cose. and then the affirmation about public access. . . >> ellis cose, back on march 40, 1994, he wrote the following.

the remember writing that? >> i do. it was in the aftermath of the o.j. simpson imbroglio. i think it remains to be true today, even though we have a black or interracial president, even though we have made tremendous strides in just those 14 or 15 years since then. we still have a very different way characteristically of coming to these issues. >> can you give us a couple of examples? >> 1 current example we have seen, henry louis gates and

certain crowley who arrested him. the initial response was to call a policeman stupid. one out of white's five -- only one out of why -- only one out of five whites like that reaction. that is just one example of many were there is an issue that impinges on race in this society. we tend to look at a quite differently as a consequence of our different histories and different sets of experiences. >> how many years have been with "newsweek"? >> 15 years. >> who is the first person that ask you to write about race? >> that would actually be college. i began writing professionally when i was 18, but i began college when i was 17. before i got my job the "chicago sun-times, " my first real

writing job, i was editing and publication at my university in chicago. we are talking about the late 1960's and early 1970's, a time when race was very much an issue. we were dealing with the assassination of one of the leaders of the black panther party, which was big news in chicago. we were dealing with the aftermath of the king assassination and all of these kinds of issues. we were dealing with riots which tore up the community in which i grew up, both in 1966 and in 1968. my riding about race at that time came out of what was the big story of the age, which happened to coincide with my coming-of-age. >> exactly where in chicago did you grow up? >> i grew up on the west side up chicago in a housing project. last week i was in california.

an old friend of mine is the bass player now for earth, wind, and fire. we both grew up in the same neighborhood. we were reminiscing about growing up in that part of the west side. >> what was it like there? >> in one sense, it was like any child could. we were not aware -- we were where they were the projects, but we were not aware that it was bad. sonia sotomayor, the most recent supreme court appointee, talks about moving to the projects of the bronze as a step up. -- projects of the bronx as a step up. compared to the people who had a really well, we learned as we got older, it was not such a great place. it was a place where violence was more normal than what is

healthy for kids coming up. it was a pretty tough area. >> what got you to the point where someone thought you could write about this racial issue? >> before people thought i could write about the racial issue, i guess they had to learn that i could write. that came about in a number of ways, but are really have to trace it, it comes about most directly from my experience with high school english. i hated english in high school. i hated the assignments. i thought they were boring and other creative. i always had a hard time with my english teachers. i was excelling in math and having a hard time in english, because i just refuse to do the work. because i always tested well, i was in one of the best high schools in the city. it was not in my neighborhood. it was way on the north side. i remember having, not exactly a confrontation, but a discussion

with my senior english teacher. she called me up at the end of the class and told me, ellis, you are obviously a very -- and very bright guy. the work you have done is wonderful, but you are not doing the work in my class. why not? >> i said i am not doing the work because it is boring. so much of the work consists of answering stupid questions at the end of a chapter to prove you have read the preceding chapter. i do not want to waste my time doing that. in exasperation, she said what do you propose to do? i thought for a second and said, the purpose of the class is to determine liability to research and to write, isn't that correct? >> she said more or less. i said, why don't you let me right? i will write something for you. what on a writer research paper? i will write a research paper on the history of riots in america.

my community had been torn up by riots in the aftermath of the killing of dr. martin luther king. she said fine, right about riots in america. for the first time in my lap, i actually got turned on my english. i researched riots from the 1920's, overseas, and spent hours in the library. i came back and wrote a 140 page manuscript, as i recall. mrs. clinger took this manuscript home. she with a diminished of white woman. she took it home and came back after the weekend and calls me up and says ellis, i will tell you what. i will be an aid in this course. i am really not capable of judging this material. you need to send this to a professional. i paused and said, a professional what?

>> she said, have you ever heard a woman, gwendolyn brooks? send it to her. see what she thinks. we got an address where she was teaching, and i sent gwendolyn brooks this manuscript on riots throughout history. i did not hear anything for weeks, and one saturday i got a call. it was gwendolyn brooks. she says ellis, you have to come down and talk to me. she was teaching at northeastern university in chicago. i take three buses, as i recall, and go see this great woman, not knowing what to expect. i find my way into her office, and there is a very warm, gentle woman who has my manuscript in

front of her. she pushes it towards me, and what she has done, she has underlined all kinds of things and written across the top in both blue and red ink, ellis, one day you will be a great writer. as you can imagine, that was tremendous delegation for a kid who came from my circumstances. that was sort of what planted the idea in my head. she actually planted the idea that i should be writing as a profession. she said during our conversation, ellis, i do not know which a plan to do with your life, but you should be a writer. i did not know professionals or writers. the idea of being a writer was something that had not occurred to me. once she planted the seed, i became obsessed with it. i was, as you probably guessed, a fairly intense young man.

i began to write. within a period of a year, produced two more manuscripts, one was a novel, and one was safe work of nonfiction which is now lost to history. by the time i got to history -- by the time i got to college, i had pretty much decided that are really was going to be a writer. >> issue still alive? >> no, she is not. >> did you ever go back to her and talk to her about what happened after you became a success? >> no, and i have come to regret that. >> is gwendolyn brooks still alive? >> she has also died, but she became one of several mentors that i had in my life. she invited me to join her writers group, which at that time, she had a very active writers group in chicago.

i did, and i went to several meetings. i was 17 at the time, or maybe 16 at the time, when we had our encounter. for me, meeting with the group old people, meaning people in their 20's and 30's, was not quite working. i dropped out of the group, but we stayed in touch. >> recently i heard you on a radio documentary. talking to you now, it comes to mind that for someone who deals with this highly intense relationship between blacks and whites and different kinds of people, you taught very quietly. do you realize that? >> i think i am calm, for the most part. i think it's probably because i think of myself as an even tempered rational person, but the subjects tend to be

inherently ball told. i do not think we need to raise your voice and make them even more volatile. >> do you ever raise your voice customer >> of course, everyone gets angry at times. >> a notice even a radio voice is very quiet. let's go on to this documentary. it was a documentary -- i listened to the whole thing on the radio. it was about allison and catherine bellow. what is the series all about? >> is a series called "against all odds." it looks at the issue of social mobility, how do people who have terrible beginnings, who do not have very much, achieve something of interest and significance? we did a pilot last year with the young somali guy who fled

somalia when the war broke out in the early 1990's as a kid. he ended up in a refugee camp in kenya. in this camp where there was only a rekeying school they had put up, he managed to get one of the highest courts on his high- school completion exams in english, even though it was not his first language. he was living in a one-room shack with no electricity or plumbing with his family. he managed to get into princeton university. i said it was just an interesting story, and so we told his story. this year we have decided we will do four documentary's, some in the united states and some overseas. >> you did this video last year. who are you doing the

documentary's for? >> this is a public radio series. it airs on public radio stations across the country. >> can you get on a podcast, or do you have to be there when they run it on the radio? rex is not on podcast, but you can streaming from my website. we have all the videos and audio documentary's up on the web site itself. >> let's show some of the video. who shot the video, and for what purpose? was it used on television anywhere? >> we are using some of it on television, but primarily to be used on the web. jason dean was my assistant. we thought it made sense, since we were doing the audio, video as well. >> it is called "the ivy league refugee."

>> he was raised in one of the world's most barren refugee camps, without running water, without electricity, with most primitive educational system imaginable. >> our home was made of a plastic sheet provided by the un that covers a few trees that have been joined together using ropes. people sleep on a mat laid on the ground. >> a kiosk cells sugar, tea, vegetables, whatever he could get his hands on. >> that night, you can move out of the houses because shifters are roaming around, trying to prey on people. >> one night, the shifters came. >> my family was raided by three bandits. the came at 7:00 p.m. and pointed a gun and everyone, ordering everyone to lie flat on their chest on the ground. >> he told us, i will kill your

father and mother. i will kill you if you do not tell me where the money is. >> he dragged me from bed and threw me on the ground, kicking and punching me. >> the family's loss of that to about $90. life without freeing -- life that freedom was unremittingly harsh, and freedom for someone like him only came through education. >> where was that shot? >> most of those scenes were shot in kenya in a refugee camps on the border near somalia. it is just an amazing place in many respects. it's amazing that someoneabbas came out of that -- someone like abbas came out of that place. in order to study, this young man managed to get a

rechargeable lamp from care, which ran the facility. every day he would walk over a mile to recharge this lamp in the care facility and then walk back to his home so he could study at night. the interesting footnote to this is that as a result of the work we did with the documentary, he now has a literary agent who is interested in telling his life story. he will probably have a book coming out in the next couple of years. he got to princeton because a visiting professor happened to be passing through the refugee camp and had heard that their little one-room school was actually doing some interesting things. almost on a whim, he said let's get some materials to a couple of the students and have them apply. abbas had never heard of princeton.

he thought it was just some university somewhere in the united states. he goes on the internet, and he has to go to one of the international aid services to get access to the internet. he applies to princeton. he took his first plane trip to nairobi to take the s.a.t. in order to complete his application. the people who knew him wrote letters of recommendation. shortly thereafter, he gets a fat envelope. he did not have mail service or a phone, so the envelope is delivered to the care office, and the director ends up transporting himself to his home and leaving a message to have abbas come and see him.

they celebrate when they find out he has been admitted to princeton. coming from that set of circumstances, princeton was literally like a different corner of the world. he called his dorm room luxurious, compared to where he came from. the first time he went to the dining hall, he sees all this food and all of this plenty, and he concludes that must be having a special celebration, because that is when they bring out food where he comes from. it was an interesting adjustment for him. >> where is he right now? >> he just finished up his last year at princeton. he is taking the summer off and doing some work, and then will be going to graduate school. >> here is some more from your video in your conversation.

a professor visiting from princeton thought he might be ivy league mature rigid material. >> i just knew it was a school in the u.s., and that was all. >> i think institutionally, we do not think of these things as really possible. >> you can imagine my joy when i read the fact that i was given admission. >> he was absorbing everything. i sensed right away that he was a little bit in alwe of their surroundings. he was definitely friendly and very grateful. right away he struck me as somebody who i had a great feeling about, somebody who would be ok. >> i have enjoyed my stay at

princeton university for the last two years. it open so many doors for me and so many opportunities. i am here to empower myself with education so that i can go back, and make a difference. >> the think he will go back home? >> there is not much of a home to go back to. somalia has been a mess for over a decade now. home in large measure for him is a refugee camp where he grew up, and that is no place to go back to. i suspect he will stay in the united states for a while. >> to pay for his education? >> he got a full scholarship. -- who paid for his education? >> he worked two and three jobs when he was in school. he had no money to get here. he ended up borrowing from someone who worked for usaid,

because they were so impressed with this young man and the opportunity had before him. a woman put the cost of his airplane ticket on a personal credit card. >> how did you get into audio and video? >> i had been dabbling in audio because i was doing commentary for npr. i basically decided one not actually start producing some? it started with a conversation with some people at the ford foundation. they funded the initial documentary. for the last set, we have several funders who came in, including the atlantic philanthropies, the goldman sachs fund, and ford as well.

>> what is your goal? >> i am a journalist and writer. telling stories is what we do. my other goal is to explore something that has fascinated me since i was a kid growing up in the projects, the whole idea of what is it that enable some people to get out and succeed and do well, and others in similar circumstances do not? that is part of why it is against the odds. it is a look at people who have persevered and done something. also reflects another interest i have always had, in allowing people who do not normally get out -- get on the national news a chance to tell their stories, like someone from a refugee camp, or the two young ladies you spoke of earlier who came out of foster care. it was important to me to give

people like that a chance to tell their story. >> what is the hope on a pile of bones story? >> it is the story or one set of stories about rwanda and the rebirth of rwanda after the terrible genocide of 1994. we tell the story from the perspective of several people who are really trying to do something great. they are trying to rebuild this country. one is an anglican bishop, and he was actually living in you ghana when the genocide occurred. -- he was living in uganda. he immediately went back. he was visiting america on a

missionary trip of some sort. he goes back to uganda and gathers up a group of ministers on a bus and drive them into rwanda. they come across these horrific scenes, some of which have been seen by the national audience. he ultimately decided that what he needed to do was move back to rwanda and become part of the rebuilding process. he started a boarding school, which is now one of the best schools in the country. it was primarily aimed at orphans from the genocide. he also has a ministry that works in the prisons with people who were perpetrators. he has a village that he set up that brings perpetrators and victims together an essentially models living in harmony. >> here is an excerpt from that special.

>> i met john in rwanda, but he was in america went-ripped apart his homeland. he saw the slaughter as a summons to come home. >> i need to see what was going on personally. i did not want anyone to tell me. i needed to see it myself firsthand. we saw a mass graves. we saw dead bodies. in one home we found 27 dead bodies, including the cat and dog among the human dead bodies. >> he returned to rwanda to live in 1996. he threw himself to the task of building a boarding school. >> i school is the result of the argument that i had in my head. having -- loss of victims were abandoned and left behind. >> that school opened in 2001.

it is now one of the best schools in the country. >> what year was the massacre? >> in 1994. >> he used the figure 1 million. >> the figure is in dispute because no one has ever actually cataloged the entire magnitude of the death. a common figure that is used as a hundred thousand, which is a count that the united nations came up with, but no one really knows how many were killed there. there are hundreds of thousands of graves. no one really knows, but it is a small country, roughly 8 million people. however you figure it, a huge proportion, perhaps one in 10 or one in eight, died in that massacre. >> how long did you spend there? >> i made a few trips there.

the taping for the documentary, we did over a period of a little more than a week in the country. christie have any better inside today than you did before you got there into why this happened? >> in some sense, that goes into that group of inexplicable things. in another sense, there have been ethnic tensions there for years. the belgians had fostered that' in their part in the way they decided to divide of leadership in the country. going back to 1959, there have been mass slaughters that have occurred. there is a long history of this. the government at the time which was a hutu-led government, decided to make a campaign of vilifying the tutsis.

they were saying at that there were cockroaches, out to destroy the country. then you had this event where the president was assassinated, touching off the violence in rwanda. >> out of the 8 million, how many were hutus and how many were tutsis? >> i do not have the exact number in my head. >> building a school was not enough. the bishop also build a village, run by a pastor, were victims of the genocide and perpetrators live side by side. two residents, a victim and perpetrator, explain to me how it works.

>> how do you feel standing next to a man like this man who killed people during the genocide? >> how can that be?

>> it is impossible not to talk to these people and not be emotionally affected when you see this. the come from a place of religion. the bishop has made it a point to basically tell them that the christian life demands that they have the capacity to forgive. they have taken that seriously. i think also in the country, not just in this village, there is a sense that we need to get beyond what happened in 1994. the country needs to move on. those two impulses you see coming together in this little village where they end up just forming human relationships ultimately. the woman says she accepts him as her friend, and he expresses his own remorse for what he has done. that is a model the bishop is

trying to start. i should say that you still have lots of tension in that country. when i was there i visited one of the prisons. prisoners who were being held 15 years after the occurrence who refuse to it miss -- refused to admit they participated in anything. all of them claim they are innocent. there is a memorial to the genocide. myself a rwandan journalist talked to the guard. we go into the facility. we are in there may be a minute and there is an awful explosion. we come out a little later and discover that the guard to whom we had been talking had been killed by a grenade that someone had tossed at the facility while we were inside. so you still see signs of the tension there, but they are

certainly lots of people who are trying very hard to get beyond that. >> let's go on to the story i mentioned earlier of the sisters. we do not have video on that, but we have audio. >> the sisters, catherine ann allison, were essentially abandoned by their parents. their parents were both alcoholics. the father was a drug addict. the parents split at one point. the mother received custody of them. she was incapable of taking care of them. she decides to take off. they are living in california. she decides to take off with a boyfriend, leaving them in a house where the electricity gets turned off, no phone. the father shows up in texas did them.

he ends up being a drug and a drug addict. he cannot take care of them. that ultimately end up with an aunt who commits suicide. it plunged into the foster care system at the ages of 11 and 10, respectively. i found them through a set of networks. once i decided we were going to do these sets of stories, we put out word that we were looking for people who had interesting stories of overcoming adversity. these two girls are both white. >> or the actual sisters, or did they just end up in the same fostered home? >> they are half sisters, since they have a different father. >> here is part of their story. >> one day they found a gun.

>> we had never known anybody who carried a gun. she said it was for protection. we did not think twice about it. >> until later that summer, when allison stumbled on a scene that would stay with her for life. her aunt had barricaded herself in a closet, and the uncle was talking tour her through the door. >> he did not want to hurt or or scare us. they are talking very hurriedly. i do not remember anything that was said between them, but the next thing we know, there was a huge gun shot. he kicked open the door, and i saw my at. she was on the ground in the closet. she had her purse in there with her, and my uncle picked my sister and me up and immediately remove dust from the trailer. my sister and had not seen anything. i think our own close the door really quickly. he dropped us off at a

neighbor's house nearby and left us alone in the living room. it was scary, being seven years old. i did not understand why anybody would want to kill themselves. >> where did you find them to talk to them? >> there were in different places. we picked them up at the point where they had entered college, and i should say, they both graduated recently. allison graduated from smith college and catherine graduated from california polytechnic. allison is now working for microsoft and catherine is in route to becoming a veterinarian. they are both doing quite well. we went to both graduation's as well. we had several different conversations with the two young women, sometimes other schools

or were they lived. >> in the end, they sounded so normal, although it was very emotional from time to time. i kept asking how did they get through this? >> there were several ways. one is that they had each other. they were the one constant in each other's lives. that happened to be a private foster care facility where there was a social worker who took a very strong interest in them. she became a stable force in their life. they both went through years of professional counseling to help the the just. they also excelled as students, which gave them a focus for things, even prior to going into foster care. they could always find refuge in their studies.

>> what did you learn about foster care? >> i learned that it is not something you want to stay ain. these girls were exceptional because they managed to age out and do quite well. most end up not finishing school. a huge percentage of them end up in prison. one of the worst things that can happen in society is to end up spending most of your life in foster care. cracks in the end, what you think they talked to you? >> i think they were convinced that i was going to tell their story in a way that was there and that reflected who they were. secondly, i think that they were justifiably proud of what they had accomplished with their lives. they were interested in sharing their experiences. >> is there video of them? >> we have video, but we have

not added to it yet. >> as they grew through their lives, are they doing anything in the way of dealing with others to have these problems? >> i think it is too early to say. they both just graduated, and both are in the process of securing their careers at this point. they certainly have a huge social consciousness, and i would not be surprised if they do something in the future. >> did they tell their stories on campus? >> in large measure, no. when you are in school, you are interested in being seen as normal and being accepted. for the most part, the first time the people we were talking to really learn about their background was when we approached them and started asking them about people who were important to them. we talked to ellison's

boyfriend. he really was not aware of her background until she finally told him and also sent a letter explaining her background to his parents, because you thought was important to do it at some point. it was not something they initially told people about. >> how is their name spelled? >> bellew. >> what have you learned about the difference between video, audio, and print? >> i am sure to an old hand like you, this is as obvious as night and day, but i learned a few things. one is that the video, you have to have pictures. if you do not have pictures, you do not have a story. we are scrambling for various pictures.

with radio and audio, you need sound. in the refugee camp, my team spent hours getting sounds of goats and other things from around the camp, sounds that would place you in that particular environment, which is not all that important in print. one of the documentary's we did was in india. it was a very interesting story that we are going to go with that had to do with a group of women in a little village who had organized themselves and built a road to their village. these were women who had taught themselves how to do this work, and then confronted the man and ended up getting the men to pay for them -- getting the men to pay them. we decided that as a story we

cannot do on radio, because no one spoke english. we did all the interviews the translation and reviewed all the tapes and said we just cannot put this on air, because people will be listening to half an hour of language they do not understand. >> how the founder time being spent, now the to do this plusher column? -- how have you found your time be spent? >> audio and radio work is very time consuming. there are lots of things to pull together. probably the last year i have spent more time to an audio work than anything else. this year i suspect it will flip a little bit and devote more time to print. i am about to start working on a new book as well. >> what is it about? >> i wrote a book close to 15 years ago called "the rage of a privileged class."

>> that is what you are talking about in that column i read at the beginning. >> it was a look at middle-class black america and why at that juncture so many people were frustrated and angry. we are in a very different era now. barack obama is president. many african-americans are running our have run four to 500 companies. we have a couple of black governors. we have a level of achievement that many people found unimaginable even 15 years ago. it seems it is time to take another look at that subject, and what is happening with that privileged class today and what is the meaning of race and class in committee in america today. >> breaking the bonds of

tradition, you talk about something called the untouchables. >> this is india, and these are the lowest castes grouping in india, otherwise known as the untouchables. even though discrimination has been barred since the constitution was approved in india, you still encounter discrimination daily. we focus on a fellow who is doing a number of things in india to try to transform the lives of his people. >> there are untouchables and other countries. explain what they are. >> every country has a cast system, and these are people who essentially are relegated to doing the worst jobs in a society. they often receive little or no education, are treated routinely with disrespect, and just in

every way are humiliated. it is hereditary, so you are born into it. you can never escape, even if you change religions. >> is there such a thing as literally being untouchable? >> in the cities is modified and not as intense, but in the villages, they literally cannot touch people. not for this documentary, but for another project was doing a few years back, i went to a small village in india. the fellow was explaining to me how they were fed by the bosses. he said instead of giving us the food, they just throw it at us. one of the seminal expenses -- experience is that martin had was that as a young man, he was told he could not receive water

directly from a higher caste person. he had to come up his hands and have the water poured into his hands instead of touching a cup. >> i was born in a small town on august 7, 1959. rex martin was the second oldest of nine surviving children raised in poverty. it was not the poverty that bothered him, it was the degradation based on caste. school was not free. when schoolmates were playing ball, he and a few other kids were handed rooms. >> i never liked to go to school. i felt humiliated, stigmatized, and hurt. >> when he was 9, working on the

farm with his grandmother, his throat was parched and he asked for water. instead of giving him a glass, the farmer told him to catch the water in his hands. >> my grandmother taught me that you have to fold your hands like this. >> martin was learning an essential lesson, how to interact with people without touching them, how to be untouchable. mahatma gandhi called them children of god. the constitution guarantees them a quality. they make up roughly 20% of india's population. as many hindu see it, they are condemned to suffer for sins committed in a previous life. >> how can it be called a democracy when 20% of the people are known to be untouchable? >> it is a very sensitive issue with the indian government. the government insists they are

treated fairly. they have their own version of affirmative-action in india. as i said, and the large cities, the discrimination is not nearly as visible or as oppressive as it is in the small villages. >> can you get completely out of it and not have to admit you are untouchable? rex is very difficult. a lot of them convert to christianity, as martin has done, or they convert to islam, but there are still identified within their society is people from this lower caste. the woman has taken over leadership of the organization. her father and never told them they were untouchable. they changed their name so people would not associate them

with untouchability. the father made the mistake of giving her a name which is a very uncommon name as a last name in india. people raise questions as to where she came from, and it really did not work. she ultimately embraced the identity and decided she needed to change the way society treats them. >> can you tell who the untouchables are when you see them? >> no. there is no identifying physical characteristics that will label somebody untouchable. it is really a question of the name and knowing where they came from and who they are. certainly is possible, if one wants to recreate an identity, in the same way in the united states we used to talk of passing, where people who are

african-american have berrylike complexions and just vanish into the white world. it is possible, theoretically, cutting yourself off from your family and your history and becoming someone else. >> let's go back to the beginning. how much education you have? >> i have a master's degree in science and technology and also in other graduate studies as well. i got those at george washington university. >> ready live now? >> the upper west side in new york city, manhattan. >> do you have children? >> one daughter, and a wife who is an attorney. she works in the attorney general's office. >> i cannot get out of my head, mrs. klinger and gwendolyn brooks. what do you think would have happened if mrs. klinger had not

recognized talent and gwen bloomberg's had not tried to do something about it? >> i think it would have done ok. i was already in a very good school. i was on track to succeed, one way or another. like a lot of people, people who come from very modest beginnings and do reasonably well in life, there were a lot of people who help me along the way. another important mentor of mine was jim hope, now the editor of "foreign affairs." he was the editor of the "chicago sun-times." he actually may be a columnist. there are few editors of big city newspapers who would have taken a 19-year-old kid and given them a column. >> the mentor others? >> at one point i read -- i ran a program that was based that uc

berkeley. i do not like the term mentor because it implies you are a wise person giving wisdom to a lot of other young people. i certainly help when i can. >> someone listening to this sees you are doing audio, video, and print books and all that. what advice do you give someone as to how they discover if they have this talent? >> by testing yourself, by sending things out. people will ask me if i will read their manuscripts, and if i have time i will do it, but i tell them to send it to an agent. if it is any good, the agent will get back to you. i cannot publish your book, but you only find that out by testing yourself. >> what you get the most feedback from? >> a lot of different places. "newsweek" is obviously a huge

publication. i get a lot of feedback from its readers. i have become well enough known to certain readers that they look for my things. i get a lot of traffic on my website at this point. people want to alert me to something or tell me about something. >> "newsweek" is different than it used to be. it has become more like a girl the economist" than the old "newsweek." >> every print publication is having to recreate itself in light of the economic situation and in light of the internet and the changes it has forced on people. the idea of a mass newsmagazine seems to not appeal to as many people and not as many advertisers as it once did.

"newsweek" has made the decision to go in the direction of trying to tell fewer stories but tell them more in-depth. it is more focused on commentary now. they are trying to make it visually more attractive. will it ultimately end up being the salvation of "newsweek"? i think we are all looking for a model that works these days. it makes as much sense as anything. >> we can find all of this on elliscose.com. what is the future for your audio documentary's? >> we have not figured it out yet. i am focusing on getting some print things in order, and then we will look at the audio schedule. ideally, we will get some stuff out next year, but we have not put ourselves on schedule yet for that. >> given the economy, are you having trouble with funding? >> we have not gone into fund-

raising mode yet. some of my funders have said they would be happy to be involved again, and some are not so sure. if we have this conversation in six months, all have a better answer for you. >> ellis cose, thank you very much. >> is a pleasure chatting with you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009] >> for dvd copy of this program, call the number shown. for free transcripts, or to give us your comments about this program, visit us online. "q&a" programs are also available at c-span podcasts. >> coming up next, remarks by

british conservative party leader david cameron. then a panel discussion on the future of conservatism and on- line campaign. after that, another chance to see "q&a" at ellis cose of "newsweek." tomorrow on "washington journal," sam young men discusses how president obama is promoting his agenda during the august recess. jim martin, president of the 60 plus association. a discussion of the books on questionable public health practices. "washington journal," live at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> this fall, enter the home to america's highest court, from the grand public places to those only accessible by the nine justices. the supreme court, coming the

first sunday in october on c- span. the british house of commons is in recess until october. our coverage of prime minister's questions it will resume when parliament reconvenes. coming up, a speech by conservative party leader david cameron, but joining us from london to talk about the political situation is a political correspondent. we know by law that prime minister gordon brown and the labor party have to call an election by next june. can you tell us when we might expect the election? >> signs are will be early in may next year. that is the normal time when elections are held. it can go into june, but i would expect the first week in may. i don't think there'll be any move for an early election now. the one thing that could force that is labor mp's who are happy

-- unhappy with gordon brown have tried to force him out. the time for that has now passed. >> most of the recent polls show mr. cameron with a 15% lead over labour. with less than a year to go, what is the conservative party strategy? >> the strategy is just to keep on going, really. and not to rock the boat. the big question has been and what can labored do to get out of the whole they are in. at the moment, there does not seem to be anything that is going to work. the questions all revolve around the economy at the moment. like the united states, we have been hit very hard hit by recession. that has led to a lot of top choices for the coming parliament about where spending cuts are going to fall.

>> in a speech by david cameron, he is critical of the labor government's anti-crime an anti- terrorism policies, calling them too far reaching. is this a message that is resonating with british voters, and what else is he trying to do to differentiate himself from gordon brown? >> it has not been the top issue at the moment. although there have been concerns about the levels of surveillance, there is a fear of crime in the country. people are aware of the terrorist threat. while there is a civil liberties argument in this country, the security argument tends to be the one -- there is a big difference between the two parties on this issue. the conat