and luce was of course seen as a republican partisan and certainly saw himself as a republican partisan. i recognize in these pages someone who agreed with the broad governing consensus. the time that government can have an affirmative -- has an affirmative role in making american life better and he was quite proceed sufferrous. >> alan just introduced a key word which is tort and tis auth absence of it.sufferrous. >> alan just introduced a key word which is authority and the absence of it. i believe, too, what everyone has been saying about the persistence of consensus. there's a kind of maddeningly baffling sense that i have when i go from one set of media to

another. i go from one set of media which we on the left like to call the mainstream media or the corporate media to the internet. and i find there all kinds of views that are powerfully argued and well buttressed with evidence against austerity or against knee jerk abroad. but these kinds of ideas don't make it in to public discourse. and the consequence is there's i think a deep innovation in the population. i'm not saying anything star telling or new here. but the consensus sill exist with respect to foreign policy or with respect to fiscal policy. but they don't have the kind of public support that they did 50 years ago. i think there is instead a deep

sin know civil about how these allegedly authoritative views are manufactured and that there are other equally authoritative views out there that are just not getting that kind of influen influence. >> the other 1k3e79 is tether e. and this can could become a very important period of our lives. on the other hand, where are the institution has height allmightm to build and become very influential. i'm not sure how that will happen. ows, i'm not sure yet. but it certainly raises issues that should be raised. and it's very hard now for

people to think for people to create a space for dissent. >> the at the same time, ows was informed by a lot of media that was obviously not mainstream media a lot of people making the arguments that what surfaced in zuccotti park, hundreds of websites both here and in other countries, and that in some way shows people will inform themselves if they're unhappy, they will find ways to inform themselves from journalism or otherwise. at the same time, i think luce thought america was united by something. now america is united by technology. perhaps pnot much more. and part of the problem is they

say we have the technology, we have the meet up rngs s, we hav to communicate on line. we don't immedianeed institutio beyond that. >> that's my cu developmee to q something that jackson wrote. it is delusional to pretend that the lumbering bow heem moths of the contemporary media industry have preserved any of the old republican concerns for an educated citizenry. >> that's what i want to talk about. >> that is a concern here of course and that's lower rate republican. >> yes. >> this is what of course i tend to believe is central to democracy.

it's not about voting. it's about an informed citizenry like the one michael was describing. again, there were plenty of limitations on it, but that sense that people were engaged with a variety of points of view that they recognize were coming from different ideological directions and that they were attempting on to sort out on themselves and in conversation with one another. so it is a question not merely of creating consensus, but of creating ripples of dissent within that consensus that can enlarge it or challenge it or deliberately fragment it. and would be other point about the civil rights movement, it was much easier for the civil rights movement to be assimilated into mainstream american political culture it seems because this was a demand for a very simple kind of

straightforward justice. we want what everyone else has. it was powerful, it was unanswererable. and no one has been able to dismiss it ever since. it's a moment that we keep returning to. i think journalistically, you mentioned taylor branch and others. because it's a heroic moment in our history when the civil rights movement succeeded. but the anti-war movement of course has never -- anti-vietnam war movement for example or occupy wall street, other movement has challenge more entrenched institutions and indeed challenge consensus have not faired so well. so i think that once again we're in this situation of where everyone talks of diversity, with you everythi but everything seems the same. there's a certain paradox here. >> i want to think about all these broader issues in the

context of the business of media and the history of the business of media. and the broader question i think is one of authority. do media now speak with authority, can they speak with authority. of course now we're talking about even the "new york times" that have less reporting, more opinion i would say, more gossip, the "washington post" in the first draft of history, it's the first draft of "people" magazine.ing their jobs. why did this happen? there is a narrative that involves this technology. people started reading blogs. i think it's a self everybodying narrative on the part of media barons because will this happened before there was an internet. and what was was newspapersill d before there was an internet.

and what was was newspapersll t before there was an internet. and what was was newspapers thi before there was an internet. and what was was newspapers thi before there was an internet. and what was was newspapersthis before there was an internet. and what was was newspapers were bought by companies that didn't specialize in media at all. and they had to show double digit profits every quarter. and how that played itself out was newspapers started dumbing themselves down and they started eating their seed corn. they started abrogating the very qualities that made them valuable to their constituencies, which was giving you something meaty to read and hold on to. the sun times, not to insult them, it's typical, it's barely a newspaper. it's a little scrap of a thing. and what's striking to bring it back to luce is that he provided a different model, a different

business model. that he had a confidence that quality without, that if he used the best paper, the best journalism, didn't cut corners and didn't write down to his readers, especially in the case of someone like fortune, which are collectors items because they're so beautiful and rich and wonderful, that key make lots of money. and he did. he became one of the richest men in america. the model of how he make money now is very different pip i. it's how we can cut corners. it's the bean counter mentality. the idea that journalism isn't different from any other business. so let's run a spreadsheet and look at our costs and let's get rid of these bureaus that are drains on our resources. and lo and behold, what do we have? no one reads newspapers any more. is it a coincidence?

i think not. >> is the idea that the press sef serves the public interests first and profits follow, is that romanticized and dead? >> yeah. i mean, i think that it died because of a shift in the norms of capitalism. it's the same reason steel mills died in the midwest. they 5% quarterly profit instead of 15%. so let's figure out ways tody vest the workers of their pension and manufacture our steel in japan and financial alize the economy. there's only one way of thinking how profit works. not enough to have a set of multiple stakeholders, the communi community you're answererable too, in the case of a newspaper, the civic public that you're ald

i addressing. there's only one model of value. and this a broad sense, and in a sense it's a shift away from lucism in its broadest sense. >> aren't we in danger here of playing -- being nos damagic a little bit? after all, capitalism is a creative system and inevitably young people especially were going to adopt it and businesses would have to adapt to it. i hear all the time of rich individuals not unlike luce just spending $5 million on a new website and hiring ten people on their website. now we can say the quality of the journalism is not as good as it would have been 50 years ago if those famed five people had started a newspaper in mid-sized mid western city, but that's not going to happen obviously.

so one thing i'd like to raise maybe is the question of visual. both in journalism and history. it would seem when i was a kid reading "life," was how much he learned from the visual of those help i ran across when i used to belabor historian an incredible series of articles about a steel worker named lopata who was earning $3.50 an hour and the you union came and he made $5 an hour. and of a fred was hired to illustrate this guy's life and there were photos of lopata he

door, his wife who is barefoot giving him his box lunch and him walking three miles to work and then will being totally exhausted at the end of the day and lying half contentsedly on the lawn outside his little shack and being washed off by his wife from the outdoor pump because they had the indoor plumbing. and ten years later, he finds he has a brick house, he has eight kids now, he had three before. life isn't wonderful, but he can make $10, $11 a day. he's worried about inflation, but he has a secure job. this to me illustrated what the union could do for people much better than four or five wonderful texts. and for me my students as we all know, they often learn more from a good power point slide which i then talk about than they did from a wonderful journal

article. so i wonder whether in some ways that is sort of an intersection between what's happened in journalism and to a certain degree with teaching. >> did you have a comment you wanted to make? >> no. >> before we continue along that realm which i think brings us on popular culture, it raises the question of who are the educators of the educated is e citizenry, politicians in some ways are among them. and michael, i just wanted to quote the title of a piece you wrote in the new republic. it was called new gingrich, american's worst historian.

so do you think there is a sense in which some american citizens get their history from political figures like newt gingrich? >> definitely. the best selling historian was glenn beck. at least last year. i'm not sure how his sales are doing this year. eve watch glen program, many people in america have, at lease when he was on fox. i mean, he was using up a white board and he was giving history less lectures in a very dramatic way. often with tears in his eyes. and of course for him the progressive era was the beginning of the dissent into held for america. of courses we've always had people like that before back in the 1890s, there was a coins financial school which was key work for populists.

it was a work of history. so that's not new. but in many ways i think conservatives now probably have a more, how should i say it, coherent narrative of history than people on the left do, in part because of people like glenn beck. >> a lot of our politicians, i won't specify party, are really poor historians and our journalists are poor fact checkers of that history. i recently wrote a blog post, it's called crooks and liars.com. no objectivity there. and i wrote about rick santorum's victory speech in iowa. which was hailed by among others a "post" columnist as the best speech of the night.

and i pointed out that in arguing that to the american dream is alive and can be restored, and that america is a place of freedom and opportunity, he told the story, a typical one, of his immigrant grandfather coming to america for freedom and opportunity. and the implication being because he did that, he, rick is an or tosantorum and his family able to enjoy freedom now. in between these two polls, he mentioned that his dadis an santorum and his family is able to enjoy freedom now. in between these two polls, he mentioned that his dads an santorum and his family is able to enjoy freedom now. in between these two polls, he mentioned that his dad an santorum and his family is able to enjoy freedom now. in between these two polls, he mentioned that his dadan santorum and his family is able to enjoy freedom now. in between these two polls, he mentioned that his dadn santorum and his family is able to enjoy freedom now. in between these two polls, he mentioned that his dad santorum and his family is able to enjoy freedom now. in between these two polls, he mentioned that his dad -- his grandpa was a coal miner in pennsylvaniand and he was paid in what he called coupons and what historians know as skrip. which means he was probably kept in something close to debt swlafry. and he had no freedom to move because he wasn't paid in cash. he described his grandpa coming

from mussolini's it what i to something that resembled futilism. and then he went along and said barack obama and the democrats want to destroy the freedom of this great american system that created this wealth and prosperity to my family. i was the only person when who noticed this. i don't want to toot my own horn, but a historical claim was made. it exposed a profound fallacy at the heart of what rick santorum was saying about freedom and liberty. ideally a democratic politician would point this out. when you have things like debt slavery and things like the inability to move without getting jailed because you owe your sole to the company store, that the government can step in and actually establish liberty. and that untethered property often violates liberty.

no democrat did it, no journalist did it. so we have a crisis of historical representation. >> jackson. >> i think that's an excellent example and i want to rise to a slightly more aerial view here on the question of journalist versus historians and the accounts they give of the past and the present for that matter. but it seems to me there is a concept all issue here that is very troubling to me and i think it affects self described conservatives and self described centrists. and that is the addiction to technological determinism. and rick alluded to this earlier in connection with the innovation of the internet as the explanation for the decline of newspapers or the explanation for the decline of the post

office when in fact we're talking about shareholders and legislators making decisions. of course i agree there is a consumer demand out there out t v visual and internet that we know the young are craving. from our classes, if nothing else. nevertheless, there is a tendency, i think, and this is particularly true of journalists. tom freeman is the most conspicuous. which is to invoke technology as an explanation for inevitable change, to which we have to adjust, whether we want to or not. this goes along with the celebration of freedom and choice that santorum and others are referring to as well. we have to love to do and want to do what we are going to have to do anyway, which is embrace this future. self-described conservatives

like jeb bush and others are in the vanguard of, you know, promoting online education in ways that will, in my view, my dinosaur-like view, undermine what is after all at the heart of the educational relationship, which is the face-to-face connection between teachers and students. it seems to me that people who call themselves conservatives, in fact, are quite willing. gingrich is another good example. he likes to present himself on the cutting edge of technology change and everything that he is proposing is dictated by the n innevitability that is shaping in his fantastic way. historians have an opportunity to challenge.

historians and precisely that the way you both have done with respect to the narratives of laboring men of previous generations. we do tell stories and we love complexity. complexity is the historian's truth. every time a historian comes to a conference, he gets to be the one who says, i like the models very much, but. >> are journalists addicted to simplicity, is that the implication? >> they shouldn't be. it should be keep digging and getting it right means getting it in all of its complexity. of course, you can get tangled up in self contradictory assertions and the like. you have to come up with a clear conclusion at some point. it does seem to me that by

complexi complexity, we are talking about human agency. we are talking about unintended actions of humans actions. we are talking about falling on the inventor's heads and the like. these are things historians have engaged with which is why i tell my students that history is tragic. it is about the history of unintended consequences and precisely those that don't fall into neat formulas. >> alan, as were you working on the book, how did the notion of getting it right play out, if at all? was it something which is clear to you? controversial or irrelevant? >> well, of course, i tried to get my own work right.

did luce try to get it right? i think he did try. he lived within a world in which a whole range of areas of american life were completely out of sight. luce didn't make much of an effort to find them. for example, at one point, he did a -- or i say he. "life" magazine did a piece on middletown in transition. the second volume of the middletown. they had a series of photographs of how people in muncie, which is the town of middletown represented, muncie, indiana. they had pictures of all of the levels of people in muncie, indiana. they had the balls on top of the ball family. it was the big wealthy people.

and they got all the way down to people who lived with chickens in their kitchen. all the photographs were the same. the surroundings weren't the same, but there was the same sort of happy family sort of vision from the wealthiest people to the poorest people. everybody was the same. so, no, he didn't get it right. he didn't get it right because he didn't want it to be what it was supposed to be. and i think in our time, we don't always get it right either, but at least i think we do see the differences that luce didn't see. there were so many areas of life. sexuality, feminism and for a

long time race was out of sight for a long time. i think it is much more difficult world when all of these things sort of came up into the culture, but i think we are better off in that way. the idea of a large consensual journalism is, which is what i grew up with and what i, of course, believed in since i was in a journalism family. if you think of -- and the idea was the larger the audience, the more important the television news was. the most important television news in the world is cctv in

china which a billion people watch every day. and i don't think we would like to live in a world in which cctv is the model for what we have. so i think we're better off than we may think we are. you know, at the same time, the nightly news has withered to a level. if you put together the audience for the three major nightly news shows, nbc, cbs and abc, you put the audience for those three together. they are less than any of the three nightly news where any one of the nightly news had more audience than the three all

together now. there's nothing in those nightly news shows anymore. so, the challenge, i think, of getting it right, is to find ways in which to make sure that people have access. it will not be as easy access as it used to be when everybody thought "the new york times" had all of the news and it was thought fit to print. i think the danger is that news will disappear because there won't be any money for people to create it. i don't think that will happen. i think we will have a very fragmented, but much more thorough way of learning about what the world is becoming. >> in a moment, i'll invite questions from the room. i have three quick questions. one for each of you. rick, you and michael were signers of a letter on the abc

mini series called "the path to 9/11" in which you said -- you complained of the falsification of history by the irresponsible broadcast network, abc. how important do you think it is that popular culture get it right? >> that is an interesting question. i am personally not a stickler for a pedantic in cultural history. i say if it is good enough for shakespeare, it is good enough for me. i think there is a different conception of truth that has to be honored in any representation of history. that is a poetic or moral truth. what offended me in that series was it just made stuff up of the