot of times has to do with the way that somebody gets a traumatic brain injury could be through a dramatic event, and so that they might have ptsd associate with the traumatic brain injury. if traumatic brain injury then develops into later on dementia, which were seeing more and more evidence that that's a possibility, i am optimistic and i would be surprised if it weren't the case that the va is going to look at that and take it into consideration. [inaudible] >> i think that's another panel. we could answer your questions afterwards.

>> all right. this concludes our panel discussion for this evening. please join me in thanking our panelists. [applause] >> thank you all for coming. [inaudible conversations] >> talmadge creek secretary jeh johnson will take questions on capitol hill about president obama's executive action on immigration policy announced two weeks ago. live coverage this morning from house homeland security committee starting at 9 a.m. eastern on c-span3. in the afternoon officials from

the nfl, nba, major league baseball and the national hockey league testified before a senate panel about professional athletes and domestic violence. live coverage begins at 2:30 p.m. eastern also on c-span3. >> the c-span cities tour takes booktv and american history tv on the road traveling to u.s. cities to learn about their history and literary life. this weekend we partner with time warner cable for visit to waco, texas,. >> as we begin to receive the final to be digitized to be saved, we begin turning over the sides of the 40 fives we received the verse off gospel music was not widely heard and white committee. it would only be the hits if that. on the flipside would be heard even less. what we discovered quickly was how many of the b. sides songs were directly related to the civil rights movement.

>> since there's very few databases, none of them complete on gospel music, we didn't know the sheer number of songs that had songs like there ain't no segregation in heaven type songs. and addressing one of those songs much less sing it would be a very dangerous thing in the deep south. you could get killed for a lot of things in the deep south but seeing that sort of song out loud, that's a risk. >> a texas ranger hall of fame was set up in 1976 for the 175th anniversary of the rangers, and honors at this .30 rangers who made major contributions to the service or gave their lives under a rope circumstances. we have paintings were portraits of all those rangers. they really begin with stephen f. austin. he was very successful with his rangers. they thought not only come

managed to make the area reasonably safe for settlement from indian land, but when the texas war for independence wrote out, the rangers played a major role in texas gaining its independence by staving off the mexican army long enough to allow the colonists to build their own army and build a strategy. as a result, texas became it's own independent nation, the republic of texas for about 10 years. >> watch our events from waco saturday at noon eastern on c-span2's booktv in sunny afternoon at two on american history tv on c-span3. >> next to "new york times" columnist look at the influence of the media on culture and society. chief television critic alessandra stanley and op-ed columnist frank bruni were part of a panel discussion at fairfield university in connecticut. this is one hour 20 minutes. >> soon we will be meeting to

distinguished journalists, in fact two from the times. ms. alessandra stanley and mr. frank bruni. we all understand the very long ripple effects and the reverberations of "the new york times" which extends so deeply into our nation's history, 1851, the good gray lady has been published in all those years and, of course, is right on five continents as we sick of all the news that's fit to print, albeit today in the new digital world, all the news that is fit to click. to be honest, rush limbaugh explained, i can only read a few paragraphs in a "new york times" story before i puke.

[laughter] well, last summer i was watching a rerun of a charlie rose for special, and editor of "the new yorker," david remnick, was speaking about the media in america, and david remnick talked about his career. it spent 10 years at the "washington post." for the past 22 years has been the editor of "the new yorker." he said "the new york times" has been the greatest competitor of my entire professional career, and yet, andy pols and he said to charlie rose, i think "the new york times" is the nation's most important private league held institution. i thought about that. think about what you would list as a treasure, what is private own in the united states, and that is what his assessment of

the power of "the new york times." open visions for him and fairfield university wants to think of course our very generous sponsors who make these programs possible, to our friends, to a telemarketer, to harry's wines and liquors, and, of course, our friends at the media group who published their few living magazine, and the entire set of magazines throughout fairfield county. we are going to be joined tonight by the chairman of the committee nation department, but to set the stage let's bring out another professor of communication, the deputy director and my assisted in helping to develop this series, dr. michael serazio for our introduction to our guests. michael. [applause] >> in the late 1960s one of

the rallying cries for the heirs in this movement went something like this. personal is political. four decades later and equally fitting slogan might now apply. the popular is political. for it is increasing possible to extricate intricate form electoral effects. we're not just talking about jon stewart and stephen colbert rowling to restore sanity and/or fear. tina fey channeling and potential undoing sarah palin, or californians electing conan the barbarian as their governor. on just about every major issue nowadays, popular culture offers the rosetta stone for deciphering american politics. we can't understand a dramatic shift in public opinion on gay rights without appreciating cam and mitchell on modern family. we can't understand the reality

of tolerating guantánamo detainees without grasping the fantasy of homeland 24. we can't understand increasing crime paranoid even as actual crime rates continue to fall without seeing the world outside our door through rea carey lenses. ipod was indeed never been more political which makes our guests tonight so timely. they are thought leaders and award winners at the world's most indispensable news organization, "the new york times." frank bruni was quite literally the preeminent taste maker as the chief restaurant critic sandwiched in between as roma bureau chief and his current gig as op-ed columnist. alessandra stanley has been the paper's chief television critic or more than a decade after managing overseas posts herself across europe. their work is a versatile, eloquent and deceptive. teasing out the way we live now from the media we consume now and making out the big picture

as it comes to us more and more on the small screen. so please join me in welcoming from "the new york times" ms. alessandra stanley and mr. frank bruni. [applause] >> well, let's hear what mr. bunning and mrs. then had to say and i think frank bruni will go to the podium now. it's all yours. >> hello, everybody, good night. good evening to about my pillow with me. thanks for coming. it's a pleasure to be here. i want to thank rush for that compliment. [laughter] and i want to say that sometimes when i feel the need for a purgative, i listen to his radio show. i was asked to say a little bit about my tour at the times which

isn't so differen different from alessandra's but different from alessandra's but where both people are bounced around a lot. in my now almost 20 years there which horrifies me to give that figure because it means i'm getting on in years, i have been a religion reporter on the metropolitan desk. i have covered a campaign, george w. bush's first presidential campaign. i covered the beginning of his white house. i reported from san francisco. i have been the chief restaurant critic for five years. i have written for the magazine. this follows years earlier when i was a movie critic and my little brother like this that i don't have a career. i have attention deficit disorder. [laughter] and that is true. but i believe strongly in going through life and gathering as many diverse experiences as possible, and when i first got into journalism my whole notion was that it would give me a ticket or a passport to all sorts of experiences and privileges of the world i couldn't get any other way.

it's done precisely that. i met a pope, john paul ii towards the end of his papacy. i've gotten come when his covenant i got to know george w. bush quite well. i've met of the president and his been a real privilege that i still kind of can't believe came my way. my belief in that sort of diverse experience and the value i place on versatility and all that leads me to what i want to say about the media today, which is our topic. i think we're living in a very interesting moment. decades ago as will make technological advances in tv came along, a supposedly wise man named marshall mcluhan said we're become a global village. we have that further advances beyond them and i think what's happened over the last decade is we've become a gazillion global villages, or a gazillion villages in the globe that as fractured as never before. the great irony of our time is we have this thing called the

internet and with all these cable channels. the way people use them isn't to sample the work and most diverse way possible. to use all of us to choose an area of interest and to marinate them i like to use metaphors come into marinate in it. there's a whole book epic that has developed. people talk to moderate americans living in information silos. they talk about the way we sort ourselves and that is what happened to we have these connecting mechanisms, twitter, facebook are instead used them to reach out to a broad spectrum of our fellow human beings, we use them to connect incessantly over and over again with people who think just like us. think about people like real housewives. you can see them in six different cities, six different accents, 24 hours a day. people who like duck dynasty. they can find a place them on the cable dial it anymore and

they can go to the bookstore and buy books written by the duck committed to i don't even know who that is public i'm using the correct phrase. that's happening over and over again and it's change our political landscape in particular. this has been scientifically measured. americans are becoming more partisan and those people feel most strongly by the most partisan. that's because as they set the social media feeds, whom they fall under facebook, as they set up their twitter feeds they do it not so they can be exposed to all kinds of information and perspectives. they do so they can constantly hear what they already believe. they live in these aqua chambers. it's kind of depriving us of the common ground that we need if we're going to have a congress that functions. we will all participate in civic life and civic debate in the correct way. i hope we get to talk a little bit more about that tonight. one of my most heartfelt appeals, students or anyone else here tonight, is in your own

news consumption come into her own information consumption i think you could do nothing but a freeze on the country than making sure you're following a few people on twitter they don't believe as you do, that you're bookmarking a couple of publications or blogs that represent the opposite of your viewpoint in life. if we all begin doing that we would be in much better shape as a country. alessandra i think can talk more about how this manifests itself on tv and i think i'm kind of near the limit of my time. i don't want to bore you any further i will talk more as the talk more as a group so delighted to introduce alessandra? alessandra stanley, my do friend and colleague. [applause] >> yes, i can see. can you hear me? first of all thank you for having us. it's an honor to be here. but for me it's actually a big outing because as you know i watch tv all this i don't actually leave the house much, or get out of my pajamas ever.

[laughter] my daughter makes fun of me because of my work and says that, she quotes a show called arrested development and says that i am are stay in bed mother. [laughter] it's great to be here. people often ask me how i got interested in television and have to explain that i'm sort of a cautionary tale for parents because mine didn't let us watch television we're growing up. so naturally that's all it ever thought about. it took me a while to get there but look at me now. [laughter] my experience was that i love tv because i never got to watch. i wanted you a little story that i like to a man i met who was a very sophisticated gallery owner in new york. and asked him how did he become a gallery owner in new york? he collected futuristic italian art.

he said, well, it was tv. he explained it grown up in arizona. both his parents worked for the airlines and he was left alone at home all the time and watched i dream of jeannie constantly. he remembers a particular episode where gene was in her bottle after bottle was decorated with what look like a picasso and the main boss to he thought that's amazing. years went by and the school took him on a future to texas. he went to the museum we actually saw a picasso with a main boss. and he said, it's real and actually quit high school, moved to new york to build our school and never watch tv again. [laughter] so you have the two extremes. we are going to talk a lot about television i hope, but when i started 10 years ago there was a lot of good television.

the wire was on, "sex and the city" was on. the difference for me was that nobody, people like yourself were not watching the way you are i hope now. when i started a lot of people said, why do you want to even be a critic? that's not a dignified thing to be. it would introduce the apart and say she's a tv critic but she used to be the rome bureau chief. officials have gotten more sophisticated and we're talking about a narrower audience but i think that's true, that sort of balkanization of our popular culture. why i am always struck by is how the audience has grown to include college professors and nobel laureates and, who were all watching the same shows we are. what's interesting about that simply that that's a good television has gotten. it's still terrible in some things, but people will know,

probably yourselves will discuss a tv show before a movie, before a novel. it's been said many times, television is now like a novel. so much so that there was an adaptation of a novel i have loved, i thought. it was adapted by bbc and tom stoppard wrote the screenplay. the screenplay was so good that made the novel look bad. that's how things have evolved. you know of course that nobody is going movies because all the movie directors are now doing television. spielberg has a television production company. pretty much anybody with the name s. has a tv show. frank and i were great friends of know her as from. before she died when she was in the hospital dying and she was

determined to keep working and she's working on a television treatment or it was something that sounded great but it was about a woman who is a compliance officer and realizes her boss is a fraud. i wish she had stuck around but i wish get stuck around to do that. what i was going to say then is that people used to feel guilty about watching television. and now people feel bad about not watching enough because they feel like i can't even talk to my friend if i haven't seen orange is the new black. the responsibility of a critic of the new york times becomes not just being a fan but also finding things to say about these television shows, good and bad, that tell us all something about ourselves. i'm hoping in the discussion will have a chance to talk about what's going on. i was quick to advocate a chance i want to talk about the depiction of men on television

but i always read about the depictiodepiction of women and t maybe we should talk about the depiction of men. anyway, thank you for being here and i look forward to your questions and our discussion. [applause] >> okay. who wants to jump in the? david? mike? go ahead. >> sort of dovetailing off of where you left us, alessandra, talking about the novelistic nature of television nowadays i think the clue the most critically acclaimed shows of the last two decades have these intricate thomas real storylines with slow, elaborate character developments. and above all the required a really long, deep investments of time. simultaneously, a lot of our media culture has shrunk and accelerated, emphasizes twitter length discourse and soundbites

and viral phenomenon. i'm wondering how is it that those two things can exist? why is it that we're willing to make time and put in the effort for these incredibly elaborate novelistic shows while at the same time we have trouble getting past something that is 141 characters? >> i think the answer is actually int in the question. i think it has to be that elaborate. know what is going to stop doing things they can do in 10 seconds, to do it for an hour. but there's that release them going to draw down the curtains and i'm going to watch deadwood and i'm going to stop for food. it's the antithesis the people credited after a while. your head spin some all these things, the twitter. so it's fitting i think. frank probably has an even better theory, but you probably couldn't have one without the other. >> is there something bad about

it? maybe folks share this experience, it's hard to catch up the conversations if you haven't caught up with the shows but you mentioned that in your talk. it would have been the case in decades past that an extreme popular show you could just drop in season three, season four and catch up with the public conversation. now it seems hard if you have put in a 10, 20, 30 hours you need to catch up. >> that's why people feel guilty that they haven't watched enough tv. >> david, go ahead. >> i want to follow up on your point about gender on televisi television. the fact men are being portrayed in a demeaning way in some way. recent review of the good wife and madam secretary, with the case a strong and powerful women are no longer shocking on television in some way. we almost come to expect it. at the same time were we still can't pass an equal pay act and we can't elect the fema president and all the sorts of

things, so i'm curious if you think the representation of gender on television issues completely off from the actual landscape out there? and if so, why? >> i don't know if that's true because hillary clinton was secretary of state. we now have a tv show about a feel secretary of state. i'm not so sure television is leading. it used to be leading. it used to be all a fantasy. it was on dish and was ready on 24th of be a black president and five years later, there was one. the great thing about television is there's so much of it, you can make that argument that it's, what would you say? it's an incorrect or a fantasy version of reality. but then you can make the opposite argument, you can watch a reality show or something. i noticed it's more subliminal. on tv women can be divorced.

the heroine has to be single. she has to be able to date somebody but she can be divorced. a man is always a widower. that's because, you know, a man whose divorce obviously the beast who left his wife. [laughter] but if he's a widower, he lost her fair and square and he can be a sympathetic character. character. character. if i were a man i would say wait a minute, not all divorced men are beasts. most of them. [laughter] spirit of frank, let me go back to your discussion about the tribal edition. i know this is something you address that what seems to be going on is that we are losing that communal water cooler conversation. we are losing, that is, those of us a little bit older in the audience, we wouldn't all watched all in the family or we would watch the dick van dyke show or watch an episode of mary

tyler moore comedy we could come in and share that. how do you feel is being reflected in in the balkanization din of our political life? >> i think the habits of people exercise when you're choosing curating their in game options and all that, those habits carry over into other walks of life. you get accustomed when you look at the cable dial that has hundreds of channels, using the word pile now, the vocab is getting -- we have it come up with a vocabulary to replace the obsolete vocabulary. i think people in the habit of shooting their energy universe. once you get in the habit of curating, you curating every aspect of your universe. to your specific specifications. bench watching was brought up. i'm sure a lot of you have traveled to one of the things that fascinates me, one of the of the perverse effects of technology, if you look around you on a plane to you can take a

five hour trip that range across the country and you are deposited in a completely new environment. what people are doing isn't looking up around them at this new apartment to mayor stanton and iphones or the ipads. they're spending that trip watching five hours of game of thrones to catch up to their land in a foreign country with the entertainment of information cocoon that the left of our country with still intact and so within. they are staring down up. i think all of that makes us less aware of anything we have chosen for self. >> let me follow up on kind of the topic of which you spoke about, frank, with regard to information silos and echo chambers. as you pointed out from the podium, suggesting that folks bookmark and reach for publications and blogs and views

that disagreed from their own. its publications, blogs, or people do you read beside rush limbaugh that disagreed from your own? >> on those rare moments when i have time, apart from rush because he fills up a lot of air -- [laughter] a publication/website i recommend to a lot of people for this reason because you get this experience in the one place is the week, a publication called of the week. the week does something interesting. it's a little annoying in this manner is but it goes through the major news events of the week in the way that newsweeklies used to pretend to do over supposed to before they became magazines in other ways. it goes through the stories of the last week and gives you a paragraph or two of really pretty objective, straightforward summary of what happened. then it gives you very slight little glimpses of various takes on from different sorts of colors. if you're reading it online

\80{l1}s{l0}\'80{l1}s{l0} you a link to each of those. if you're using the week the way it's designed to be used you are able within a specific needs that you're looking at to find out what a bevy of people said about all coming from different directions. that's one-stop shopping. i know i shouldn't urge any publication other than "the new york times." the truth of the matter is my work for the op-ed page and matters or liberals far outnumber conservatives there. not an accurate mirror of the country in a political dissipation of people in the country. something like the week actually does that for you. >> a question still and technology, i'm curious how technology has affected your jobs, op-ed columnist. it strikes me in tv as an example and twitter, tv shows are viewed in real-time why thousands of yours all the time. every restaurant is revered by everyone causally who dines on instagram.

anyone who is a website can opine about whatever strikes their fancy. how do you see your job at the nation's newspaper of record being changed in some way? constant culture of feedback. >> i like to think that simply because there is all this instant, uncreated and often unedited reviewing basically that the times kind of as, you know, we can be that he can -- that beacon of making sense of it. you can read on yelp at the end of that you want to go to someplace where he they synthesize the information and the higher objective people, or at least people who are not corrupt and you can trust it in a way. i hope that's the case. i know the underlying on the paper that i do, i worked there, but something have been in, i want to know what we say because i can't just rely on blogs

because they're all over the place and i don't know who is writing the. i don't know what their backgrounds are. are they paid by someone? people are getting more suspicious because of advertising, but you don't know who is writing it. i think that is a service. >> i agree. i think if we "the new york times" can continue to fight an economic model that keeps us alive, that keeps us sufficiently funded to do journalism, we do come i think a lot of people out there who find is more valuable than ever before. .. ups

you have no idea if the person telling you how many stars they give that restaurant is eaten in more and three restaurants in the last year, no idea if you're getting something from the chef's mother with a chef's bigger and the. is really true. what you get if you are reading at t v review as if you are the arrest drug review by pete wells or current restaurant critics as terrific, what you are getting is something you know is not compromised by the american interest, your getting something from someone who hasn't just watch that one shall one restaurant but is using a yardstick of that experience gained over years of watching tv or eating in restaurants and you can't trust that when you are reading twitter or people's comments on yelp. >> as a follow-up to the

question, your critics are very influential, influential organizations, do you read criticism of your own work? >> not wheatleylately . i don't read other critics because i'm afraid of being influenced. if they react too much will overreact the other way and you cannot -- you cannot read your own reviews. if you write a book, you should have to. the internet is fierce. you can get preoccupied and have to do what you do and more than you have time. un easy target. we have to take it. >> how much would you allow your own subjective tastes, hall much of your own taste are you

feeling you need to repress? frank, you may not like thai food or you might not like sort of shoot them up western's. how do you go into these? and you review it and you know this is not your thing? >> i am not the only tv critic. beam of friends is that big show and i knew i would never like it. so i thought i would give it to a younger and more adventuresses -- then we give it to mike hale, he didn't like it either. >> but then you are already self is hitting the outcome, passing it off to people. >> of wanted to give the show chance. just because i may not like a certain genre, if i don't have to i will give it the best, when that much work has gone into something you don't want to just

sloth and off. you want to give its the best shot you can. we do that for big shows, not for everything. a lot of shows i wouldn't normally watch myself but that is part of the job. luckily i like a lot of stuff. it is not so hard. >> your taste? he would look at the restaurants -- >> i am still waiting to meet a food i don't like. >> there is no country i can safely go to and hope to lose weight. but i think, i think you can suppress or try to adjust for the subject to the you or any one person will have. i know my relationship with tv critics or movie critics isn't at the time trusting my opinion will always mirror there's but if they're true to their subjective nature i can figure out where i overlapped or where i don't but that will only work

if that critic is consistent to his or her sensibility so i felt it was my duty as a restaurant critic to offer an intelligent reason or explanation why i felt the way i did but not to say maybe i feel this way because sweetbreads -- everything is my favorite thing but you know what i mean? review is supposed to be something of a consumer side but at a higher level and at the level i think most critics at the time aspire to be at, a review is more a discussion and springboard. it is meant to be the final word for everybody. is the key to be true to your own subjective taste. >> during the experience that food critic for a second it strikes me the best writing in a newspaper often shows up in food criticism. that might be a subjective opinion but having been a food critic for a number of years, did you feel differently about the craft of writing as you

approached the restaurant review compared to other things where you could be more playful? a generic form that you had to follow? >> if you are writing a restaurant review, there are certain things you have to accomplish over the course of the review. you have written a terrible review since it does have a consumer service elements, if you haven't in some fashion somewhere along the way told people what the restaurant looks like, what it's some level is, what kind of person goes there but there are a million ways to embed that information. it sounded fun and challenging to make sure the review didn't have the same structure. there might be reviewed if the chef was a compelling person, i might begin that way. because i am trained as a reporter more than a critic i did an enormous amount of reporting for each review so i could figure out if there was some interesting wrinkles that gave me a way to approach the

review some what originally. i remember one chef, a pair of chefs, very common scenario in the restaurant industry, will sound sexist that the restaurant industry is, you find a lot of couples married where the husband is a chef and the white is a pastry chef which says a lot about society. there's a situation on every side and i don't know how it came up when i was interviewing them on the phone. they were not seeing my face but they lived above the restaurant. the reason they opened the restaurant is they opened below them so i realized it was fun reading where i could write about the most enviable commute in man hadn't. in that sense it was a fun writing challenge. >> i want to add something, the best critics i think especially food critics are people who make you read it with you intended to go to the restaurant. i like food, don't care about

restaurants, i just want a the writing to the gym but i also -- there is always something in it for many, something entertaining or interesting that has nothing to do with food and that ideally, what you would want in television or writing a book review and you don't have to be fascinated by the show or the book or the restaurant. some wonderful writers do this as well but it is an into station to have a great experience when you are reading. >> you can read and anthony lane movie review about a movie you have never seen and will never see and you can have a great time with use of language and voice and that sort of thing. >> review or column either of you have written that you wish you could go back and retract? take out of the archives? not necessarily because the restaurant changed. >> these look dangerous. i mean that in a small with the most dangerous thing you can do is go back and read them.

everything we do is produced on deadline. we are both in jobs and have always been in jobs where we had to be prolific and as soon as you put a time limit on something which is necessary in make compromises or rushing in ways the when you go back and look you realize you didn't say it the way you meant, you didn't state it as eloquently as you thought you were capable of. i am curious to hear your answer with you learn early on, like a shark going forward. >> they're not the articles i have written. it is the ones i didn't write. there were vatican stories i wanted to do that i chickened out because in those days you are leaning on it and it is different, difficult to do, kind of got a little lazy, and it was a little hard to do, which i had done them. i can think of a lot of stories i would love to go back and do

rather than go back and take away some of them. a lot of times you can talk yourself out of something. >> let me ask about house of cards for a second. one of the most interesting things for me about that show was its development and as i understand it, netflix ran through this enormous amount of audience streaming data that has 30 million plays. they, 4 million fewer ratings and spit out and algorithms that said kevin spacey and politics is a winner and they nailed it. my question is will audiences be better off if creative development of shows becomes more kind of data driven in that way? something that will potentially be lost? >> so interesting. that is the challenge of amazon.

they think they can create an algorithm for literature and get rid of the editors and idiosyncratic tastes but so far that hasn't worked for them. it is in television too. everybody has always done that. nbc received something successful, families of seven, then it is of little more data driven. it is serendipity to all of this and accomplish something. mad men was amazing. hbo thought they calculated we have already done a period piece so the past so it was a huge success. didn't actually change a lot of the way we look at television and it spawned other shows but there is an algorithm that might be there. i am not that worried about it. i am worried about amazon.

>> i want to mention the vatican. i want to follow up on a question with hank. you have written about issues relating sensuality in the catholic church and the catholic church is focused on this at the expense of other social issues or moral teachings of the church. i am curious why you think that is. and secondly if you hold out as much hope as liberal catholics do that this pope will create some change within the catholic church. >> i will take the second question first. this impression has been created, people are buying into something, i don't think you will see significant changes in church teaching from this pope. i don't think the church moved at that pace. a lot of sorts of changes progressive catholics or jesuits' would like to seek are not going to be on the menu. what is true of catholicism and what i have written about is the

religion, its leaders always chose what they would focus on, what day and force and turn a blind eye to. the signals he is sending over and over again that have been fairly consistent, he does not want the church anywhere in the world and certainly in america to get mired in the stuff it was mired in before. that is not a change in teaching, it is a powerful thing because there have been many catholics who always lived by their own consciences and made their own truces and what they needed to do is simply not to be ostracized, punished, of this pope is saying let's get out of that end of the judgment business. that will continue. >> what advice would you give to a gay or lesbian catholic now who is contemplating their role as a catholic? >> depends what country you are in. a lot of areas you can find a

catholic congregation or catholic parish that is accommodating to you and either explicitly or with a wink and a not says we don't care what the dogma is. in other areas that is a lot harder and i don't know what to say is goes to an episcopal church. the person's relationship with god is his or her relationship with god and i don't think any cleric or church can pervert or govern that utterly. so i think you can always find ways and in some cases should to worship your god and have relationship with your guide that is not mediated or compromised by rules the you don't believe in. >> go back to your experience as a food critic. >> that is an interesting transition. >> trying to figure out.

>> i told you. >> couldn't figure out a segway. i can't figure out a segway. >> just go for it. >> having had your own complicated relationship with food and having written a book about it, did you hesitate taking the job? there is probably equipment challenges reporters would have being assigned to a job like that. how did it strike you viscerally or intellectually when you were asked to the job. >> there is no big secret. and over the course of my life we had huge food issues. and the food critic, has come to the far side of that. and i felt it would be the kind

of final answer as to whether i had truly gained control of that sort of thing. i also and this is too technical selling will be brief about it. my problem has always been -- this is a common dieter's problem magnified, amazing false extreme promises to myself, am not going to eat anything but celery for three days and because of that i will take out today and pig out all three of those days as well. the enforced rhythm of being a food critic might actually be good for me and i was never -- i was in much better shape as a food critic than i am now and never in my life in better shape than those times. >> let's walk through the routine. the walter mitty, you are the food critic of the new york times. walk us through it. what is the expense account? don't tell us how much? how did you pick the restaurant? how did you find your companions? or is it a myth that you were in

disguise. what goes through what it was like walking into a divan or into any of those luminary restaurants. >> i can do justice to a fraction of that. what i can tell you is restaurant critics are recognized in new york city because it is a sophisticated restaurant market and if you have been critics of the new york times, they care so much and have so much money that hinges on your opinion that they make it their business to know you are there when they are nehr and almost always do. the best way to answer your question about what it is like, 8 -- i made my third visit to a restaurant in midtown, which is a new incarnation. we go through this and a server,

at another table but hours. and a splotch of soap and landed on my church and made a dark mark. a and to the table and looked like an idiot. i said i hit the soap dispenser really are. the waitress comes over, gives me the check, your three glasses of wine have been taken, an apology to the malfunction of the soap dispenser. the sole dissenter has not malfunctioned. i malfunctioned. was really ok and she said be that as it may we are so side. i didn't argue with him because the bill was $900, no one would say was corrupted by three

glasses of wine and not lead to the to. we alley to the restaurant, the manager rushes up and he says i apologize so much on behalf of the restaurant on behalf of the soap dispenser. i explained it wasn't the soap dispenser's fault, and he handed me his card and said be that as it may i want you to know that if you need the shirt dry cleaned or if you need to replace it please get in touch with us and we will reimburse you. at that point i thought i should point out it is so, i think it is going to come out. and the restaurant shows its true colors, yes, it is peeled. >> your picture is basically in the back in the kitchen. >> they not only grab whatever pictures they can of you but in my first month as restaurant

critic, in a restaurant that most was visible from the full a i was noticed, people would come in, stand inside the door, looked at the table for five minute and leave. this would happen over and over again. what was going on was the restaurant floor would be calling around the neighborhood saying if all you have today is the picture and want to see them in the flesh he is here right now. that was exactly what was going on. they would exchange notes on what music i was overheard, i am a big be york fan. there is a bit more bjork music played since i was a restaurant critic. >> there was a great scene in the godfather, they go to the restaurant in the bronx and michael has begun, is it true that you have gone into the men's room and dialed and call

your own home to write the review and your own telephone? >> away i would take note wasn't so much to disguise taking notes all the light didn't want to do it at the table but more not to interrupt the rhythm i would walk outside and pretend to have a cigarette or walking to the men's room and read it inductee into a tape recorder on will call my home voice-mail and that wait if i have a couple glasses of wine, i can wake of the next morning, access my message and take dictations myself. >> i want to ask a little bit about the long view of let's call it the art history of television today. so you have written about these shows, house of cards, you call the joyless.

metmen is an extended psychotherapy session. hundred years ago what will people think about life in america that this is what we were entertained by. >> uses so sweet that you think anyone will be left in 50 years. >> snapshot of our times, girls, orange is the new black. almost sort of quality to these shows which is just so downtrodden in tone. >> when you are watching egghead's or cable, a premium cable television lot of americans are watching very cheerful television about people being killed for good reasons and all that stuff. there are two americans. talking about doing a piece

about i like the walking dead. don't know if anyone watches it. to me it is a dystopia that is a cheerful happy dystopia because the world is ruined and it has been taken over by zombies but the survivors are all the same class and all knit together, frank was putting out movies like divergent or what was it called? >> snow peer sir. >> not only has the world come to an end but there's a big class difference like the 1% versus the -- only 2% left. there is definitely a distinction between the elite and the others. i was trying to figure out what could make television so cheerful and movies so cynical and i realized it is an industry that is threatened and in secure. there is nothing more -- you

want to blame someone you can't blame the end of the earth. you want to blame those people that are ruining my existence. tv is expanding so even though the world has come to an end it is great because there is more tv. >> if it is the tv series people have to come back. if it is a movie you got them in, depress them utterly, you have their money. i am not going to get it verbatim but one of my favorite leads was a review of the walking dead and if i remember correctly the best thing about the walking dead is they don't drive. >> it is true. zombies don't drive. >> if you think tv in general is sort of starting up or dumbing down, we have reality television, the lowest common denominator. at the other hand we have these

complicated dramas that even if you compare them to seals from 20 years ago, 1,000 times more sophisticated and move a lot quicker and i am curious on vol if you think television has gotten smarter in the last two or three decades or has it gone -- >> interesting. there's more smart tv, and -- >> i suspect it actually hasn't changed that much. the ratio, there was good tv, lot of terrible tv, not much of it. now we have so much of it. an interesting exercise to see

quality/quantity ratio. the great thing about netflix, just watching the american tv but all over the world, i keep urging readers to watch spiral which is a fringe crime show that is great and the british discovered was put on netflix. and some people are going to go to places, that is exciting. >> what do you watch that you want to tell people you watch? >> there are so many. >> give us the top 5. >> i watch a lot of sitcoms. i am not ashamed of that. i can turn on doctor phil and be glued to it.

i am embarrassed that i can watch -- we were talking about wendy williams. i cannot turn that stuff off. there is a lot to be ashamed of but i get paid to do it. it was my job to watch bad tv for you. >> let me ask a question. a college question. if you could go back to college to be undergrads again, 19, 20 years old, what would you study? >> history. >> i should follow, why would you choose the major you would choose now? >> i was an english major. i wish i challenge myself more and taken geography and history, social sciences. i missed an opportunity there.

that i hope other people who go to college. it didn't take advantage of things we have already know. >> and is often your last opportunity. and some economic concerns or as pressing and responsibilities. and stretching directions you wouldn't normally stretch at. to take chances and get net under you. and you still have all the time in the world to make up for your mistakes and have that later on. i would have been 0 would be

much more adventurous about everything in college, with the benefit of hindsight i realized it is not recognized later in life. >> you wrote a column in september. >> i know you are writing a book about colleges, demanding more from college. and the need to be more inclusive for expansive. and the real concern is a withdrawal from activity and politics, getting involved in citizen campaign. what will the impact be on our democracy? >> the impact will be pro found. if you are not using college to kill fill in gaps of your information, the history of your own country and world, you won't be suited to participate in the life of the country you are in

decisions. i have a big concern right now, i feel like the volume of the noise surrounding college admission and the incredible race to get into the schools is taking up so much -- it is so forming people psychologies that we are in danger of raising a generation of kids who are focused entirely on getting into things, crossing the threshold and not on experiencing what is on the other side of that line and that is my biggest concern about what we're doing to kids today in terms of our conversation about college. [applause] >> wind is the book -- when do you plan the book to be published? >> march 17th. >> you are done with it. >> it is done. >> why with a hundred channels and the thousand cable outlets

there is so little success for educational beyond the obvious public television. why is there no market to support it in this fragmented -- >> you haven't done -- have you tried to -- >> certain questions? >> greg nash teaches greek at harvard. people wanted to take it and some of them were taking it on line and didn't have people to grade it. >> people are online? >> yes. people -- education is very educational. people -- and my nephew, and

talking about full bore. and and the not these go to the german quarters, and i thought. people learning things that it wouldn't expect. and it is amazing how sophisticated cartoons are, how sophisticated, cultural references that are there it is not deep learning but it is exposing kids. and watching television or your

expertise. and a consultant -- they can fly you out, and the expert consultant. everyone in washington d.c. goes out of power and is already taken up by consulting groups. is there life after the time is. >> it shouldn't be in that revolving door kind of thing. there is in politics you couldn't beat a lobbyist. there is a pauline kael example. you was a brilliant film critic and warren beatty persuaded her to come to hollywood and work in movies and she was terrible because she was a critic, not a

film maker. not sure i have great advice to give to different fields but i root for good television certainly but i don't think that is it. i think i am going to be -- >> i will ask our guests couple quick questions and see how we do. it is called the lightning round. i love this one. >> a pop quiz. >> you are flying on diversion or jetblue or l a x, you know there is no food on the flight. what is your airport food drill? >> oh oh, six seven our flight. jfk has the so-called food court. almost every airport has the bar in terms of their protein, carbohydrates ratio, better than a lot of other stuff and if you are hungry and smart, you say

that under a little bit and a chocolate chip peanut butter one. >> what are you going to buy? >> i will have a drink at the airport first. >> the drink you get. what will you take on the fight that you find at the airport? >> i hope some kind of sandwich. >> tell us who you report to? who's your editor? control for knows what you are doing next? frank? >> oddly enough, when of the wrinkles, privileges of being an op-ed columnist is no one knows what i am doing next. one of my only job that the paper where your editor doesn't know what you are writing until it lands moments before it is online or whenever.

in these jobs we are given an exhilarating and absolutely hellish amount of freedom. >> my point but less so. i haven't had an editor and we discussed what has to be reviewed and she is very helpful. it is nice to have an editor. we should do this, are you sure you want to do that? told me -- >> let's start with a tv show in recent memory that you feel had the greatest impact in catalyzing some type of social change so what is on the air is impacting reality in america. >> i can't think of a better example. law and order this view which i watch instinctively. when it started, it was a period win in new york people were used to this idea of sex crimes and

that kind of thing but in the country it was not as well-known, the almost impact fold. not necessarily had the most social impact, there were a million of them. you can talk about all the family. law-and-order is the huge change the way a lot of americans understood what a sex crime is. and very entertaining. >> i will give the cliche answer but i don't think it is a bad one, the cause the show. there's a new biography of bill cosby. it certainly represented something in our sluggish march toward a better race relations. >> if they call you into the editorial office they asked you you really need to take six months leave. what would be a dream posting for you right now? where would you like to spend

six months but still reporting in? >> every president having a sex scandal, a nationalist movement growing, you have every possible story you want plus the sex scandal. >> i have fallen in love in recent years with portugal. maybe there. we talked about tv from the past. what is your most memorable television show from your childhood that you just remember, 8:00 on whatever it was, sunday night or wednesday, your favorite childhood -- >> does not allowed to watch television. when my parents would go out we had a spanish babysitter and we were allowed to watch one think which was professional

wrestling. i loved it. says that was the first time i realized my parents were out of town or whatever, how great is this? we with very small at the time. >> "all my children". a [applause] >> i have not watched a soap in a gazillion years. is like i'm talking about a different human being. i don't remember who i was. on bonded with my mother by watching all my children. a was so addicted to it that when i was in college there were courses toward my major that i failed to take into senior year because it is scheduled-1:00 p.m.. >> avalanche for frank first. i know you fly around a lot. best restaurant city in the united states besides new york city? best restaurant city in the u.s.? >> i think l a.

the truth is there is strength in numbers. it reflects a restaurant base. i prefer eating in l. a which is a more frequent answer. >> eating with frank. the best we had is when you did that for of southern -- change that not national chains. >> i did a cross-country road trip where i tried to hit nothing but fast food. and hit the fast food chains that were only regional. i had a co-conspirator, three friends who did a segment of the trip. if i remember quickly my friend harry went from new york to atlanta with me and i picked you up at the airport and sandra went from atlanta to dallas with me and my friend barbara met me in dallas, i was the only one

eating fast food for the whole week. >> you are first now. your past summer, to those in the sand, two weeks reading. what would you read this summer? the book you read that if you kept turning the pages -- >> i won't chile because it will sound pretentious. i read the best book i have read. >> you have 600 people that want to.. >> it is french, how pretentious is that? a wonderful novel set in world war i and is wonderful. >> the mystery french book. you had two weeks off this summer and -- what did you curl up reading? >> a tree you of comic novels by guy who spent most of his year in screenwriting. joe keene, he wrote a lot of frazier and another shall i am forgetting, the novels were called putting on the ritz, blue

heaven and my lucky star. they were all set in broadway or hollywood and i satires and unbelievably hysterically funny. i have no idea why they were not enormous bestsellers. >> in all your travels you were in moscow, in rome, what would you say is your most inspirational moment in front of artwork, artistic inspiration? >> does vodka account? >> and absolut bottle cap. works of art. >> 18 or sculpture. if you had never been exposed, you would have no idea what it looks like inside. it is mind blowing. >> there is a sculpture in a

church in rome that two people visit, the ecstasy of st. teresa. it is the most crazily sexual thing you have never seen that masquerades as religion. >> in st. pierre's? >> it is somewhere else. in the september. >> it is on the edge of the center. you can also look at it and you are not standing behind ten other people which is great. >> that is agreed to lease. my last question is of all the writing, all the articles you have published what was for you the greatest, most gratifying experience, the feedback and the letters, people saying in you because you wrote that column? what was that? personal, professional, gratifying work? >> there was no feedback and no one thanked me but i was very proud of a piece i did in russia

when the chechen war started where we were able to sneak into the morgue the russians kept, where you just realized how savage the russian army still is, hundreds of bodies with dead soldiers laid out on the ground for days and families would have to come in and bears themselves and you felt nothing change since 1930. again, i remember feeling like i am glad i did that. >> i wrote a column about a year-and-a-half ago about my relationship with my siblings and i felt i was writing something personal and heartfelt and narrow and it had a viral unlike any column i had ever written, one of the times that entire year, it was so moving that so many other people felt the very particular things about their siblings i had been trying to describe, you felt you were

blessed to make a connection. >> both of you moved our audience those they have some questions. we will take some questions and get it out the little bit, we are going to ask you to go to these two microphones. if you could ask the question and we will get this going as quickly as we can. preface your question, short and to the point. not all at once but here comes a lady, i am assuming you are coming to the mic. anyone here? do we have a question? here is a great -- >> we have defectors. >> this is -- i told you this would be the most curious audience in new england. thank you, man. >> i wrote this because i thought i would hand it to someone. i'm going to ask mr. britney, you said you had no editor at

the op-ed page. what about those incredible columnists that you write sunday and things like that, do you have better for those, it -- >> i miss spoke a little bit. we have editors, the presumption for opinion columnist because you are writing opinions and people want to respect that. the presumption is there's not a lot of editing. someone gets a column and make sure you haven't said something so clumsily and that no one knows what you mean. haven't violated taste standards of the time, that sort of thing. in the case of sunday columns i tell my idea ahead of time because my column illustrates it but no one ever says you should write this or you must register you cannot write this. in that sense we are on our own. >> and their broadcast television on the monday section of the times, the most important things, under broadcast television, in cis is invariably number one or in the case of a

football game or some reality thing it may be number 2. it was also just named the most watched series in the world at the 54th annual monte carlo television conference. why is it we never see what you mentioned, or its stars as in the winner's score even nominees? >> because hollywood is a very mean and jealous place. it is extremely successful. they have a formula that works and i get sucked into it myself, hating myself but i do. i don't think there is great artistic merit. that is not always what it is about that is what people aspire to. they want something surprising and if you have a formula that has worked that well and actresses have been so practice, hard to say this is a great

moment, that is what is. it is really successful in its broadcast. >> thank you. let's go to the mike over here. there is a great lady. >> i would love to hear your comments on the future of journalism. >> flows will be brief. you want to take that one? the blonde. >> there is the future of journalism. it may not be printed but people always want to know things and they will figure out a way to pay for it. i am not that worried. it will be our profession to get into and i don't recommend it for people who can't afford it. you are subsidizing yourself when you start out. if you are paying off college

loans you don't want to work for the huffington post, you can't afford it. that -- of fact that people always want to be journalists and people want to know you and read newspapers whether it is on line, i am not that worried. >> i am not worried it won't exist but there are trends you need to be aware of and concerned about. one is there is a trend toward more journalism be no opinion journalism because it is cheaper to produce, very easy for people, doesn't cost travel money or recording time to rip on the events of the day whereas going out and finding fresh information is an expensive proposition so i think there are elements of journalistic information gathering in serious jeopardy and that worries me. >> okay, yes, ma'am? >> for the very beginning of the new york times has been honed by the fullsburger family.

the washington post for most of its existence was don't buy the grant family and has recently been sold to the ceo of amazon and i wonder what kinds of comments you will make about the new ownership of the post. >> and there was a column about it. and the washington post journalism is looking pretty good but it is too soon to tell what is going to mean down a line. what they gained beverage different pockets to fund journalism, excellent journalism should we choose to do that selected turn out very well. we don't know what the owner's priorities are. >> i would as as cautionary note, the first people in it is the new executive editor, real

background in journalism, essentially at sophisticated one. he helped politico establish itself. at some level is he a fixture for visas. a question you have to ask yourself. why fat guy? unless your will skills are what you are after with the newspaper. >> okay. a question from a young lady at recognize from the today show and the food network. >> hello, i am a local girl. i am a local girl and was funny when frank mentioned all my children. don't know if you are aware of this that you are in pine valley right now. pine valley, the exteriors for pine valley were done -- >> is erica kane here?

>> no, but bruce and joe are in the other room waiting for you. "all my children" the exteriors were done in southport, conn. right here. philippe and i were talking today, you got to have a food question for frank or something relevant, you said all my children, i am going to go very local. we are here in time valley, fair andfields, conn. truth be told a lot of people don't go to new york from here, from the train station or south porch so if you go to manhattan with your family or an evening and get off grand central, where are we going to go for dinner with an walking distance and had an easy trip back to the train? everybody is always asking me where am i supposed to go in midtown where i can have a real experience? >> impossible to answer. it depends on your budget, your

priorities, what sorts of ethnic cuisines you are willing to eat. just one answer that is a universal answer. there's a restaurant on 39th street between fifth and sixth, my favorite chinese restaurant call session one gourmet, it is not expensive. the food is extraordinary, walkable from grand central, we have enough to left over to grab ice-cream at the terminal on your way back. >> where are we having a cocktail near grand central? >> in wonderful part in grand central. >> the apartment. >> that will be on the. >> thank you very much. >> this is getting late in the evening. we are living through the golden age, a female comedian, when do you think we will see a female

comedian takeover route network late-night show and who would you like to see who break that barrier? >> i like chelsea handler. it may just be women who are successful in comedy don't want that job. it is not that sexist any more. a lot of times if you are successful comedian you can write your own show, and have your hours, why do you want to do stand-up basically five night's weak and it is an exhausting, the guys who do it all do it because they grew up watching that guy. they watched lucille ball but they didn't say i want to be johnny carson so it is a self perpetuating thing. i would like to see someone do it but i don't think it has to be. >> you mentioned lucille ball.

just to follow up when lucy and desi went to the country they went to westport. as mike said, it is -- let me just say to all of us, we appreciate, we want to thank you, thomas jefferson, we talk about history tonight, jefferson reminds us where the press is free and every man and woman is able to read it is safe. i feel safer if the we have critics like frank bruni out there. i want to thank everyone for being here to our national audience on c-span. we want to say good night from fairfield university and please remember in election day please vote. thank you all from fairfield university. [applause] >> you are so great.

♪ >> coming up on c-span2 discussion on the conflict in the middle east and the threat of isis and iraq and syria. the senate is back in this morning, senator bryan shots of hawaii and senator tim scott of south carolina will be sworn in. they were elected in november. after that the senate nominations. live senate coverage at 10:00 eastern. >> homeland security secretary j johnson will take questions on capitol hill about president obama's executive action on immigration policy announced two weeks ago. we will have live coverage this morning from the house homeland security committee starting at 9:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3. in the afternoon officials from the nfl, nba, major league

baseball and the national hockey league testify before a senate panel about professional athletes and domestic violence. live coverage from the senate commerce committee begins at 2:30 eastern on c-span3. >> ann compton who recently tired as abc news correspondent over 4 years covering the white house and the administrations of gerald ford through barack obama. >> listened to a group of second graders go through their drills and card interrupted the president and i was stunned. i wrote it in my reporter at noble, 9:07, he whispers nobody interrupts the president even in front of second graders. the president stood and said he had to go and he went to a side room and then we heard, we discovered, that it was two planes in new york crashed.

came out to the pool, the parking lot outside the school and said stay here, the president will come talk to the pool and i said no. there are live cameras in the cafeteria, the president has to speak their. didn't want to scare the children but he did go into that cafeteria. was an apparent terrorist attack and almost returned to washington. we raced to the plane, pushed the board quickly, the war slammed at the pentagon was hit. >> sunday night at 8:00 eastern and pacific on c-span's q&a. >> senior adviser for the rand corp. says since 9/11 approximately 120 americans and about 2,000 europeans have to lend or tried to join jihadists fighting in syria. next a panel looks at the history of the isis threat to the u.s. and why westerners are joining the militant group. this is an hour. >> good afternoon, everyone.

hope you are having a good day. i direct land center for middle east public policy, our center focuses on the middle east from across the rand corporation. we try to focus on the most pressing political and socio-economic challenges facing the region and today the region is at a critical juncture. the panel -- that is an understatement--the panel you are about to hear from will be discussing the complex challenges we are facing in the region but i wanted to note that our center at ranch, we try to focus on longer-term solutions a common underlying each is generating so much violence today. that is why we focus on issues like education for syrian refugee children which is one of the greatest crises in the globe today. we also focus on the critical question of youth unemployment in regions like the middle east, in our view if we don't tackle these kinds of long-term

challenges, we are going to continue to see the cycle of violence that generates threats throughout -- rather than opportunities from this region. is my pleasure to introduce these distinguished panelists behind me and they are going to be expended on these challenges but i hope also finding opportunities as well. i can attest to all of their expertise and knowledge and contributions to rant on a regular basis and i work closely with them. karen elliott house is former publisher of the wall street journal. ..