we have the executive editor of new york times arguably the two most influential editors of the two most influential newspapers in the country. dean has been in this job since 2014 having earlier served as editing manager. he also edited the los angeles times. martin joined the washington post in 2013 after 11 years editing the boston globe. both papers under his leadership harvested 12 surprises. he also helped edit the los

angeles times, the new york times and the miami harold. allow me to start our discussion tonight with a simple proposition that in a democracy such as ours if freedom of the press is jeopardized then democracy itself is jeopardized since one is intimately linked to the other. during the presidential campaign of 2016 donald trump routinely criticized the press humiliating a number of reporters, bullying others, challenging the very concept of freedom of the press as written into the first amendment of the u.s. constitution. if he won it would inevitably change. that is the way it has always been. he won and it has not changed. it has gotten much worse even on

occasion frightening. i use that word deliberately. the word of a president is much more consequential than the word of a candidate. i know other presidents have had their quarrels with the media but donald trump crossed a bright line when he accused reporters of being the enemies of the american people forgetting it was a favorite of many dictators and trump has gone further warning he might change laws that reporters might have to reveal their sources on sensitive national security stories or risk imprisonment even warning networks that their licenses to broadcast may be revoked if their new stories displeased the white house, stories called fake news.

what is president trump seeking to accomplish in this running war with the media and what should the press's response really be? so dean, marty, welcome. good to have you both with us. how does one cover a president trump in a wild era of expanding digital horizons? how do you do that at the same time perhaps under cutting your own traditional standards of mainstream journalism? >> first off you hold onto your standards of journalism. i think there are bedrock standards, truth, fairness that good journalists are aggressive, skeptical. i think you hold onto those things. obviously you have to come him at a remarkable speed and with

him you have to dodge the fact that, yes, all of the things you opened with are true. i think he sought to undermine the press. i think it's an attempt to appeal to his base by making the press look like it's not fair and by turning the press into a punching bag. i think over the long haul if you tell the truth and you're aggressive and fair and hold onto your principals i think in the end it's the only way you can cover it. >> i'm sure you agree with all of that. >> yes. >> the question i'm getting at is this president has a way, a very skillful way of dominating the environment. he is all over the place. he does it with his tweets, his personality, his style. how do you keep up with that kind of domination of the

environment? do you have enough reporters? do you have to stick to your basic rules as dean was saying before and still be able to cover it? >> i think so. i agree with dean. we have new ways of publish it. we publish not just 24 hours a day, seven days a week but people expect to get their news immediately typically on their cell phone the instant that it happens. it all poses challenges to us. we still have our values. we still have our mission. that remains the same. you know, every day when i walk into our news room we have the principal of the washington post on the wall. the very first principal which has been around there for more than eight decades and that is to tell the truth. that's sense of striving there because it can be elusive. it says that there is such thing

as the truth. it's not just a matter of personal flchblt personal opinion. there is a truth. our job is to try to determine the truth. that is what we do. it is nothing fancy. it is our work, the same work we have been doing for decades. >> you use the word truth. this is a president that has been violating the truth almost on a daily basis. we use the word lie now to describe many things the president of the united states is saying. now, you have your standards. in my judgment they are the right standards. how do you maintain them when the manual covering isn't dealing with them on many occasions? >> we actually -- i chose to use the word lie on the front page of the new york times. i think a lot of thoughtful

editors could disagree with it. we don't do it all of the time. i think the way you cover him is if he says x and if it is wrong you report out y. i think one thing marty said is true. i think you report aggressively and sort of lay out the facts. i think that's what we have been doing since i reported as a reporter in 1977. i don't think it's different. i think it's faster. i think it's more aggressive. we have set up operations. we no longer wait for two or three days to evaluate whether a politician is telling the truth. we try to do it immediately. we set up systems to do it immediately. on the other hand i have to say, it's some times easier to check things today.

the internet may have payrorols. >> it is hard to check a lie. >> if the president says that he cut a program by half a billion dollars i don't think they -- >> that's easy. >> that's 90% of the things you're talking about. that's sort of easy. you challenge them and report them out and lay it out. >> marty, when the president dismisses some of your best reporting as fake news and when according to many polls from 30 to 40% of the american people are buying into that description, how do you deal with that? how do you i realize you're looking for something more. i don't think there's a lot more to it.

every day the president, on his first day in office, he went to headquarters. he said i have a war with the press. the reality is we don't have a war with him. you know, we are at work. we are doing our jobs the same way we have always done it. look. you talk about fact check. we have had it at the washington post far long time well before the trump administration. in fact we doubled the size. we added an extra person. they have been doing fact checks far long time. they happen toed to be a little bu bu busier, but they are doing the same sort of work every single day. the very fact that the president is attacking us doesn't change things. we have to -- we can't just be reactive to that. we have to go out, gather the facts, provide the context, do it in an honorable way.

that's what we endeavor to do every single day. >> what is different about covering trump? >> well, it's a -- you know, look, it's a more hostile environment. there's no question about that. he was attacking us through the campaign and then far time during the general election as well. he condemned us.

so this is a more tlenting and hostile -- >> go ahead. >> if i can add, it is also a significant [ inaudible ] i actually don't want to have a co cozy relationship with any president. he turned up the volume and dramatically changed the culture of washington. i know this is not the sexiest

answer but i think that calls for us to stick to our principals even more. it calls for us to hold on so the values, the fairness, the toughness but especially to sort of like -- there are these dra t -- traditional journalism even before the arrival of donald trump. if anything i think the last year has been a call to hold onto those and to hold onto them tightly. >> okay. back in 1947 when jackie robinson broke the baseball barrier on color he still faced a great deal of prejudice and he got into a lot of fights. his boss pulled him aside and said jackie, don't punch back, just beat them on the field.

turn that into journalism now. how do you adjust to the almost daily taunts and jabs and insults without punching back? you're all making it seem as if it's sort of the same, your principals are the same. it can't be. how do you not punch back? >> it's what i'm trying to do here. i don't think that's true. i think we come to expect it. i happens every other day, maybe every day. it has become background music to some degree. it is not pleasant background music but it is background music. if we were to get all worked up about it and spend our time making an issue out of it we wouldn't be able to do our jobs.

if that's what he wants to do that's what he wants to do. we want to do our jobs. that's what we are going to continue do. >> you know, i know, everybody in this room knows the two of you, new york times and the washington post are in a kind of unsanely competition to pull another watergate. what i would like to know how do you respond to that kind of criticism which is not widespread but it's there?

>> it is one of the under valued journalism is competition. i hate it when i get beat. he hates it when he gets beat. the thought we could collude to do anything is utterly ridiculous except obviously we could collude to talk about the first amendment. the thought that we would be anything other than friendly and admiring but vicious -- well, he is vicious. >>. [ laughter ]

when the president keeps attacking the press, what is he seeking to accomplish? you said before playing to his base. fine. is that all he is trying to accomplish? >> i think if you look at donald trump's pattern through the campaign and then as president, first off he clearly goes after his critics. i think he goes after in particular critics and people who have independent standing. early in his presidency and probably the most independent and protected entities in societies and the press.

i think all presidents are frustrated by the power of the press, by the fact they can't tell us what to do. at our best we push back at them hard. i think for a guy that grew up in a world of business i think it makes him nuts. he is also a new yorker who grew up manipulating the press. i think page six was his playground. i think suddenly he arrives in washington at the pen of it all. >> you don't see a larger purpose here? >> i mean there's the obviously which is that he plays to a base that generally may not believe the press anyway, but i think some of it is personal

frustration. it was to manipulate the press. he got his way with the press, mainly the tabloids. >> is it possible? >> i hear you but part of it is just a guy who suddenly finds himself confronting a very different kind of press than he confronted when he lived in the world in new york. >> is it possible that by attacking the press, by creating a sense of fake news, by delegitimizing among an x per spe sent what it is you do far living that he may succeed, that at the end of the day his vision of it all may triumph? do you think it's possible and what would then happen? what is the price of letting this happen? >> i mean it has a corrosive effect. he is obviously saying something

that appeals to a large segment of the population. approval ratings were quite low. we have the not great distinction. the polls have shown a sharp decline particularly in the last year in approval of the presidency as well to the point where our standing and the presidency standing are beginning the intercept.

the approval rating were very low. a huge segment of the american proplati population saw that as a partisan enterprise.

>> i think the longview of the standing is among the. >> if it is to whatever degree, how does one reconstitute trust? how do you gain back the confidence of the american people that what you spent an awful lot of time and money doing is valuable and important? how do you sell that again? >> i mean i may be naive but i think when the press does its job and does its job which is to be an aggressive questioning watchdog of government even if it drops it comes back. press does its job vietnam, watergate, press didn't build up to the iraq war, i think when the press does its job and is aggressive, if it holds onto its

values i think history is filled with examples of where it comes back. i think as long as you get it right, as long as you stand up to power, as long as you aggressively question, as long as you hold onto all of that, i don't think you lose. i think history is behind us. >> you don't feel neither one of you that the combination of taunt perhaps action against you

it makes him more nervous. i think i'm with marty. the taunts and tweets have become background music. we don't even respond anymore. >> when i was covering lyndon johnson there were a couple of occasions he would call me on the phone, yell and curse and accuse me of all kinds of horrors. when they ended i was a shaken leaf. it was tough.

does anything resemble you? >> shouting, yes. >> not just shouting or anything like that that i'm aware of. you don't need an enemy's list. >> not aware of anything. so even ton the national securiy story. >> i don't have any evidence that it is happening. >> let me take a minute to remind you that we are raid you television and internet watchers, listeners, readers that this is the report on marvin and i'm talking to two of the nation's top editors what is

the single biggest challenge today? >> i think we have gotten past it. if you had gotten past it i might have said the financial future. i don't feel threatened by that anymore. i really don't. >> and now? >> the single biggest challenge, there are a lot of them. i mean the single biggest challenge to my mind is not just the new york times, it's whether local news, which i think is in the middle of a crisis, whether the country can survive what i think is going to happen in the next four to five years, which is many local newspapers are going to go out of business. i believe i have an obligation to make up for at least some of

that. i think i have an obligation to do what i can to help some of those survive. if you ask me what's the biggest challenge facing journalism, i can answer that. it's the inevitable decline and death of some of great local news organizations. it is so called news that's coming from media outlets that deliberately spread false information. people are open to those because some how it conformed to their view of the world.

we could agree on what happened yesterday and disagree on what do about it. i think it's not just a challenge for a press but a challenge for democracy. how you have a healthy democracy and a well functioning civil society if we cannot even agree on a baseline set of facts. >> i have to go back to the first question i asked you, which is if you are dealing with a president who attempts to build up the concept of fake news, it only worsens your problem. >> no question. >> and how does a newspaper today -- you run the two biggest

newspapers in the country, that is a huge problem totally agree with you. how do you deal with it? do you deal with -- when you say i want aggressive reporting, those are words. they are words of great importance. is that it? >> we don't have total power obviously. so we do have to do our jobs. also i think we can be more transparent. talk more about who we are and how we go about our work. it is all of that. i think people are entitled to

know how to reach us. we can show more of the documents and we can disclose full transcripts or full audio of interviews we conducted. we did a focus group and people didn't know what date lines were. they thought it meant she made a lot of phone calls. i think we need to tell people that she has been covering wars in afghanistan, here is who she is. here is her background.

to the best of my knowledge you established the foundation in the news room to attract money to help you cover the news. >> we literally just started that. that's not why i feel more comfortable. that's brand new. i feel comfortable because over the last year -- and this is one thing i would point to.

>> so trump has been wonderful? >> that's a complicated answer. just to finish, i think for my institution -- and i suspect the same is true for marty's the evolution and economics for great news organizations is that we are much more dependent on readers. i also think it ensures institutions that are high quality -- >> do you still make more money -- >> no. we make more money on subscribers on print and online. when i started in this business

80% of newspapers revenue came from advertising. . >> you have been known to have deep pockets. does that mean you have no financial problems at the post? >> no. [ laughter ] we are having a very good year. we have seen tremendous growth. it has had a dramatic impact.

it is quite a good year for us. the objective is to create a sustainable business model. we are not a charity. he doesn't treat us like a charity. if people were to get tired of this charity we would be in deep trouble. we want to create a business model that would last for many decades. >> have you done that? >> last year was our first profitable year. we are doing far better. >> we still have a lot of things to work on as does the new york times. the two of us are in better shape than newspapers around the country and that does remain a huge crisis in this country

right now. >> i was joking before when i asked you whether trump is good for business. it occurs to me that maybe -- i'm sure you thought about this, maybe the reason the subscription rates are going up is people want to know about a president who dominates the news. >> sure. >> it gives you an opportunity into this new president both were ready to take advantage of it. not every has seen the dramatic increases that the post and new york times have seen. the thing i think trump has done for me as a journalist, i think there is a period when

newspapers sort of lost a little bit of their confidence. our economics are more in turmoil. >> there has ban shift among the

american pub lichllic. it's changed. people don't take the press for granted anymore. they have a better understanding if they don't support quality journalism, if they don't support quality journalism they will not get quality journalism. >> we are talking about it from two very distinctive news organizations. you mentioned the news organization in the central part of america. perhaps you were saying to yourself some of these may have to go out of business. >> i think local news is in deep trouble. i think the financial model that the post and new york times have managed their way through, which

is the dramatic decline, i think a lot of these newspapers have cut these to the point that it's hard for them to charge the kind of money our news organizations charge. i think there are entire sections of america that aren't covered. i grew up in a newspaper in new orleans that is a terrific newspaper. i'm sure the staff is a tiny fraction of what it was. my guess is there are places like mississippi and alabama that don't cover their congressional delegations. they don't have washington correspondents. unless they are very powerful members they become national figures. and there are other news

organizations in some cases. that's not happening for the most part. i think it's catastrophic. i think there are school boards making decisions with nobody watching. it means there are budgets getting passed in places where the news organizations and their staffs are too small. i already think we are in the middle of a crisis that people have not woken up to. >> i agree. more than half the states have -- the press has no one in washington actually covering their congressional delegation. perhaps the biggest has one or two covering the governor. it is the politics and the

policy and they are expected to do an investigative piece. it is not even possible to do the basis. city councils going uncovered. a lot of things going uncovered. forget about the other powerful institutions and powerful individuals in town who should be covered as well. i think overall it leads to lack of accountability he was making reference to. i think that's hugely concerned because who is going to step in to do that kind of work? >> also when i was a reporter for the new york times spending most of my time in washington i think there was a stretch near the metro where there were like eight or nine newspaper boxes with all of the regional newspapers. if you got beat on story partly because all of them use wires

and a lot of them were competing you walk past the post but then the sun, each one was like a kick in the stomach. i was practically crawling. that's groone. they are not factors where they were. >> let me talk to you for a sec about social media and how journalists who are dealing with social media which could be a blessing or a curse. i am not at all sure of that. dean, you recently announced some new guidelines on the use by your reporters of social media? >> yeah. >> why the concern? >> the first thing i should say about all of this, social media, the digital landscape, it's all actually great. we spent a lot of time as journalists sort of, you know,

debating and of course it's all hard. but the big news organizations like mine have more readers than we ever had. we are -- more people can access this. the reason we change our social media policy is i thought it was too easy. >> what did you change it to? >> we always had a policy that said essentially journalists should not say anything on other platforms and on social media they wouldn't say in the pages of the new york times or on various platforms. we weren't aggressive enough and sort of making it a front and center policy. we just announced a front and center policy. is essence is don't say anything on twitter you wouldn't say in the new york times. i think there's an entire generation of journalists.

we encouraged them to have large followings, encouraged them to find audiences for their stories. i want them to do all of that. i was worried that there may have been instances. we are in a time when the press is being poked by its enemies, pushed to be pro voktive. even television news does that. we are in a climate which everybody has strong opinions and what i wanted to do is make clear -- i don't want it to lure any of our people into saying things. >> fair enough, but i remember when he was editor he would say the one that would appear they could appear on cbs. he wouldn't allow it at all.

you now just said it. you want it to get out. >> yes. >> the publicity thing for you. >> yes. >> okay. but on cable television, when a reporter for the post, when you appear on fox or on msnbc the n environment screams a political point of view. your reporter is asked to discuss the story that will be in tomorrow's post. i'm not saying that the reporter goes beyond that. i'm saying that the environment suggests that that reporter is hooked in with the left to right. how do your manage it? can you have it both ways? can you want the publicity without going along with the costs? >> i'm not trying there.

i think our reporters can behave in a very professional manner and that -- i mean you're supposed just because they are there they are assumed to have a particular political point of view. >> eye donyou don't see that at? >> i don't believe that is the case. you would have to point me to some specifics. we want our reporters to be out there. the people on our staff too. there are authorities in their fields. they have spent a lot of time. they have expertise. we want them to sthar. we want tho them to view it. these days it is helpful if they make proper use of social media. it is helpful if they are on television and radio and that's where a lot of viewers are. so we would like to reach them. we would like them to be thinking about the washington post and i don't think they necessarily engage in risky

behavior because they are appearing on the air. >> i specifically said i am not at all criticizing the reporters. >> i'm not sure they are perceived as such. >> okay. let's leave that as a difference. >> can i add one thing? >> yeah. >> you said it's not for publicity. it's to call attention, but i'm in this business to have impact. i want -- if i do an investigative story like the weinstein reporting i want it to have impact. i want it to be read. i want it to be discussed. i want it to have impact on the world. yeah. i want -- by the way, i want people to meet the reporters who did it. i think people benefitted that he is like a normal nice guy. >> yeah. >> i feel the same way about the

story. [ laughter ] talking seriously for a minute. >> yeah. >> do we have to? >> really serious. >> what i would like to say is that journalists around the world tend to look towards the united states as a beacon for free press. they look to it for that. i'm wonldering if you think that president trump's attacks on the press have effected the way other governments deal with their press? >> well, i want to say it's easy for americans to get down, so upset about the way donald trump attacks us that we forget we still have these amazing freedoms that other news organizations don't enjoy.

neither one of us but our editorial pages can say whatever they want to say. i can publish a three part series about anything. he can complain. we can cover that and we can write an analysis about it. we have remarkable freedom in this country. >> i totally agree with that. >> but yes, i do think it is almost inevitable that if the president of the united states feels comfortable saying the list of despicable things that has got to be empowering to countries that look for excuses to beat up their journalists and to beat us up too. it is a little bit hard for me as we keep making a case that we should make our web site more available which they shut down after we did an investigative piece if the president of the

united states is trashing us all over the place. that's for sure. >> marty, one of your reporters who was right here with us tonight was captive in iran for 544 days. we are so happy that he is now the free man and free journalist once again, but how do you protect reporters who are in similar dangerous very troubling environments? >> we try to take every precaution possible. we provide security counseling all along the way. what happened to jason was horrible and totally unexpected. it came out of the blue for us. that's not where we perceive the greatest risk at the time. you know, we are very concerned about reporters who are covering

syria, reporters who were in iraq, afghanistan and places like that. journalis journalists. turkey has cracked downpress, a concerned about that. journalists who are operating in mexico where journalists are assassinated. domestic journalists are assassinated on a regular basis. journalists in venezuela where journalists are imprisoned on a regular basis. so we are concerned about the security of our people who operate in those environments. we do have people who advise us, experts who advise us on security. we keep track of our journalists' movements so we know where they are. >> if one of them was kidnapped and you had a ransom request of $5 million would you pay it? >> these are hypotheticals that we would never discuss as to what we would do or how we'd respond to anything of that sort. i am not going to discuss that.

>> okay. okay. one student from the university of oklahoma, who is with us tonight, asked me to ask you this question. it's a wonderful question. she wanted to know whether -- we're all going through a kind of temporary phase in our american democracy with president trump and that, when he leaves office, whenever that be, we'll all return to something that resembles a normal presidency and a normal america. so what do you think about that, dean? >> i don't -- i don't know. but i would say a couple things. i think that washington and the press and the government will be different in a post-trump era. i think that there is just no -- there is no question -- i don't think, you know, let's say donald trump is president for eight years. i don't think that the next president comes in and all of

the changes that have been made, all of the debates that have been had -- and by the way, the one thing i would add, those debates, many of those debates are the reason he was elected. i don't think those debates are going to -- i mean, there are fierce debates in the country about the role of the media, the role of the elite, the role of the coasts, and those debates are going to still go on. i think, if we -- if we pretend that donald trump is not a product of those debates, we're going to miss the opportunity to really monitor and understand a discussion that was going on in the country before him and my guess is we'll go on after him. he is a byproduct, what everyone thinks of him -- i'm not going to judge him, that's not my job -- he is a byproduct of some pierce debates and economic upheavals in america that are not going to go away. >> let me ask each of you a final question and give you, as

we say in television terms, 30 seconds to answer it. i want to a detailed answer. seriously, what kind of advice would you give to young journalists in the audience here or to students who want to go into journalism, given sort of the negativity, whatever, going on today? what would you tell them? what advice? marty, start. >> it's short and sweet. go into it. go into journalism. it's a great profession. it's going to have a future. not withstanding the enormous challenges we face. one person -- it's a great field. one person can make an enormous difference. one person. if you want to be the person who can make an enormous difference, it's a great field to go into. >> dean. >> this is the greatest time to be a journalist. look, i grew up in a world where there was one platform. print. i now -- i called max frankel and sent him a note one day saying, my god, i just ordered a video. i mean, there is no question

that the best news organizations are, like, a billion times better than they ever were before and that the opportunities are greater. >> thank you both very much. i am afraid that our time is up for now, running out of time. but in closing, forgive me, but i would like to go back to an earlier point about the relationship of a free press to political authority. and i would like to say that, in my career as a journalist, i spent a lot of time covering the soviet union. there was a country at that time governed by communists. they had little taste or understanding of personal freedom, much less press freedom. everything was determined by the master leader, the guy who ran everything from the kremlin, who thought he knew more than anyone else and, as a result, everyone from doctors to journalists, had to stand up and salute, never rock the boat, never be critical

of him or of his policies. i did not like that arbitrary style of governance then or any version of it, and i don't like it now. what i have learned over the years is that only a free press can truly protect us from authoritarian government. only a free press can ensure a continuation of a vibrant democracy. the two are inseparable. if a political leader, for whatever reason, finds it to his advantage to attack a free press, to humiliate it, to disparage it, he is really attacking democracy at its core. and that has no place in this country. at least that is my view. let me now thank our audience here at the national press club and all over the world. and especially i want to thank our two editors, marty barron of the "washington post," dean

baquet of the "new york times," for taking the time to be with us, for sharing their thoughts, ideas, experience with us, and for giving us hope that their leadership will inspire a new generation of reporters to go out there and get the news without fear or favor. that's it for now. i am marvin kalb. as ed murrow used to say many years ago, good night and good luck. [ applause ] >> thank you. thank you very much. we now have an opportunity for me to keep quiet and for you to ask questions. and we have two cameras. one there, one there. please, if you have a question, go to the camera area and i will

recognize you. it's right there. and right here. and i'll start over here with one young lady. go ahead, please. give me your name. ask a question. don't make a speech or i'll be forced to cut you off and i don't want to do that. >> i'll resist the temptation. first i would like to say thank you for your terrific reporting, especially on both the dea story and the harvey weinstein story, especially as a woman, frankly. you both talked about data, okay, having more data about your readers. i am joan michaelson with green connections media. but there is a balance here, you know, we have to tell what we need to know -- readers what they need to know which is not always what they want to know and sometimes they're in conflict. so how do you decide what to cover? i mean, how much of the readers' opinions and desires to take into account so that you don't

end up really skewing -- not covering things you need to cover and maybe covering too much that's my opinion superficial, but how do you decide between what the audience input is? >> thank you. >> i would say, in the old days of newspapers we knew nothing about readers, and i think we gave readers sort of what we thought they wanted. and i don't think that was any healthier. i think, in fact, that my gues s is readers -- you had to buy your newspaper, right? you didn't even know what the weather was going to be in the morning if you didn't buy your newspaper. i think that knowing what readers want as long as you balance it, is better. i think sometimes people misunderstand the use of data. they think that data is we sort of wake up in the morning and we say, oh my god, the readers loved this and didn't love this, let's change it. 70% of the way we use data is,

oh, my god, people seem to -- people in asia want to read a story that's at their time in asia. or people tend to want to read -- they read longer stories in the evening. i am just sort of riffing. if they want to read longer stories in the evening and if i have a story that a reporter has worked on for six months and it's a long story, i'm certainly going to put it up in the evening. i don't -- i mean, i like knowing what readers want. it just so happens i am fortunate the readers of the "new york times" want what we've been giving them traditionally. i don't think people want the kardashians from the "new york times." i don't even think we would know how to do that if we did that. >> they don't even know who they are. >> they don't. that's true. >> i want to know. and i also, you know, i think it's healthy for me to know that. i don't think we're going to do

anything to chase cliques, but i want to understand my audience. i want to understand when they read. it's important for me to know if, you know -- in the print era we all had this suspicion that people didn't read past the jump. well, nowadays, if you know people don't read a story of a certain length on a certain day, run it when they'll read it. i think that's fine. i want to be read. >> thank you very much. yes, please. >> carl, an idea lives on.net. i would like to raise a question or concern that, is the largest corporate media really to be trusted that it hasn't been coopted or guided by the deep state or even the deep church or deep temple as the hand and the glove of the deep state? i point to in the '50s operation mockingbird to spend money at the top levels of journalism. time life, for example, to keep covered up some of the aspects of the kennedy assassination

which 50 years later we're still -- >> please ask a question. >> i think i am. >> no, you're not. >> have either of you heard of operation mockingbird, or will you refute the notion that the mainstream media is guided by the deep state. >> i will refute that notion. i bet marty seconds it. completely refute that notion. thank you. [ applause ] >> totally. i don't even know where to find the deep state. >> i don't even know where to begin. i really don't. look, i mean, the term "deep state," you're talking about people who work in government, i guess. so look, i mean, i don't -- we're just doing our jobs the way that we always have. the idea that there is some sort of hidden hand here is crazy. the reality is that these days, as we talked about before, the bulk of our -- huge amount of our revenues, growing amount of revenues are coming from subscribers, the people that we have to satisfy day in and day out are our subscribers. you know what they want from us

for the most part? they want the kind of journalism that's traditionally been done, and that is they want investigative reporting. they want honest and honorable journalism. they want deep narratives. they want all of that and they are willing to pay for it. you know what guides us? our subscribers guide us. that's who guides us. >> yes, please. >> hi. i am casey decker a senior at gw. my question is about analysis pieces. you both have, i guess, sections like the fix or the upshot where people who are not clintonists, staff writers, provide their own insights. my question is, to what extent do you worry that those analysis pieces create a slippery slope from objective reporting to outright opinion especially in a time where people are having a hard time figuring out what is fact? >> thank you. >> that's a good question. we work really hard. the analysis pieces have become much more important, not only the upshot but just traditional political analysis is more

important today than it was before. and it's harder to do because the traditional daily news story now has to have analysis. analysis pieces were born in newspapers in an era when the news story was just the facts and you needed a story that said, when the president does this he is reaching or a, you know, whatever symbol, foreign policy or whatever. but i think that those stories are -- we police them, we are careful about them. we slip sometimes, but i think they're really important and probably more important than they ever were because they illustrate the expertise of a news room. and i think we have to do them. we just have to be careful about them. >> marty, would you like to add something? >> look, it's tricky territory. no question about it. it's a good question. what we try to do is that we -- i don't think we should be stenographers. i think what we want to do is -- we don't want to just report what people say, we want to report what people do and we also want to explain why it's

being done, whom it might affect, whose responsible for those decisions, and then you start getting into the territory of analysis. >> right. >> one thing that we do is we label it. we actually label it analysis. we label something opinion. we label something, you know, perspective or things like that. and that appears on all of the digital platforms everywhere we are, no matter where it is, whether it's on snapchat or it's on, you know, on your mobile device or if it's on apple news or wherever it might be. it could be in any one of those places and more. he woo wa we want to make sure the label follows it wherever it goes. >> yes, please. >> i am jim gukert. my question is for mr. baquet. would you comment on the james o'keefe video. and explain to us whether you believe his work is investigative journalism or not. >> i think his -- do people know james -- i think his work is not

investigative journalism. >> would you explain. >> james o'keefe is a guy who happens to be conservative, who goes out and tries to trick journalists into saying inappropriate things and then he puts them on his website. a journalist has to have at his heart or her heart a desire to make society better. all james o'keefe is trying to do is hurt institutions and get some clicks. he just did a video about it that i think -- i used the word before and i'll use it again -- was despicable. he managed to trick a very young videographer -- not even -- a very young employee of the video unit of the "new york times" into saying some outlandish things because -- because he was a young guy who wanted to have a conversation with a woman. he said he was -- he was jim comey's godson. he said he was the gatekeeper of

video at the "new york times." he made all kinds of outlandish claims. he was a kid. what james o'keefe did in jeopardizing that kid's career was awful. i don't think it's journalism. i think it's complete -- it's destructive. it's dishonest. he lied about who he was -- his employees lied about who they were. no, i don't think that's journalism. journalism has got to have some value at its core, some desire to make society better or better informed, and that's not that. >> thank you on that. thank you. [ applause ] >> yes, please. >> yes. i am charlie clark with government executive media group. the trump people would assume the two news rooms you represent are peopled by a whole lot of liberal democrats who did not vote for trump. i am just wondering how confident are you that you have a good diversity of political leanings in your newsrooms? >> we don't ask. i am sorry.

we don't ask. i am not going to ask. i never will ask. there is no litmus test. i interview pretty much every job candidate who comes through "the post." and i have done the same at "the boston globe" and at the "miami herald," and in a lot of instances at the "l.a. times" as well. i never asked. i never will ask. i know that people could come f lot of different backgrounds. the notion that people are only coming from the coast, are only part of the elite, is a complete myth. our deputy national editor -- she grew up on a farm in western pennsylvania. her brother still runs the farm. we have one of the individuals who covers health care for us, she grew up in a family of 12 kids. she was home-schooled. she went to wheaton college which is an evangelical christian school. her roommate also works for us covering religion. so we have a wide variety of people with different baub

backgrounds. that's what i look for. one thing we have endeavored to do is to hire for vets into "the post" as well. we want to continue with that. i think it's an important thing for us to do given the country has been at war for so long. that's clearly part of the american experience. used to be people in newsrooms had been in the military because there was a draft. but there hasn't been a draft in a very long time. and so i think now we need to make sure that we bring vets into our newsrooms. and we are endeavoring to do that. i think the "times" is endeavoring to do that too. >> yeah. >> so that is -- i think that's important, to have a variety of backgrounds. whatever their political views are is their own business. i'm not going to ask them. they can go into the booth in privacy and cast their vote however they wish. >> thank you, marty. we have a little more than five minutes to go. please shorten up the questions a bit and the answers. go ahead, please. [ laughter ] >> that's for dean.

i am sorry. this will be brief. my name is eric meltzer. a member of the board of governors at the press club. i am pleased to hear the pendulum is leaning towards readership for revenue instead of advertisements. however, why are there sometimes articles or sections in your paper from chinese media that don't always meet the same high standard of journalism that we hold here in the u.s.? >> i think you're talking about us. so we have an advertorial section that was china daily. that was a decision made by the business side. it's clearly labeled as advertising not news. you consider it to be advertising. >> i am josh leach, a student. one of the things that's getting into the nature of the new media age is compartmentalization.

people are able to pick and choose the news they get. how do you sift through the noise of all of that and all of the fake news or otherwise to get your message out to the readers? >> i think -- i will be short. i think marty addressed that earlier a little bit. i think part of it is doing things like this. part is talking about who our reporters are. some of it is people think -- have a certain mythology about who runs america's papers. marty is from tampa. i am from new orleans. i think it's just letting people know that we're really -- we are honorable people who make mistakes sometimes. but who have honorable goals and are -- and, you know, we hire veterans. we want newsrooms that look like america and we want you to know it. that's the main thing. >> thank you. [ applause ] >> yes, please. >> hi. i am gail reuben. my question is, how do you view

the press' coverage of candidate trump, and how might we avoid reelecting him? [ laughter ] >> -- in the next go-round based on all that free coverage. >> well, look, the choice of who to elect is up to the american people, okay. so our job is to give people, the citizens of the united states, the information they need and deserve to know. so, i mean, i think that -- i am proud of our coverage. i think dean is proud of his coverage at the "new york times." i think we investigated pretty much every aspect of donald trump's life and career. that said, there were networks that carried him live, all of those rallies, without saying what was true or false for hours on end largely because of the ratings. i don't happen to believe that was the right thing to do, is to carry him uninterrupted rally after rally after rally. where i think that we -- what i

think we failed and i think the press in general failed was what we didn't do before donald trump ever became a candidate. once he became a candidate we took him very seriously as a candidate. and did those investigations that i just talked about. but before he was a candidate i think we should have done a better job of writing about the level of anxiety and grievance that existed in vast swaths of the united states and we should have brought that more to the fore. we needed to do a better job of listening to all of america, and we are determined to do that going forward. >> terrific. yes, please. >> i am elliott haywood, a freshman at gw currently working on a paper on how print journalism and radio journalism can increasingly attract mi millennials. what are the "times" and post doing number one in terms of data analytics -- what does your

data say in terms of how many of your new readers are millennials number one. number two, what are you doing other than increased presence on social media and online publications, what are you doing in the future to kind of stay relevant? >> there are areas of coverage, speak for the "new york times." there are areas of coverage that -- i think you can make yourself nuts, by the way, chasing every sort of demographic group. but there are areas of -- i think that traditional news organizations are read more by men than by women, and i think that's partly a reflection of the people who run them and the people who write for them. i think diversifying your staff helps. we just started a gender vertical with the idea that we want -- and we've done the same with the race vertical -- that there are some subjects that were not present enough in our pages that we needed to get present in our pages. and they actually are starting to draw audiences that -- those are just examples -- audiences

that we didn't necessarily have before. >> i'll tell you, our audience -- it's pretty close to the "new york times," is about a third of our audience is millennials. by the way. and we have something now called the lily, which is targeted essentially at millennial women. it's been quite successful. we -- and when jeff bezos acquired us, one of the things we thought about in addition to thinking about how to become more national was how do we appeal to younger people because, if we don't have younger people reading us, we won't have a rememberedshadersh future. we have a blog about internet culture which people are interested in. we have a blog about the environment which younger people are keenly interested in. so we've done things along those lines. >> all of which, by the way, make our journalism better, period, for everybody. >> absolutely. >> they are not done in a way that panders to readers. we understand that there are things we weren't covering that

would draw the readers that actually we should be covering. >> we have time for one more question. i apologize to the people who will not have a chance. there is just one here. please. >> hi. my name is alexis claiborne. a student of loyola university of chicago. my question is in regards to investigative reporting. both your papers have released shocking expose' s on harvey weinstein and the dea recently. how do your journalists overcome the challenges you've discussed tonight to produce such gripping stories and what's the overall impact of these exposes on how the general views you? >> the harvey weinstein story -- the reaction has been probably three times what i anticipated. i think it's the result of bill o'reilly and even some of the coverage of donald trump during the campaign. i think -- i mean, how do you do it? that is like old-fashioned banging on doors, convincing

people to talk, trying to find -- trying to to get them to give you documents. it's the same stuff i did as an investigative reporter a long time ago, and my job as an editor is, give them the time, make sure that they understand i truly value it, and just get the hell out of the way and support them when they do it, which, by the way, would have been the answer in 1977 when i started. >> marty, you want to add something? >> look, i mean, i'll just address the issue of how our readers respond to that. i agree with everything that dean said. but readers really value it. i mean, really value it. when we do a great investigative piece, we see a tremendous response from our readers. they are thankful. i saw this at "the boston globe" and at the "miami herald" as well when i worked there. they say, thank you for doing this work. if there weren't newspapers this wouldn't be done, this is why we need to support quality journalism, this is why i support you.

and we need to remind -- we need to keep doing this kind of work, and we need to keep reminding the public that this is something that we do more than anybody else and better than anybody else and that, if we weren't there, this work would not be done. >> we are out of time. and i just want to thank all of you again for being here, for your questions, and i just want to say to our two guests that i cannot express my gratitude adequately for the fact that you took the time to be with us. i have enormous respect and admiration for the two of you and for the institutions that you represent and for the broader sense of the concept of a free press, which you both advocate big-time and powerfully. i think we are all very grateful to you and the work that you do. >> thank you. >> thank you all very much for being here. good night. [ applause ]

ladies and gentlemen, thanks for joining us tonight. please drive carefully. white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders as scheduled a briefing today. she'll answer reporter questions at 2:00 p.m. eastern. we'll have it for you live when it starts on our companion network, c-span. the heritage foundation hosts a panel discussion on recent supreme court rulings involving freedom of speech. we will have live coverage at 5:00 p.m. eastern also on c-span. and later, remarks from janet

yellen, the federal reserve chair who met with president trump yesterday, will speak at a national economists club dinner. our live coverage begins at 7:15 p.m. eastern on c-span and a programming note, you can watch all of these events live online at c-span.org or listen on the free c-span radio app. a live look at the u.s. capitol here where both the house and senate are out of session today. late last night, the senate approved the 2018 republican budget resolution by a near party-line vote of 51-49. the only republican voting against the measure was kentucky's rand paul. this clears the way for work on tax reform, which the white house would like to complete by year's end. we'll have more live house and senate coverage when the gavel comes down next on the c-span networks. sunday night an "after words." >> over 90% of sexual harassment

cases end up in settlements. and what does that mean? that means that the woman pretty much never works in her chosen career ever again. and she can never talk about it. she is gagged. now, how else do we solve sexual harassment suits? we put in arbitration clauses in employment contracts which make it a secret proceeding, so, again, nobody ever finds out about it if you file a complaint. you can never talk about it, ever. nobody ever knows what happened to you, and in most cases you are also terminated from the company and the predator in many cases is left to still work in the same position in which he was harassing you. so this is the way our society has decided to resolve sexual harassment cases, to gag women so that we can fool everyone else out there that we've come so far in 2017. >> former fox news host gretchen carlson talks about sexual harassment in her new book, "be