i did not know this community. i have never been here. i did not had any friends here. i never heard about this before. when i was looking for settings for one of the stories i did about the washington post. i have just lost a big old general motors plant. they were soaking in the sub pay. it really hadn't began to see that. so i did not come. but they kind of lingered in my mind. and as i was getting close to getting started. i kept thinking about various places i could go and

something inside me and just kept telling me that janesville might be the place. why was that. i needed to find a place that had lost a lot of jobs. they are different figures that they could see. looking at that. about 9,000 jobs left this county. a lot of jobs if you look at what happened to the unemployment rate here at that time in june of 2008 when the announcement was made that general motors was quick to shut down production eventually here. in march of 2009 a few months after that. it shot up to over 13%. you are a winner or loser.

the on that i have the sense that i wanted to tell the story of what this big recession had done. it's important to me that i find a place that have not been pompously -- previously previously part of the west belts. i wanted to show what one bad economic time did. so flint michigan was an old story. obviously the journal plant here had been shrinking a little bit and then a little bit more. over couple of decades. and always got a new product. that was very appealing for me. as a place to potentially do this writing and the talking to people about what was happening in this community. i held the sense that no place

is exactly like everyplace. where the pattern of job losses match pretty well. if you think about what happened nationally the largest proportion when that manufacturing sector. a lot of the jobs that were lost were jobs i have paid pretty will but have not required higher education to get. that was true of it janesville. i thought that this was the community that have a number of the qualities and the in the lost jobs that other people around the country could identify with. i remember the first time i found a youtube video for a speech that then the senator

gave in february 2008. i don't know if any of you remember him coming. i remember the first time i listened to the video same the promise of janesville is as a promise of america. and of course gainesville had been a part of that. they started doing that. it has its own big moments. i have the sense there.

there might be something interesting. it was a steak led by paul walker. on saturday september 2 we are live from the nation's capital. with author presentations and viewer: segments featuring the likes of the pulitzer prize. in the former secretary of state condoleezza rice. and then sunday september 17 look for us at first at the brooklyn book festival. later in the month of the baltimore book festival taking place at the city's inner harbor. they will speak at the southern festival of books.

for more information about that. into what previous festival coverage click the book fairs tab. next on book tv robert o'neal the former navy seal credited with the kill of osama bin laden . it is my pleasure to welcome you here today. to begin our program this evening please stand and welcome the west covina high school jrotc honor guard.