incarcerated for drug abuse and for illegal drugs. but in the meantime, you'll have the pharmacist who says, come to my place and i will fill your prescriptions for the oxycontin and any other medication that they can. how are you delineating what is a disease and what is criminal activity? it seems the selectivity when a young black kid is involved with drugs, that is a criminal problem. when a person such as the police command or the judge or the prosecutor comes in and it's a prescription filled for their xanax and furthers ala --

zoloft. i mean we are dispensing of these prescription drugs at the university of south fork, where you come from, and there is no problem at all. . n go to any black neighborhood and you are rest everybody. host: pharmacist from lakeland, florida. first speak to the disease and criminal action. caller: there are people who go into treatment all the time. about 50% of all will go to treatment go in with handcuffs on as a result of an arrest. one of the outcomes, what did you knock on the door voluntarily saying i need help, or handcuffs, the outcomes are pretty similar. pretty similar. so, the crim system have a lot of components that are designed. drug courts, in particular, are a particular -- mechanism that

started in florida that has gone on for 20 years. the pharmacists brings up a good part in from several issues. pilled mills in florida have made headlines for weeks and weeks. one after another in which these very addictive, very powerful pain killers, although important when used properly, have been abused. physicians who have abused their ethics an oath of office and quite frankly, of the law, but also patients that the doctor shopping. florida is one of the state's the past something called a prescription drug monitoring plan, a computerized database so health officials can take a look at who is prescribing and who is dr. shopping. host: the caller brought race into this. what can you say to that? guest: as a longtime police chief and worked here in several cities, i would not apologize for police are arresting people

for violations of the criminal law. that is why we have a criminal law system. if people want to change a law, that is certainly their prerogative. i think one of the most recent an important things going on is reducing but crack powder disparity in sentencing. it used to be 100, to one. so if a small amount of crack cocaine would vastly increase the sentencing from powdered cocaine. it was certainly a disparity in the african-american community. it the obama administration took the issue on but congress has taken it on and right now the legislation would reduce that sensing from 100 to 1 to 18 to 1. .

we need to be smarter about how we deal with the drug problem and not just try to use criminal justice, which we probably focus on host: in all of that traveling, who is the smartest? what are the examples of what works the best? guest: community. when the community recognizes the drug problem. someone asked me, look, we have a lot going on.

afghanistan, jobs, iraq, health care, etc. what i look at our foreign relations, the southwest border, keeping kids in school, prepared work forces -- drugs runs through every one of those things. we should keep that in mind. more people are driving under the influence of drugs than are driving under the influence of alcohol. a recent survey showed that 16% of the survey -- of the people tested tested positive for illicit drugs. host: jason, nashville, tennessee. appreciate your waiting. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. could you explain to me why past presidential administrations and

this current one has not learned the lesson that we learned in the 1920's when be prohibited alcohol? we saw the violence immediately rise after that. when we realize that you can never actually take away the demand, by taking away the supply all you do is increase the price and violence follows when it stays underground. when we say we will keep drugs illegal under the guise of public safety, why do we not really look at what is actually dangerous to the public, the gang violence down on the mexican border? if you look at that as public safety, why are we not taking that into common approach? >> i think that that is an important discussion to have. i have been down to mexico

several times. i think what is really important to recognize is that the cartels are involved in kidnapping, arson, selling of stolen auto parts, very horrific crimes. there is no one in mexico that i know in my business that thinks that if drugs were suddenly legalized that all of these criminal funds would suddenly go to working for microsoft or coca-cola. they will continue to be thugs and criminals and members of organized crime. president called a run -- a president in mexico is very courageous. when you take a hard look of prohibition, no one said that crime and violence suddenly dissipated after the provision was lifted. it did not. host: secretary of state clinton was in mexico a couple of weeks ago.

one of her comments was about u.s. demand. can you speak to reducing demand? we talk about treatments, disease, but what about demand itself? >> -- guest: definitely an important component in the strategy. on this recent trip to mexico i accompanied her, she talked about the shared responsibility for the drug problem. it is just as important for us to reduce demand as it is for other countries to try to reduce the transfer of drugs or to reduce the production of drugs. there is a big change going on. the global change is that we used to point our fingers at other countries, saying we need to keep our drugs out of the hands of other people. if we were not using so many drugs, we would not have the problems in our country.

afghanistan, colombia, there are growing addictive populations within those countries themselves. even amongst the most impoverished people in the world, we are seeing addiction bulging. the first lady in mexico has made treatment her signature campaign. host: how do you focus on demand amongst americans? what kind of messages, programs, actions could you take? guest: the partnership for a drug free america does wonderful advertisements. there are websites that talk to parents, educating them on what to be aware of. we also know that if we do very hard-hitting, specific, well timed adds to young people we can have an impact on them. if we draft everyone into this

issue and think about it in a comprehensive way, we can make a difference. crime has been reduced over the years in this country. we think it is because smart police chiefs and sheriffs worked with different organizations collaborative lee. we have not put that together to deal with the drug problem. host: atlanta, brian, republican line. you are on with gil kerlikowske. good morning. caller: good morning. we all know that alcohol is the no. 1 abused drug in this country and alcohol abuse is on the rise. what is your office doing to tackle underage drinking? >> underage drinking -- guest: underage drinking is a significant problem. we talk about a lot. it is mentioned in the

president's drug control policy. you cannot talk about the drug problem or focus on the drug problem without talking about underage drinking. a significant issue. be it on college campuses or neighborhoods. we work closely with the national institutes of health and the health and human services department. we do have to talk about alcohol abuse among the underage. host: kitty hawk, north carolina. daniel, democratic line. caller: thank you for taking my call. i became aware of the underage drinking problem and of the prescription drugs because the kids -- actually, cocaine is on the rise.

one of the main reasons i have found out, in talking to these young people i have asked a bunch of them. many of them must take drug tests if they are athletic or for other reasons. this fact means that they take prescription drugs because they do not test for these drugs. they drink because alcohol is a substantive drug. cocaine, from what understand, leaves the system. i do not agree with drug tests, said is a court order. i think it is saying you are guilty before there is evidence. the effort that they are trying

to do, i think it might be some of the problem. any child that you talk to, they explain its the same way. -- they explain it the same way. guest: drug testing is an individual city issue. a number of school systems test for drugs as a part of athletic and some of them as a part of other extracurricular activities. the important part that we want to make sure that people understand, otesting is not simply to keep people out of school. you must make it part of a more comprehensive system. as a police chief in particular

i would not be in favor of kids being kicked out of school when treatment and prevention programs that work -- putting out problem back on a local citizen and the taxpayer is not always the most effective. host: what is the connection of your office to the employers around the country? guest: there are a number of programs. there are requirements for people to get commercial driver's licenses, working in certain jobs, etc.. -- jobs, etc. if you look at those tests over the last couple of years, the number of people testing positive for a variety of drugs has decreased. has decreased. in number of private businesses

from making sure that people take a drug test before they get hired. host: moving to senior citizens. anything which to know about citizens? -- anything we should know about senior citizens? guest: they should talk to the pharmacist to make sure that they do not have one prescription drug causing a problem federal -- problem. also, a number of facilities have a powerful painkillers. when people no longer need them, their need to be a safe way for those to be disposed of. it does not mean flushing them down the toilet. we are working with the epa and fda to develop such a program. in number of members of

congress, particularly stupack are working very hard to develop legislation that will make it safer and easier for people to dispose of the drugs once they are no longer needed. host: one viewer writes "no amount of government interaction will stop the demand for drugs." carbondale, illinois. welcome. caller: the war on drugs is the most unsuccessful war in american history. it does nothing more than locked up millions of nonviolent americans in the industrial complex because of an outdated law. the controlled substance act of 1970 says that cocaine is a schedule to drug and that marijuana is a schedule one drug.

anyone out there with half of a brain would say that marijuana is less addictive than cocaine. we are in afghanistan, not because of the oil, but because of the politics of heroin. read the book by alfred markell i, "politics -- alfred mccloy, "politics of heroin in southeast asia." guest: i said we should stop using the phrase war on drugs the first day i got into office. frankly, it does not make sense. when you talk about a war analogy you are limited to the tools of force. when you look at the public safety and public health problem ankle, more prevention

and treatment would be -- angle, prevention and treatment would be great. all five of the police chiefs in northern illinois said that it should not be called a war. i do not remember them talking about a war on drugs. i remember elected officials saying that. host: whenever you call it, the caller's point -- what ever you call it, the caller's point is that it has been ineffective. guest: our new policy over the last 10 years we have done much more effective research when it comes to effective prevention programs and treatment programs. by having a more balanced approach to the drug problem we have the potential to be much more successful. by admitting that reducing our

own demand is just as important as protecting our borders, cutting off supplies, and working with the government. we just helped mexico last fall opened up its first drug court. so, we have something to give away besides night vision goggles and interdiction techniques. we have programs that can be effective. they actually work. host: mary, good morning. you are on with gil kerlikowske. caller: my son is bipolar. he is an adult. he was put on stimulants 10 years ago. we objected. the doctor, without speaking with us, had people treated. eventually he had to be treated

with anti psychotics to bring him down. something has to be done about prescription drugs. you are really at the mercy of these doctors who prescribe these things. thank you. hostguest: i think that doctorse become knowledgeable of these other aspects of the drugs. doctors i have worked with are working very hard to provide this information to other physicians. they are incredibly busy. they want to give the best to their patients. they want to relieve the pain of the patient. but we do not want to see abuse. in some cases, frankly -- particularly again in south florida we have seen doctors that have violated the law.

host: san antonio, democratic line. caller: my view on it is that they should give money to the school system so that they can keep the kids from junior high up informed on the consequences of drug abuse. host: how much money has been spent on these programs? guest: there is no real federal drug control budget. we figure out the different components. it is around $15 billion per year. that is how we put together the budget. there has been an increase in the budget request from the president. there has been an increase across the board for supply reduction and law enforcement efforts, which are big components. for instance, if the police department is doing good

community policing and are involved in neighborhood prevention, is that really about money going to law enforcement? or is it about prevention and getting people into treatment? host: our guest is the senate confirmed national white house drug control policy director, gil kerlikowske. how do you like this job? guest: it is a great job. i feel guilty taking a check. after all these years on the police force, working with these talented and dedicated people is wonderful. they want to make a better quality of life. to have this opportunity to represent the president across the company -- across the country, meeting with all sorts of people. we just opened an office of recovery.

is a tremendous opportunity. host: biggest surprise so far? guest: drugged driving has increased. we know that drug overdose deaths are greater than gunshot deaths in this country. it is not recognized. we talked so long about the war on drugs that i do not think that the public, given the issues on their plate, are quite aware of the issues of drugs. we could save ourselves time, money, lives and heartache if we spend more time dealing with the drug issue. host: biggest frustration so far? guest: that it takes time to get this on the public's agenda. right now texting and driving

can get headlines every day. sometimes journalists look at the drug issue and see that it has been around for so long that they will only focus on things like the violence in mexico. we need to get that message out, because we can do something about this. host: bill, virginia. good morning. caller: my question regards marijuana. for years we have been told it is a gateway drug. in my experience it seems to be a gateway drug to the black market. seeing as how marijuana is the most widely used, by far, i am interested in your thoughts on this. if we legalize marijuana, that will cut down on people's access. people using harder drugs would

get down. -- go down. guest: i recently gave a speech to the california police chiefs in which we outlined our legislation. it will not save the budget of california. legalization, the amount of money collected would be paltry compared to the amount of money spent on social and criminal justice costs. alcohol is taxed, but the amount of money collected does not even begin to pay for the drunk driving arrests and social and health care costs. legalization does not seem to make a lot of sense from many standpoints. we go into it in detail. the speech that i gave it is on our website. host: next call, pennsylvania.

benjamin, good morning. caller: thank you for c-span, good morning. it is an honor to be armed. i wanted to answer a previous caller's question. then i wanted to propose my plan and get your opinion. is that ok? host: go for it. caller: the delineation between marijuana and boxy kodel not? the answer is that it is the law. for my proposal on what i would do -- and i would like your opinion -- if i had your job or if i was president i would probably stay out of it a little bit, bigger issues. i would probably cut budget and funding to your department. i would leave it up to the

states as for their individual constitution. if the state cannot agree, but it on a ballot and let the people vote. the bottom line is that all companies should have the right to deny employment on the basis of drug testing. that is their freedom and look -- freedom and liberty. your economy may suffer the results. if it was legalized, i would tax, levy, and regulate the enforced laws are rounded to developing,. host: several different points -- developing income -- regulate the enforced laws around yet to develop in comcome. host: there is a lot there. guest: other states have

developed ways of dealing with marijuana. in dealing with these other drugs. but the federal government clearly has a role. there are 50 different types of drug laws, that is why there is a controlled substance act. the vast majority of treatment is funded by the federal government, so we would have a real role in this. since i spent almost my entire career at global level, i have just grabbed a parachute into washington. i do not feel like a local. host: what about the term drug czar? you are not keen on that? guest: well, my wife is quite fond of being a czarina. [laughter] host: next caller, democratic

line. caller: where do you get the right to tell anyone what they can and cannot put into their bodies. this is an affront to every individual. bill last fellow that called with a state-by-state solution with a state-by-state solution -- the i leather of ito raise funds. -- i rather like your response. i do not think the government has a role in paying for the treatment of marijuana users. host: we got your point above the government's role. what about the public safety issue? caller: driving into things like people who drink. it affects people in a different way. host: do not think he heard my question. go ahead and respond. guest: i think the federal

government has a huge role in this. public safety is a deep concern of elected officials. that is why they take it ways -- they take it on because they have seen the abuse and what can happen to communities, what can happen to neighborhoods. i saw what a drug house in the neighborhood could do. whether eyeless in buffalo or seattle. we can actually make a difference in the quality of life. the answer is not always putting handcuffs on people. host: independent line. good morning. caller: the problem with our society today is that demand out ways anything. the worst problem is that the united states has caused most of this problem by buying to the american people. when i was in high school in

1960, if you smoke a joint you are going to stick a needle in your arm and you will die. that is the biggest lie of all. then you had your movies like "refer madness" that the government made. they get billions and billions of dollars and his drug war should be over. if it was decriminalized it was all fadeaway. guest: he is dating himself around my age, graduating from high school in the 1960's. there is no question that the scare tactics -- and it was not just a scare tactics -- those were not effective messages. scared straight, where prisoners would tell kids that if you violated the law, this is what your life would become. kids are pretty sophisticated and they need a variety of messages.

our media campaign, funded by congress, is well tested. it is not based upon scare tactics. clearly i would disagree with the collar when he says that legalizing all drugs would make it better. i was taught early on that if i was told that a silver bullet would make anything better, curing everything, that it is probably incorrect. host: how can people look at this? what will happen? guest: i am sure that everyone at c-span read it. we actually think that this is a document that not only direct several at 8 -- federal agencies and what to do with the drug problem, but it is also an

important document for state and locals, frankly it is their voice in the document. we have talked about the global issue and many of the callers have talked about what is going on around the world. because we are such a leader in areas of prevention and enforcement, this national drug control strategy can be great information for other governments as a balanced way of >> we will discuss the u.s. postal service's budget problem. and did it changes to the federal student loan program with david baime.

it is live beginning on c-span. >> former president clinton spoke at the conference. he is the special envoy to haiti. >> thank you very much. we are a little behind schedule. i will help you catch up. the purpose of this session is to remind as all that there are people beyond those of us representing countries in this room are involved in this process. about a year ago i was asked to be the special u.s. envoy to essentially due to things.

first and to harass all the donors to see that they honor their commitments. i was a failure of that. only 30% of the money committed to haiti before the earthquake has actually been disbursed. the second thing i was asked to do was enter maximum involvement of the haitian community in, investors from all over the world. there are members of the private sector in haiti with whom i have met many times. they were working together to

implement their own plan with the help of their supporters and the institutions and the national government. i want to especially thank of their neighbors -- think of their neighbors. this is my first time dealing with haiti were all the neighbors have been committed to the success first and then to the recovery. this is extraordinarily significant. we have all done this together. brazilian and argentine leading the minutia. the u.s. and mexico and all the caribbean and venezuela and cuba. the only thing we all agree on is haiti. this is a happy thing. it is a good thing. we are making progress.

then the earthquake hit. since then, my office has been involved in helping the haitians to do with the emergency. i want to say a brief word about that. until the patient can live in seven day to day, month to month, it is going to be difficult for us to implement the long term plans which the president and prime minister had given to us today. they are doing remarkably well under the circumstances. we still have to move 20,000 or 40,000 people before the rainy season so they are not at risk of drowning. some of the encampment are exposed to very heavy wind. they will blow down. we still have to build the lowest cost per minute shelters where people can run their if they get subjected to a hurricane.

we still do not have had a kick -- adequate sanitation. this is very dangerous for the children. waterborne disease is lead to diarrhea and dysentery. 80% of the victims of the world of waterborne diseases are children under the age of five. we still need help there. otherwise, we have to begin on these long term projects. i want to think the president, my long term friend, for asking us to cochair this commission. i would like to explain it to all of you. it is an interim commission. i hope to continue my work for the u.n. if the secretary general will have me. this follows what was done in indonesia after the tsunami.

it was devastated. it is just a small part of a very large country. it is still put the indonesian government -- it took the indonesian government a year to stand up the recovery. that is what we are doing. we are trying to provide a forum in which the stake holders can be heard in come together and then implement the haitian government plan for thwell haita developing the government to operate this. we support that. my job in the next 18 months will be to try to connect to the inside and outside forces in a way that maximizes the input and the impact of all of the players, minimizes the corrections and the transaction costs. will be housed at the world

bank. the imf and imb will be trusties of. i want you to hear from some of these remarkable people about what they are doing. and how we are all going to work together. i want to thank them for the commitments they have made and the investors from around the world i have recruited who have reaffirmed their commitment. i also want to say one final thing. there has been talk about transparency. the haitians have not objected to transparencies for do they do not want it to interfere with empowerment. we have settled on a model that is like what we did in the tsunami. you can go to any special -- haitispecialenvoy.org and see

what we did in the tsunami aftermath and what the haitians want to do this time. there are pledges, commitment, and disbursements both from governments and multinationals and the private sector and the ngo. transparency and accountability is a two-way street. it also shows the commitment made and the money disbursed to the government of haiti. it'll be an open process. it is one i think will work very well. >> this weekend on booktv, rebecca skloot on "the immortal life of henry aietta lacks."

for find the entire weekend schedule at booktv.org. >> throughout april, s.c. the winners of the c-span student documentary competition. high schoolers and submitted bid years. what the top winning videos every morning on c-span just before "washington journal." for a preview of the winners, visit studentcam.org. >> and now a discussion on government regulation of new media technology. they hosted a conference wednesday on regulating the media. this discussion is just over an hour.

>> good afternoon. i am the vice president and deputy director. we are very pleased with our partners with the bar association to be presenting a program today that i think is an extremely significant one. we would like to welcome me to the conference center. on behalf of my colleagues, welcome to the building. the hope that this and other conferences will garner discussion and solutions for issues confronting all five of the freedoms in effect today but certainly the topic we are here today, the news media and first amendment in the 21st century. this is a non-partisan

foundation founded in 1935. it is the principal founder and builder of the museum here in washington. we hope you all come and visit that. we have three initiatives. the first amendment center, at the museum, and the university concerned about training individuals and encouraging diversity in newsrooms across the country. i think that this is particularly appropriate because the museum is about not just the past or present of frere press -- free press, but the future of the free press. we will raise pointed each other and a civil way -- raise points with each other in a civil way. again, we are glad to have you

here. i look forward to a very aggressive set of questions and engagement. you can say pretty much what you want. a few housekeeping chores. for those of you that may have any outstanding warrants for issues, where televising and taking today's event. i want you to know that. outdid experience, to join me in setting off yourself phones -- out of sheer experience, i join me and turning off your cell phones. c'mon vibrate or turn them off as a courtesy. -- turn them off or put them on vibrate as a courtesy. >> let me add my welcome.

thanks to the museum and to the freedom forum. i cannot tell you how happy we are to be here. i know she cannot be here today. please join me in thanking them for this great program. it does look to be an excellent program and i do want to get right into it. i do hope this becomes an annual event, to focus on health and future of the first amendment. i think i can pledge to the fcba during my tenure to plan for that and hopefully we can make that happen. as you see from your schedule,

we have three panels today. it is an absolutely incredible line up and we are pleased to have for a moderator today, stuart benjamin, a visiting scholar at the fcc. robert cochran and glenn robinson, a former fcc commissioner and professor of law emeritus at the university of virginia. i cannot say enough how pleased we are to present this program in conjunction with the freedom forum and the aba forum committee. it is one of at least three events we're doing this spring. the next one is coming up at the nab convention. i cannot go to one of these events with out offering in small commercial -- and many of you are members of the fcba, and for those of you who are not, i

would ask you to come to know the joys of membership which includes substantial discounts to programs like this. we aim to be an association of ideas and member service. there are brochures in. please check us out there or on line. with that, let's get into our first panel -- technologies and freedom. what are the implications of the evolving media environment. i will turn over to stuart benjamin. [applause] >> are we all here? i'm going to keep the introductions short and not even

terribly sweet, because i think everybody here knows the people on the panel. on the off chance that you don't, joe waz from comcast, link hoewing from verizon and gigi sohn -- ellen davidson will be year, he had his link to the government -- he and his link to the conference blocked by the chinese government, but he will be here shortly. we a later panel that will be talking more specifically about first amendment issues. when we talk on the phone a couple of days ago, we thought might be interesting thing not to have opening statements from all of them, but just to jump into a discussion initially among the panelists and then soon enough, we will bring everybody in silicon have an interesting interchange.

a lot of the basics people can say, you already know, so we hope to die than at an interesting level from the get go. let me start with first right now and then i will sit down. since none of them expressed any interest in which jordan would go and come i will start from this side -- which order they would go and, i will start from this side. what new or emerging technologies for development are challenging our existing regulatory policy paradigms'? i want the speaker to identify one or two things that have already happened or is clearly on the horizon, not something fanciful. something clearly coming that might change the regulatory world as we know it. then we could have some discussion about what we think is the likely significance of those changes.

but with that as a wine that, i will sit down. >> thank you. thank you for having us here today. i'm going to talk about a technological change that has been with us since 1996, but because it continues to change, i think the implications for telecommunications policy going forward continues to be more relevant. that is something called doxis 3.0. it sends word data over cable -- it stands for a debt over cable. it is the way cable companies figured out in the 1990's to get high-speed data over cable at a time when no one, including intel, said the stuff would never work, famously at a company van in idaho. it's the way cable helped to drive broadband in the united

states. since we used it to bring the speed to america, we are now at 3.0 to deliver 50 megabit speeds and 100 is coming soon. to give you more information, i ask elizabeth to hand out a glossy brochure. this is something we customarily do, i think will give you an idea of how dynamic is and gives me a promise for describing how i think it is going to change things. this involves taking multiple cable channels and this is because our legacy as s a television provider and we tend to slice of the bandwidth into 6 mhz slices. historically, all of high-speed

internet services we have been providing on comcast or whoever your cable and high-speed internet provider might be has been done in the space of a single 6 mhz channel. it's the traditional single analog television channel. as we move into the digital era and a digital transmission by broadcasting has moved forward and cables own digital transition moves forward, we are able to take more of those 6 mhz slices and use them much more efficiently than to carry a single analog channel. so this is channel bonding. taking groups between two and four channels and having the data flow across the network. today, in a single channel, you can get 138 megabits per second service downstream. start multiplying that by four and you get a potential for 152

megabits downstream and the upstream, we're still doing to channels, so we have the potential of 54 upstream. you can move from 4 to 8 and 8 to 16. as we're able to reap purpose spectrum, as the market demands growth for more speed and more capacity. so let me give a sense of how does this change regulatory policy. let me count the ways. first, it significantly reduces scarcity. for every megabit, somebody will come up with a great new use and that's the way it should be. some of the congestion issues cable has had in the early days of broadband can be alleviated as we are able to devote more and more capacity. this capacity increase and driving more broadband and option availability reduces the need for content regulation.

content regulation has been premised on scarcity of opportunities to speak. today, as the commissioner mentioned in one of her speeches, with a couple of hundred dollars, you can be on line and be a speaker in high- definition video. the barriers to communication from the consumer are falling by the wayside. the fact that doxis 3.0 because been about 80% of our service area, we brought broad band competition to the marketplace. we brought first and drove competition from phone companies and satellite companies and increasingly, the wireless companies. in many ways, it reduces the need for network subsidy. we're able to get broadband on cable systems to more parts of

the country. ironically, even as competitive phone companies receive federal subsidies to compete with us. so i think will have more of an impact on reducing federal subsidies. i think it will increase the urgency of breaking down other barriers to what broadband can do. one reason i was running late was i was completing a blog post about virginia passing a tele- medicine bill for broadband services. these are the kinds of barriers, reimbursement in health care, correct liam -- correct curve -- correctly m -- curriculum barriers in education -- if we address these effectively, it needs to be more of a policy focus for us as we go forward.

i also think more than with increases the need to talk about new regulatory paradigms'. this is something i will defer to link about. he referred to the new democrat network about how the internet ecosystem looks completely different than anything we have seen in traditional telecommunications. it begs for a new regulatory approach that recognizes the ecosystem consists of networks and applications and devices. consumer interests are at stake as far as how all three of those are developed and managed. >> spending most of my time focused on internet technology policy issues, i look at trends. and some of trying to predict what new technology may be coming up in the short term or long term, i thought i would

focus on a couple of friends i think are important in the technology arena. one of the things i think is right on spot which is used quite often is that in the short run, we overestimate the impact and in the long run we underestimated. we tend to think there's a big splash and it will take over the world, but it's a combination of range of factors, including the consumer adopted and how they adapt to it and how it adapts to them. so it takes longer than we may think for the impact of technology to have an impact in our society and policies. it is a technology that has value and is something consumers find can be adapted effectively, as policy implications. i would like to talk about briefly capacity and speed with respect to broadband technology. second is what i call connectivity increases in changes. on capacity and speed, there is

a lot of talk about doxis and the way it expanded capacity on cable networks. we have been talking about different technologies increasing the capacity of the network -- one is fiber to.com technology, using a set of protocols, the passive optical network technology. second is the fourth generation wireless technology around a set of protocols called lte technology. they are designed to increase capacity and the ability of so they have the ability to expand they have the ability to expand over time we will be able to do more with the spectrum as well. all of us have heard how ship these increase over time. there are two other theorem setter used in technology and engineering. one of them is called coopers

law. local networks have doubled in speed. the second is butter's law. if it will double but every nine months fi. i do a lot of blogging for verizon. i started on the internet back on the 1980's with a 19 kilobits per second mill of -- modem. it really was about every 20 months or so the fee will double. it has been pretty persistent the piercing need more capacity. with respect to our technology, the first version of it -- we are now testing something.

we did a test, taking 10 gigabit connection to a home we just talked about how the technology did work. it is not skilled yet. it really has the capability to expand the house having to put a lot of infrastructure in place -- expand without having to put a lot of infrastructure in place. itself, which is a huge benefit. the capacity issue on the fiber side of the home connection is significant and is going to provide a lot of ability for people in the long term to use these technologies it anyway. on the wireless side, lte technology, we are constructing the early parts of the network for 4g technology. we expect to have 100 million people access of around 30

cities. that's the goal. we saw speeds of 86 megabits per second down. that is unloaded. that's not what people sharing the spectrum, which is what would happen in a real-life situation. so it could be anywhere from 5 to 12 megabits down and 325 up, which is much faster than most standard dsl technology today. so a huge amount of increase in capacity for wireless. those increases have major impacts on policy, everything from competition policy -- when the have networks are expanding -- these companies are trying to one of each other in terms of offering better network capabilities. it has implications for how much regulation needs to be in that space. a secondary i want to touch on briefly is connectivity increases and changes.

it's not just the fact we are expanding the capacity and more people are connecting to broadband. we are around 65 million homes that have broad band, going from 8 million in 2000 to that level is pretty amazing. the connectivity and the way it is being done is changing also. if you look at wireless and mobile, machine to machine connectivity is going to be an increasingly major part of how people use mobile broadband technology. what we mean is devices that help you monitor remotely different kinds of technologies and services, technologies that allow you to remotely monitor medical conditions of people at home or monitorial own energy consumption at home and change it. these are devices communicating and not people. if you look at connectivity, we

measured it based on location. where people had a phone, that is how we considered connectivity. how then we measure personal communication. person to person communication is important. we moved from 95% of house is having a connection on their old phone system to 280 million people having mobile phones today. many more connections because it is not personal. we think that's going to increase dramatically because you have machine to machine communication, devices doing things for people. as a result of that capacity, we are able to do that. we have changed our business model quite a bit from the old retail mobile model with the phone package with the services. now we see changes in the models

and companies in the mobile selling services. we started something called the open development initiative. we actually have a new laboratory and testing process and offer wholesale access to our mobile network. people can bring devices in, monitoring devices of varying kinds, they can bring a cellular telephone and and not go through our retail offices, they can do that and connect it on the wholesale wireless services we are offering. it allows people to come in and try new things and test devices and get them on networks and offer services. the old testing process, what we had the old retail model, it would take 12-18 months. this testing process takes five or eight weeks. so within a short amount of time, you are tested for connectivity. if you want to offer the services, it's up to you how you do it. that's a business model that did

not exist driven by capacity and changes in technology, but also by competition. the industry knows we are in a position now where a lot of people have cell phones. not everybody, but a lot of people do. we're looking at ways to use networks to connect other things, machine to machine. the other thing is astounding which has been happening in a couple of years and is getting closer to reality is we're getting closer to a globe that is really connected. most people on the globe in the next five or 10 years may have a connection to each other. it is astounding we're getting to that position in the world today. a lot of good can come out that as we know. i had six technologies i can talk about, but those are the ones i want to focus on.

in terms of policy, the key issue is the activity and increased connectivity and more capacity and competition -- i mentioned the need for spectrum and in that regard, the new fcc broadband plan is focused on something important -- how do we identify and make available for use the spectrum which will be important for 4g technologies. the other thing that is important as competition policy. our senior executive vice president gave a speech couple of weeks ago and tried to frame how new competition policy framework with look-alike. he focused on three primary principles -- one is he believes we have to focus on how to make sure consumers feel secure and protected on line. we have to deal with privacy and how policies affect them.

he talked about how we create and build off of the internet existing the collaborative self- governing model. how'd we build that model and to the regulatory framework we have today which has traditionally been more command and control. the third thing he talked about is how industry ought to play a stronger role, providing more advice and good ideas on norms and practices in the technical aspects of the internet. the issues we face, all of the become policy, their record in ingestion, network management and those things. he suggested a technical advisory group. people through the internet ecosystem, including advocates have technical expertise to talk to somebody about these issues think about what we can do to suggest norms and best practices and better ways to manage networks. that's my key points.

>> thank you. i would also like to give my pitch for the fcba. i'm glad to serve and i think bob pettit has set a great job. so if you are a communications lawyer, please join. i have to technologies like to talk about today, both of which are out there already, and are already radically changing the regulatory environment as we know it. the first is smart radio technology. smart radio technology allows for greater sharing of spectrum. smart radio can sense interference on a frequency and go to another frequency. i think you will start to see this technology get embedded in more consumer devices. people know about the spaces

between digital tv channels that have been preserved that will allow for a license to use -- allow for unlicensed use that will allow for devices to be used on this spectrum. what is important about our radio technology, because it allows for sharing, it calls into question the notion of physical scarcity of spectrum -- you still of allocation scarcity as the government is still giving out exclusive licenses to certain and these. -- exclusive license and a scarcity. but calls into question whether it is physically scarce. that was the underpinning of the red lion case that allowed for greater content on the broadband issue.

also called in to my mind before exclusive licensing. if radios can sense when there is interference in go to another frequency, why you have to have exclusive licenses? if you not have exclusive licenses and you could have more people using the spectrum, unlike my friend who i disagree with a little bit, it puts the ability to speak in more people's hands, and then you really do have competition. the problem with their competition analysis is their companies have that exclusive pipe. they have the exclusive control over the network. while they may be competing with each other to have bigger and faster, nobody else can join the party. but if you have more of license spectrum, if you have more -- more unlicensed spectrum, --

there is a meme out there where we could just find more spectrum. let's wrest away control from the federal government and go to the department events and the federal aviation the administration and pay them or force them to get off their spectrum. that's a mighty difficult task and we need to be looking at spectrum sharing. the more smart radio technology comes into play in consumer devices and they're getting better every single day, some are ready of technology is only going to continue to get smarter and i think that is going to shake up how we think about spectrum and how we think about competition in the spectrum space. the second thing is, and i might be taking us away from alan is the cloud. i don't know if you call it the

clout of technology or service, but it is a development our regulatory -- a development changing regulatory environment. it allows you to put all of your content and services somewhere other than hard drive. somewhere in the ether so you can connect to it and download it and play at from any device anywhere. maybe one day from her clothing or what have you. but you don't need to carry around a pc or ipod to carry your music. there's a cloud of music service and he showed me how you can connect to his 10,000 songs library from any device. he's being sued, which is one of

the regulatory issues i'm talking about. but it untethers you from having a hard drive and that is radical. what are some of the issues raised year -- #one as copyright? michael robinson for the second time in 10 years is being sued by the recording industry for this service. every time you upload something, you're making a copy. this is why copyright law, which was last seriously revised in 1976 is completely ridiculous in the digital age. there is a big case that was finally resolved earlier this year that had to do with cablevision wanting to do a network dvr. instead of having tivo with a hard drive, you click your remote and it would go to the cablevision servers and you would record in the cloud and cablevision would provide the movie or show just as if you had

tivo. this was challenged all the way to the supreme court by a number of cable networks and the motion picture association of america. luckily, they lost in the second circuit and the solicitor general urged the supreme court not to take the case. but@@@@@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ h

copyright owner's claim that a copy that needs to be licensed. this is only the second circuit. i suspect what other people come up with interesting cloud technologies and this technology essentially let you upload your digital files to the cloud, he is being sued by the recording industry for an awful lot of money. so copyright is huge. second is jurisdiction. i'm sure you heard about the google executives who were sued and convicted in italy because of a youtube video that according to italian law did not get taken down fast enough. the question is there are no youtube servers in italy, so why

should it will even have jurisdiction? so it is out there, everywhere. what court has jurisdiction over a situation like that? this has the power to tell google where they did the right or wrong thing? finally, privacy. maybe it is more secure than your hard drive, if you put things out there in the cloud, a very good hacker can probably packed into it. but it seems with any new technology these days, it raises privacy issues. those are my 2. >> since i am batting cleanup, i will take a different cut and try to summarize some of the things i thought were common themes. i want to say something that might sound boring but i think is true -- the most important technology development we have been talking about for the last decade and will be talking about in the coming decade is clearly

the continued success of the internet, the open, user- controlled, decentralized, and to end internet. i know that sounds, but i don't think 10 years ago it was as obvious that the internet would emerge as the medium we're talking about. i think it has been demonstrated clearly by the recent fcc broadband plan which kinsella of things about, but it has put the internet and broadband front and center is the critical medium for access to ideas and information and economic opportunity in america and around the world. i will touch on a couple of trends we see that are important and i think will continue to make this an important and disruptive set of technologies. first, computing power is continuing to increase in ways you may not have predicted would continue.

there are all sorts of laws. we see the continued increase in computing power. more important as what is happening with storage capacity. in the last 20 years, computing power has increased thousands of times, but storage capacity on hard drives and memory has increased millions of times. that is a really changing what we're capable blood -- but we're capable of doing. connectivity -- we have a billion and a half or more people on line and that number is growing radically. that's changing access to information around the world. one thing we did not touch on much was mobility. we have a billion and have personal computers out there, but they're close to 4 billion cell phones out there. for people around the world, that's the way they will get access to internet and broadband. what is also interesting is we're finally beginning to see

this sort of thing people have been talking about for 10 or 15 years, which is the rise of amazing mobile, location-based services. another piece of that is what is happening with the clout. we are -- with the clout. we're seeing a shift away from the desktop, toward a model where people are getting more and more of their computing power in the cloud. web-based e-mail is a great example of that. google's on search engine, we all operate in the cloud and give tremendous computing power to people in short bursts to do things they cannot do on their desktop or certainly not on their cell phone.

these trends are making these services even more valuable. i think will continue to see this disruptive set of technologies coming out around the internet. in terms of the impact on policy, it is important to look back and see what we were right and wrong about over the last decade or longer. something joe touched on in terms of impact on the first amendment is that we got a right or the supreme court got a right what at first looked at the internet in 1997 and is continuing look at the internet in free expression cases. it is a medium that requires the highest levels of first amendment protection. some of the rationale for control, scarcity is first among them, do not exist on the internet and we do not see them

emerging on the internet now. it's what -- is right we continue to afford the highest level of protection to the internet. we touched on liability protection issues. something we did not talk about much is the continuing rise of user-generated content. users are publishers on the internet and every user can be a speaker. that has become more true with the rise of social networking. people are publishing every day and speaking every day on the internet. for that reason, the liability protections that were so important are even more important today. so the fact that internet service providers, search engines and other hosting companies are not necessarily the gatekeepers to content or responsible for content they do not create, that we set up

structures, is going to be extremely important in the coming years. more important than even has been so far. one thing i think we got wrong in the policy space and how will interact with technology is the notion that a little bit of the internet means you have limited freedom. i think it was a sense maybe 10 or 15 years ago that the internet was going to be an unstoppable force for freedom. if you got the internet, you have unlimited access to information. i think what we are seeing, surprisingly in some ways, is that the internet can be a technology of control as well as a technology of freedom. there actually are ways -- the old conventional wisdom is you cannot stop the internet and i

think we see around the world is there are ways to control the internet and countries are taking measures to control access to the internet. i think it was unexpected and i think that's one of the trends we're going to watch. we are experiencing a firsthand that google and i think it's something we all need to work on as an internet community to make sure people have continued access to ideas. >> i can't imagine what country you are referring to. >> unfortunately, there are a fair number of countries. some of the human rights groups have a list of about 40 internet restricting companies. google said -- google has had our services block in 25 different companies over the last several years. it's not just the one everybody is thinking of. >> in the interests of time -- i have a question t up, but i want to sharpen this a little bit from the way i mentioned a few days ago.

what realistic development might happen that would change your regulatory outlook? i hope we all believe in this world that we are not under ideologues and that we are responsive to what happens in developments in the world and our views are based in part on a certain set of events. so what would change to change your regulatory outlook? just in light of competition policy, let me ask you to think about it in that context. you mentioned some of the buzz words of net neutrality. what would it take for google to have a different perspective on what an ideal regulatory regime might look like? in a realistic way. i imagine that you would say if doxis 3.0 takes off and we swamp fiber-optic so that we are the

only wire into people's houses. if we achieve that level of success, i'm guessing -- [unintelligible] [laughter] i'm intentionally asking, you can -- this is all hypothetical, but what would change in the world that would lead you to say i have a certain vision of what regulatory -- and thinking competition policy -- but you can take another direction. but now i'm thinking this has changed. let me give a small example. you mentioned reno verses aclu. justice stevens majority opinion says users seldom encounter unwanted content by accident.

i think that may have been true in 1997, i would like to know what percentage of people in this room have ever encountered material on the internet that they did want to by accident. has anybody here not encountered material they didn't want to see by accident? that has changed. some people might say as a result of that,, combined with the a bailout -- availability that level of indecency people were not imagining, i think it's one of those cases -- i'm just wondering are there things that can happen realistically that will lead you to say i have to look at things differently? >> i think it's an interesting question. i think there probably would be iterations of the internet where people did not have control. i don't think it's about a random chance encounter with kind that you don't want to see. i think it's about the

capability of control that is totally unprecedented. if that were to disappear, we would have to rethink some of these basic issues. the other end of the extreme is i expressed concern about the ability of people, the governments to control what people have access to. one hopes that has been expressed is that there would be effective anti-censorship tools out there so that people will be able to circumvent -- and i use that in the ground censorship way, not the copyright way, that people can evade any kind of censorship that might be put out to control their ability to access content on the internet. i think those kinds of things were to materialize, we could be a lot less concerned about the efforts to control people see because people have the tools and those tools have not materialized. on both ends of the spectrum, you could imagine a future internet or people either had no

control themselves or had in that control and we would be less worried about a lot of these issues. >> on net neutrality, if we have a world where there are eight meaningful competitors, all of them can provide you with wonderful, high-speed access to the internet, and let's imagine we have some basic transparency rules, so of their restrictive in any way or charging difference in prices, the world knows it. do we need anything more than that? >> i will make this easy -- we have been on the record saying if there was a lot of competition in this space, the concerns about openness and the needs to have basic rules about it would disappear. so in the wireless space, we have off -- we have argued it is a different space. i'm not sure we think it is

perfect or have solve all problems, but it's different because there's more competition that we have seen in the wire of line broadband space. i think it would make a big difference if there was that kind of brought competition, just as it would make a difference if there was only one. >> i want to disagree a little bit. r @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @

you could have 10 competitors, but you still of the termination monopoly problem. i want to get to the point that made earlier where i think the need for some of the competition policies that we a public knowledge talk about -- unbundling, a line sharing, but not be necessary. but it's like technological development that will take care of it. it's a regulatory development. until a technology is created that allows one to provide internet access service without a wire or license for spectrum, the only way we're going to have competition is if the government

acts. there's no two ways about it. maybe the miracle technology is 20 years down the road but it is not realistic now. if the fcc and the government move away from a licensing system and more toward unlicensed, i don't think all should be, but now you have the smart radio technology that allows dynamic sharing at preventing interference when two people run the same frequency, thus our radio bumps you to another frequency, that could allow for more internet access, more competition and that might be a realistic development where perhaps you do not need the other competition policies we've been talking about. >> what would it take for you to think maybe the license doesn't work? let's say there is a new nationwide flood of a certain number of megahertz and it turns

out smart radio technology just does not take off. maybe the investors are not there or the technology doesn't work as well as we thought. maybe some people are using other protocols and there's a level of interference nobody can get through very well. is there a scenario where you would say maybe a license isn't the way to go? >> yes, i suppose there is. if the technology fails -- i have greater faith in applications providers than you do. when people talk about the internet and net neutrality, they say how are people going to build these applications? there is a much congestion and how is video going to go through? . .

>> there are things around privacy and cyber-security online. those kind of things to make are the kind of things that they are not dealt with successfully by the industry and consumer groups than they could be done -- they could undermine the future of the internet.

this is about the consumer. you are looking at the technology does enter active and allows the consumer to have much more control and do things like create their own context. a lot of this has to do the updates and spy where that the consumer does not have control over. we have not gone far enough around transparency and being more clear. i think the applications in these device manufacturers and the network guy have to complain about it. all of them have to work together. the reason they work as they do get together. they talk about these things. many of these things get worked out. a good example is pc visa.

there was concerned about congestion. the application guys came in but we all worked together to make the technology worked better with the networks. many times the applications can have a bad impact on the application, not intentionally, but they can. that is why i mention the technical advisory group idea. if you can get a wide range of folks together in the industry and they are not looking at developing protocols and new standards which is most -- what most of the bodies do, but they can actually talk about what types of things like trends that we need to do to address these issues, let's talk about ideas and not fixes all the time. the policy makers have a place to go where they have seen an issue and people are saying it is a problem.

>> i want to chime in to underscore the privacy issue. if you look at what is happening in the physical world outside of the internet space with the rise of ubiquitous sensing technologies. the ability to collect more information about all of us is growing. there needs to be a response from industry and from government. we need people to get together to work on things as one. one thing that we are working on is how to come up with good rules for government access to this information. we have not updated our own surveillance laws in years. i think we will see this debate on capitol hill and the white house in the next congress about how we update the laws that

govern access. >> i am assuming you are not a huge fan but what if this comes through and verizon wireless just becomes the dominant player in wireless service? if all the other companies cannot cut it and they are shadows of their former selves, pick your numbers. 94% of the wireless market -- at what point do you say that we -- that you and acknowledge that you are so dominant that competition is scared. is there a point at which you can concede that to hit it? >> there is a misperception that our company and other players and the broadband internet industry are suggesting that everything be totally deregulated.

if it was not said that we should have no role in government but a different role of government. the role traditionally goes back -- i read an interesting book about the history of regulation. the first regulator was charles adams and he set a framework that we used in 1887 to come up with the road act and that came -- became the 1934 communications act. we have used that for decades. using that kind of regulatory approach, we tend to be still think things and making it difficult for the internet to eat all. we would like to see an approach that that has a stronger role for the technical folks. we want to get ongoing advice and ideas about how these things are in evolving. the second thing is that the government as a backstop. they are there in ccase there is -- there are bad actors.

the third thing we said is that we do need to deal with some of the consumer issues that are really critical, the transparency issue. does not just the network providers but the application providers. some of them tell you but and people do not know that. privacy and transparency and security are the kind of things we have to deal with. some of them are policy. >> you would say if we have that market power it would be good and what we have it, it would make sense to have a different regulatory regime? >> we are saying there is a need for the different framework now not because there is market power. >> i am just making sure. >> can you rewind because i think you answered the question?

let me look at what you said from the other end. if we succeeded cable in providing the best customer service in high-speed internet and customers flocked to us in droves. we have substantial numbers today and if we win out against a number of other competitors in competitive facilities, we will have earned that started the thing that would make me rethink where i am on this issues is i promise a lot of my assumptions on the fact that facilities-based competition, getting people to invest in competitive wireless. we have approval of the harbinger deal to combine the satellites and terrestrial networks. the best way to ensure competition is to keep barriers down and promote more competitive investment.

as long as that continues and we continue to see more of it from the likes of sprint in the wireless space, even though verizon has reported to slow down employment, i assume they are playing possum. we will not rest on our laurels because bay or at&t may well decide to start spending again. bigger money made go into a mobile. mobile. when wimax and lte can support high-definition video, that is a competitive service. if something were to happen that would cause a significant to

ammunition in this kind of investment, lack of support from the capital markets, forms of regulatory disincentives in the form of regulatory mandates or resell requirements -- or resale requirements,un bundling did not work. we were a competitor on the verge in the 1990's of getting into the phone area. somebody could come along and by government-regulated services from the incumbent. we live in the failure of a regulatory regime. were it to go way for the reasons i mentioned, that would

cause me to rethink my position. >> a quick fall on that -- -- a quick follow-up on that -- maybe there will be the kind of market dominance. >> i want to see those applications come forward the interesting thing about the dynamics between band with and applications, the improvements don't just come on the band with cyprus they also come in the more application -- efficient -- than with side, they also come in the application side which is more efficient. when that happens you don't need as much bad with.

-- and with. -- band with. if we are able to offer 100 megabits, people will come along with applications. our concern is that we have@@@@r

15 or 20 competitors because there arprobably will not be enough capital to go around i don't think we should ignore that competition is different. it is how consumers are impacted by it. >> the department of justice said it was competitive but not as competitive as it should be. what i am not hearing is how we get to know more than four wireless carriers?

i don't want to get into whether open access is a success or failure but when people have a choice of 13 mauro band searches, that is good success. we can argue about that some other time. net neutrality is not about competition. that neutrality is about consumer rejection -- consumer protection. government has to serve as a backstop. we seem to have agreement on that. how do we get to a world of eight competitors? i would love that. had we get to that unless somebody invents technology that allows you to route around wires and government access? >> google is a phenomenal service. it is still might default

browser because i think it is terrific. the same innovation that could happen in the application stage will happen in the network o spacve. i had no idea that a harbinger of things would come out. they came out as a really effective competitor in the wireless space. when clearwater came to the door, we did not know that wimax would have a run for their money. >> the fcc put retractions on who you could least two. your company is upset about it and at&t are very upset about it. that was an example of government intervention to ensure competition. does not like carpenter is free

and clear. there is a government restriction thing. -- it is not like harbinger is free and clear. there is a government restriction of there. >> we think there are many googles out there in the sense that we have serious competition. >> can i quote you on that? >> we have yobbo and people -- we have yobbo -- we have yahoo! and others. people may decide not to use a google.

we expect that to continue for awhile. the more important thing is rather than just say that we should have neutrality and applications and content space, which is the message we are hearing, what are the rules we can agree with that we should have? it seemed for a while is that we agreed that users should be able to control their experience. they should decide what services they go to and applications they use. it seemed like we were coming close. i still believe there is actually a hope of people in this debate saying that there is a very narrow set of rules that we seem to agree on. >> joe gets one sentence and we will continue on. >> if anybody squid -- wants to

switch from verizon to at&t i will keep their switching costs as low as i can. >> there's an article recently and they point out that while smartbike from devices alleviate the problem, it does not eliminate it. there is a signal to noise ratio that limits of the throughput and there is no getting around it. in the wireless space we have not that those limits but we are getting close to them. the good news is we are using the spectrum more efficiently. the bad news is these policy advocates suggest this problem will not go away. i would like to hear your reactions.

do we have a world where we do not have to allocate that anymore? >> i don't know. i am hoping for that world. i think it is realistic. it may not develop that way. if it doesn't, we are back to talking about getting more facility-based competition. i was trying to get away from a line sharing. i want to imagine a world where we did not have to go there. >> i think there may be ultimately limits but there is a tremendous amount of innovation going on now.

what we have seen in the market is that when people are given the opportunity will make use of that. i don't think it is either for but what we are seeing is there's a compelling argument for more now. >> on the 4g side, you already have wimax. there might be 100 million people who have access by the end of the year. at&t will start next year the idea that we have a limited number of competitors is astounding to me. if you look at delathe landline side, competitors are switching. they certainly have the ability to do it. >> anybody want any final notes?

we are at our appointed ending time. great thanks to for a great pal and we will reconvene at 2:45. [applause]

>> there are a more of a variety of courses than ever before. the digital revolution is demolishing some of the pillars of traditional news business models. the former executive editor of "the washington post" and a media scholar published a report that said the economic foundation of the nation's newspapers is collapsing and newspapers themselves are shrinking. the knight foundation's report

said local journalistic institutions are themselves in crisis with financial, technological, and behavioral changes taking place in our society yet, there is universal agreement that help the journal's and is a vital agreement -- a vital part of a democratic society. -- agreement that held the journalism is a vital part of a democratic society. at this moment of tremendous change, what course should policy take? how can we guarantee the survival of an independent( media serving the public interest? what role can government policy makers play that does not breach first amendment rights? we have assembled a panel of experts that have different points of view which promises a very lively discussion. let me introduce the panelists.

first, susan desanti is the director of the office of policy planning where she previously served from 1995-2006. among her current projects is a study on changes to the news media in the internet age. to court right is courtpolashinski the director of the first amendment center. he is a veteran journalist who held executive positions at usa today and was a correspondent covering washington for debt. gannett. we also have a senior policy maker for the senior access project. he has been with them since 1978 representing citizen interests before the fcc and congress. then we have steve waldman, the senior advisor to the

communications commission directing the study on the stage of media. he was co-founder and ceo and a editor in chief of one publication and before that he was national editor of "u.s. news and world report" and a national correspondent for " newsweek." we have the vice president and senior associate general counsel of agnnett co. where she advises television stations, the newspapers, and website to on issues including intellectual property rights, at this, privacy, and libel. she has been with gannet since 1985 and was previously in private practice. please welcome the panel. [applause] i make it three journalists of vs three attorneys. this should be interesting.

we will save time later on for your questions but first, i would like to begin by asking susan and steve to tell us what they have learned so far from the studies they are conducting on the state of the media. i would like to start with susan. >> thank you very much. i want to emphasi@@@@@@@ @ r),rr

the 2000's. does not something totally new welvq are doing here. it certainly is the case that when you look at the situation in the news media, you see a lot of financial difficulty. there are trends that have significance not just for the economy but also to whether we will have a situation that includes the citizenry. what has the ftc done with this project so far? we have had two workshops. in december, 2009, we had a workshop that was basically

gathering the facts about the economics of the industry these days. we found at least three critical factors. the first is that there are critical financial difficulties that have been caused by over leveraged purchases of newspapers in times when it was thought that margins of 30% would continue for a long time. they obviously have not. is important to note in that context that most newspapers that are stand-alone enterprises, they are still profitable. if you look at them as stand- alone enterprises, but you cannot because they are part of much larger organizations that are still saddled with debt from those over leveraged acquisitions. second, there have been significant reductions to

advertising revenues to newspapers. that is important because newspapers traditionally got about 80% of their revenue, at least during the 20th century, from advertising. what are the causes for that? the two main ones is the great recession of 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010. the recession has hit traditional advertisers for newspapers particularly hard. that includes all the dealers, retail stores, housing, etc. the other causes the development of on-line advertising. this is most striking if you look at classified advertising. it used to provide 40% of newspaper revenue. it is now substantially reduced. that is because you can put a classified ad on craigslist for free. why would you list and in the newspapers?

-- why would you list your ad in the newspaper? let's look at this in terms of the question for today's panel which is it time for a bailout for newspapers. in my view, there is no reason why you would want to bail out newspaper owners who have made bad business decisions. i have not heard the newspaper owners asking for no one is suggesting that the financial world would tumble it newspaper owners did not get a bailout. in terms of the recession, there are many businesses that are having very hard times during this recession. there are many people who are being laid off, not just journalists. eventually, we believe the recession will left gradually. it will probably take longer than we would like but that is still a phenomenon that is a

short-term phenomenon finally, let's look at the online advertising. this is the phenomenon that i think might justify some kind of shift in government policy to provide more support for news organizations in general. i want to be clear that we are talking about news organizations, not just newspapers. this has to be across platforms. this is especially since almost all news organizations are on line. the differences between platforms is getting blurred to some extent in any case, there is evidence that this movement of advertising on line can up and the business model for these organizations, especially newspapers and broadcast news. there is a great deal of innovation going on in the small

on-line news gathering organizations but no sustainable new business model has arisen. there are reasons to believe that the free market for news, especially public affairs news, is potentially subject to market failure. that means that there is the possibility that a new business model will not emerge. finally, it would not be novel for the government to provide indirect support for news organizations. i emphasize indirect. we had a workshop in march for two days to talk about the other experts and what might some of these policy options be that to be considered. that is where i will leave it and i am happy to elaborate when we have time. >> we will definitely come back later and hear what comes next.

steve, same question to you, where does your study stand and what do you think the next step will be? >> the ffc study is a couple of months behind the f÷ study but we have a special emphasis. in addition to understanding what is happening with the news business as a whole, the federal communications commission has direct regulatory authority over every part of the media industry other than newspapers. local broadcast, cable, radio, wireless, etc. we need to make recommendations in general for congress but also specifically to make sure that the ftc is approaching these issues in a wise way.

some are the roles of the fcc books were conceived before there was an internet. some of them were conserve before there was tv. to assume that the people the constructed these got it right back and is probably wishful thinking. i agree with susan's general assessment that this is a pretty serious potential problem going on in the news business. the drop of 44% in revenue for newspapers since 2000 and news magazine staffs have been cut in half since their peak, local news has cut back, across the board you have a very serious contraction. what does that mean in terms of government intervention? the term "bailout" got put into

the discussion about news because of a call into the timing. the contraction of charnels happened at the set -- a journalist happened at the same time were bailing out the oil industry and the banking industry. i don't know of anyone who is advocating bell out of marriage papers or any part of the media in the same way -- was advocating bailout of newspapers or any part of the media in the same way. that is not to say that the crisis is not just as severe as what is happening with automobiles or banks. the banking system might up -- might not have collapsed because of newspapers declining. what is being lost is the ability to hold public leaders accountable, the ability for

consumers to be protected, the ability for democratic institutions to function well. that is a big deal. that is why the fcc launched this project and the first place for it does not so much that we have an interest in the economic health of these interest is, what does it mean for democracy? there are many different points that we could talk about. i think the most important ones, one is the importance of bumbling and un bundling. it refers to the ways that newspapers and other media institutions were able to cost- subsidized different functions within the same operation. people have their favorite example whether it is horoscopes that or subsidizing the city hall reporter or the sports

scores were subsidizing something else. ?uthere seems to be the idea tht one of the reasons that journalism that was not cost- effective and a strict sense was that news papers could to create an overall -- and overall bundle. if you break it apart and start applying supply and demand models to each component, everything changes. you can get your box scores for free online and then some. íyait basically called the quesn for the first time in perhaps 100 years of what are you willing to pay for news. the answer may be not much. there's an interesting dilemma of what happens in a world where people are not willing to pay for something that has an

important social value. the other thing that has been coming out over and over again is a confusion that has developed between an abundance of media outlets and an abundance of journalism. i often hear people ask about there being a crisis or shortage when there are tons of new outlets and new web sites where you can get information more ways than ever before. it has the feeling that we are in an age of abundance and in many ways we are. and yet, if you trace back the information that you get all these many different outlets, you find to is actually a small and shrinking number of journalists that are providing the information that goes out to an ever-enlarging number of outlets.

you have this era of abundance on one part of the media spectrum and an era of shortage and scarcity on another part. it is very important to disentangle those two forces. if you want to think wisely about public policy. >> thank you. that was a great start spread i will turn to you barbara next as someone who represents a very important media company. how do you see this situation as described by the two previous speakers and how did we get here? >> susan at the nail on the head. i think the workshops you have been conducting have been informative. the point that steep that are very profound.

gannett is a company that publishes 82 daily newspapers. we have 26 television stations a romp the country as well. -- around the country as well. it is hard to know how we got here. what susan pointed out is exactly correct -- the decline -- the decline in classified advertising has had a huge impact. as you said, 80% of newspapers have been supported by advertising. of that 80%, up to 60% has come from classified advertising. a decline in classified advertising has had a profound impact on the dollars available for news gathering. secondly, the new strings of revenue on line simply do not pay as well.

as the old streams did. there have been formulations of this but publicly, the most precise is the one that was mentioned that one of the workshops which is that in print, a pair of oddballs per year is worth about $500 p. online, those eyeballs are only worth $75. it is hard to see the lines crossing with the emergence of the online products. we are growing audiences online at a very good clip. the dollars that we derive from those audiences are smaller than those that we derived from the traditional print products. the fixed cost nature of the business cannot be discounted. parentes capital-intensive. distribution is very expensive.

we have to maintain the cost structure where as new website come in and they do not have those expenses. it is the confluence of those three major developments that has brought us where we are today. >> andy, do you have bought whether there is an approach -- you have a proper thoughts what the government's role is in all of this? >> i find myself in an odd situation of agreeing with what has been said so far. let me hypothesize somebody who is not here, someone who talks about citizen journalism and people and their proverbial pajamas blogging away and providing a function that replaces traditional journalism

i would disagree. with that person because there is this irreducible role for these people called journalists and these people called editors who create these products that tell us things we did not know we wanted to know until we saw the headline or so the story there -- or saw the story there. it is produced with professionalism. i think this is a public good. i think there is a serious danger of market failure. there is a tradition which susan alluded to, going back to the very start of the country. it is inherent in the goals of the framers of the constitution and the first amendment to create a well informed electorate for making sure that the voters are informed about issues of the day and able to make wise decisions in the

democratic process. i will actually read a couple of sentences from professor michael john, talking about the permit role of government in this congress. . .

would have done it since the beginning. people have written wonderfully about postal subsidies, an incredibly important role that they played in creating a robust and effective journalism and how for the last hundred years, we have had a profitable cross subsidize journalism created by large advertising revenues. we're now facing a real dilemma. i think it is entirely appropriate for government in

the tradition of these neutral subsidies, advertisements for public notices, postal subsidies, public radio in the non-commercial space, there are ways to do this that do not impede and greatly promote first amendment values. i will leave it to barbara. i do not think that hurt years in an npr that the fact that some of the funding that came from the government competed the effectiveness of the the journalism of npr. there are some terrific models. we certainly want to incubate. i would like to have something like a national endowment for journalism to take new models and try them out to assist people in trying to develop new and different ways to do it.

it may well be that we will not come up in this new environment for a journalism that is truly self sustaining without some governmental role. i think it needs to be eight -- and a very -- a very important part of the discussion. >> thank you. in the next part of our discussion, we will get to some of the specific proposals. i want to give gene a chance to get in. she has first amendment and the title of his job. >> i am going to run with that idea and try to take a longer, a larger perspective. it is -- let me react to what has been said here.

the concept of public funding for laboratories and experiment, for new development, to assist industry in -- that has never been all that good at innovation, quite honestly. we change the width of the columns. we congratulated ourselves will meet adopted color 50 years after technology made it possible. i think when we talk in this context, there are a few things to think about. in some ways, we're talking about a crisis of mechanics, of the corporate suite in terms of acquisitions and expansion obverses the core product of news. we're not talking about a crisis of journalism. in terms of the market model, we have this incredible formula for success in terms of a free press. we have a tremendous and growing

need for information. we have new mechanisms for which to deliver it. we have an incredible thirst for that information on the other end. from that basic model, you could not pick a better product than journalism. in the longer view, if you think about three speech, freedom of press, we have gone through an evolution. from the village green to the village screen. we have circumvented in some ways these entities that grew up, starting about the late 1800's. we're interpositions between the consumer and the news itself. we have this marvelous innovated. . having said that, too many of my

former colleagues are out of work. to many local stations have cut back staff. to many journalists have been redirected to other careers for me to say that there is not a crisis. when we talk about the subject -- i am struck because we have done other panels on the subject as well. we are in a transition period when from a model that worked for 100 years to something new. we're dipping cops into the water fall right now. we're trying to find it in this tremendous flowing environment. if we come up with a solution today, it will not be inappropriate solution for tomorrow in terms of what happens with an entanglement of government. we need to be very cautious

about this. not trying to ignore the fact that every day, fewer journalist are employed. we're also losing a high-end spectrum of a journalist, senior people with the most experience are leaving in numbers that we would not have anticipated ever. we're losing that talent pool at the top that has that 30 years. i grew up starting with smaller newspapers. what i learned there is that often with somebody with that 20 years of experience knew more about that county budget than anybody in office. they had been there through all of those administrations in transitions bridge when we talk about the grand solutions, which look at these mega solutions. we need to think about preserving that kind of thing. most newspapers are viable

entities. community newspapers are seen as that important news conduit. those are the places that are still robust. when we look at solutions, and we look at these, i hope we will consider that in. what do we need to assist that role? we need to worry -- i understand and i have read the report to -- who published the report. the founders were of very specific. the 45 words are out there and it does say, there is no barrier.

congress shall make no law. what was implicit there was the government -- the desire to keep government out. with all due respect, with the shackles, the shackles. i know we have dealt with postal subsidies. we need to be very cautious about stepping forward on this. we also deal with the big unknown, the skeptical public. they will see any assist as the hand of government somehow tilting the objectivity or pushing the object -- pushing the objectivity. we need to be very cautious. i would like to see innovation. i think subsidizing universities for innovation is a good idea.

>> i really just want to interject very briefly that we have been burying the newspaper industry. really is a bit premature. around the country, this quarter, you see the numbers improving we still think we have a very vital business. it was exciting last fall. there were three days of meetings and the message was, watchdog journalism is our future. local watchdog journalism is our future. we think we have our future. we recognize that the bill at notion is a little far-fetched. even -- bailout notion is a

little far-fetched. there are much smaller steps that can be taken to improve the financial health of newspapers by the government. i will mention a couple. the killing wisdom seems to be that the postal -- the going wisdom seems to be that the postal subsidies have benefited newspapers. in fact, something of the reverse is true. the periodical rate applies to weeklies. the beneficiaries are magazines and weekly newspapers. for the daily newspapers, there has actually been a postal trend that has hurt us quite significantly. that is that the postal rate commission has given much lower rates to saturation mailers. why does that matter? saturation mailers are like the -- they sent advertisements out

to an entire community. what we do at the newspaper is that we take the same inserts and we put them in the newspapers. for those people in the community that do not subscribe, we mail. that is called high-density mailing. @ @ @ s),@ @ @ @ @ @ u@ @ @ @ án r@ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ u)

for a handout from the u) government. >> i saw susan making a note when you were talking about the postal rates. i want to return to you and ask, what kinds of policies -- policy changes are you thinking that be -- that the ftc might be considering? >> we just had the chairman of the postal rate commission, and speak at our workshop -- come and speak at our workshop in march.

unfortunately, the postal rate commission and the postal service is not doing well financially. they are really not that enthused about any ideas that would include lowering rates for anybody. >> making them even might be a star. >> yes. more power to you. >> just a thought. >> is a valid thought. i think that the general notion is that the postal rate subsidies did a lot more for newspapers at the beginning of the country when the founding fathers really had a notion that they needed to subsidize newspaper delivery to help bring the country together and to also inform citizens and help get democracy functioning. they are not helping newspapers or news organizations these days. another idea that is most

readily of interest is this notion of how you increase increase -- increase revenue to news organizations and how do you reduce the cost of news gathering? we have presentations on some of the work that is being done to make government data more readily available and more easily manipulate -- readily available. that is a trend that is going on in many areas. we had somebody come in and explain to us how they have developed new types of financial reports that companies are now required to submit that allow you much more easily to compare across companies what the various factors.

there is more and more that can be done. it would facilitate some of the watchdog reporting that you were talking about the future of news. we did also discuss new types of organizations that would be either a hybrid of nonprofit and for-profit or for-profit with a social purpose. news organizations might fight into that kind of an organization which would allow newspapers to thrive at a 5% return in investment, but would allow -- that is not the kind of

person who would be running this organization. these are organizations that would be run by -- run for the purpose with getting some return for the investment, but for also having a social purpose. there would be specific bylaws that would allow members of the board of directors to take into account social purpose in making decisions. >there are many -- this is a big movement. i can feel your shopping at the bit. -- i can fill you chomping at the bit. there is a much broader movement for the four-benefit corporations. newspapers might be a

beneficiary of that. the problem is, the irs has not been brought along the, shall we say, on some of these issues. there are significant tax implications that need to be worked out there. the corporate side of the law is being worked on and developed. the tax side of the law, not so much. we talked about copyright and i will let other people talk as well. >> and again, i think that the concept of the public focus to entity reporting news and information on the surface sounds really wonderful. i worry that, going back to 1791 or earlier, that we had a system of government determination of

social purpose. we see that replicated into today's society called licensing. printers are licensed. i do not want to engage in hyperbole for the sake of recounting history. when i hear of -- when i hear an entity defined by social purpose as a news entity, i think we open the door for what pushes the limits. if it is watchdog journalism to take a look at how well municipalities or congress is doing their job, that is fine. but when something approach is that line -- when something approaches that line, they fail or succeed by their business acumen. i am worried about the zone in the middle. they approached things and there is suddenly a great debate.

in terms of a free press, where we draw the line? >> i just want to be clear. the is organizations, nobody's talking about licensing them. >> broadcasting stations are licensed. do you want to talk a little bit about it -- about the things you're thinking about? >> we're talking as if the debate is whether or not the government should get involved in regulating media. right now, all of the television stations in america and all the radio stations in america got their licenses from the public through the agency of the federal government. the government decides what kind of wireless spectrum is auctioned off. the government decides what -- how much of the satellite spectrum should be set aside for educational programming. the government decides how many radio stations a single company

can own, company towns can have cross-ownership between newspapers and radio stations and on and on and on. i am not offending any of these policies in particular. -- i am not defending any of these policies in particular. the government is involved in the media world and all sorts of ways. the goal is to make sure that this is done in a wise way. there tends to be a little bit of a newspaper -- it gives a misleading representation. the newspapers are the least regulated and of the media. broadcast is really a different thing. one of the things we're looking at is there has been his starkly than public obligation for broadcasters. that has been a subject of argument and debate back and forth for decades about what that means, what the

government's role is in enforcing something like that. it is tricky. on like someone who has just set up shop with a printing press and there is an on limited amount of printing presses that can happen, there is not an unlimited spectrum. the spectrum belongs to the public. the government decides to get some of the spectrum. for a long time, the government said, because you're going to get this scarce public resources, you have to serve the public interest in some way. that is -- that has had implications in terms of the news, public affairs programming. what does that mean now? what does it mean to have a public interest obligation now? is it fair? is there a public interest obligations for wireless?

most importantly, is there a way of three conceiving our notions of public interest -- reconceiving our notions of public interest? >> everyone will want to know, how does the current discussion of a broad band having broadcasters sell back some of the spectrum, how does that fit together with an inquiry that suggest that local news in particular might need some support to? it seems like a mixed message. >> not necessarily. one of the things that local broadcasters said to the fcc when it was going to the process was that we should not be treated as if this is just an economic equation. we are entities that have

special relationships with the community, often touting the importance of local news. i think that is great. the responses -- the response is that the best way to make broadcasters sure that they have all the spectrum they need is to fulfil their obligations to the community. it could be a win-win. if broadcasters took seriously the need to improve their local news will have a much robert case in terms of spectrum, but more importantly, they will help solve this problem of the potential crisis in journalism of america. >> first of all, in direct response to your last question, the possibility that some portions of the spectrum that is presently being utilized by television will be rededicated to broadband purposes underscores the extraordinary

benefits that television broadcasters are now getting free of charge and the responsibility that comes with that. i look forward to the day when we can develop spectrum sharing and other technologies that will change all this around great for the near term and midterm, this spectrum? television broadcasters are using is highly valued. it is reasonable for the public to expect public service in exchange for use of their spectrum. more broadly, gene's concerns are well placed. it is possible to make these things viewpoint neutral as well as platform neutral. the traditional postal subsidies that we started talking about, they did not ask whether you

were a republican or democrat or a federalist newspaper in a day when newspapers were frequently owned by political parties and were highly partisan. it is possible to devise mechanisms that can free the government from any notion about making a value judgment about the content. it is tricky, but then again, the goal here is to preserve the democratic process. it is an important one and a tricky one. >> did you want to get into the spectrum discussion? >> i want to make a slightly different point.

the question of whether the government should@@@@@ @ @ @ @ , -

surprise. there was a huge correlation between the amount of dollars that were spent in the newspapers by the government and the lack of coverage of government abuse. whenever we talk about here today has to be against that backdrop that if you are looking to the government to fund you, you are not going to want to offend the source of your revenue. >> can i respond? the wall street journal's largest advertiser by column inch is the united states government. on the back of the paper, there are all these dea forfeiture advertisements. this is largely done by bit. -- bid.

i do not think anybody can say that the wall street journal polls its punches. -- pulls its punches. >> newspapers are still the best way to give notice. that is not a form of necessity. it is therefore a completely independent reason. it is true -- through bid. >> i just wanted to add one point. i am not espousing government subsidies for news organizations. i do want to note, in service of audiences, -- it is not

impossible. there certainly have been bumps in the road there. it is also true that in many, many countries, most countries in europe, there are government supported news organizations like the bbc. i am simply suggesting that there are ways to construct chinese walls, etc. does this country want to go in that direction a lot more? that is not my perception. it is not every government involvement implies in tandem

much. it is important to make sure that that is the case, that you've structured properly. >> we had a session here on march 15 and that manipulation of government data to make it more accessible to anybody on line, but also some news organizations who do investigative reporting. the free press can do what it. not to be facetious, if you look back, we have the bill of rights. good intentions. for public interest, we had the fairness doctrine. someone say, it failed andrew broadcasters away from editorials on line.

-- some would say that it failed. in the public interest, it had a detrimental effect on the free flow of information. i am not saying -- there is a reason for government and i acknowledge the beneficial aspects of government doing its own thing. but i think we have some historical aspects -- examples where government acting in what it calls public interest in the moment really thwarted the free flow of information. i think the public is -- has a marvelous opportunity to be that watchdog. history teaches us some things about these early discussions. >> i am going to ask another question operate if you have a question yourself -- i am going

to ask another question now. but if you have a question yourself, there is a microphone. i wanted to ask you what the relationship is between the study that you are doing and other things that are going on at the fcc. in localism, there is a discussion of possibly local news counsels and that kind of thing. how do you see all these pieces fitting together? >> a lot of them will get rolled up into the future of media reports and we will make recommendations on what should be the status of the previous localism. the ownership review is a

slightly different track. it has a different legislative history and has a schedule dictated by congress. we're cordoning. that is basically -- we are coordinating. we are looking at the regulatory steps. the idea right now is to look at the full slate of what the government does to see if there are things that the government should stop doing. >> barbara, want to suggest anything? >> we could go on all day. >> let me just pick up on a point. when you talk about localism, i

think there has been in the discussion of public funding of the media kind of a conflation of national news and local news and everybody thinks it is all the same. it is quite different. the european examples are primarily national news organizations that have been funded. i am very close to the local news business. we have newspapers in big cities like phoenix and detroit, but we also have appleton and oshkosh. caller: would be on that council? who would be judging the quality? >> just to clarify one thing.

there are two different local news councils that have been talked about. local news council that has been proposed -- what was in the fcc paper was a question of whether or not there were ways to get local tv stations to do more aggressive outreach to find out what they should be covering. i can claim total ignorance because i am new at the fcc. there is never been any attempts or interest to establish local news councils of that sort. >> ok. good. i think we have a question here. if you could identify yourself. >> i want to pick up on a point earlier.

i want to address a question to and. -- andy. i do not know of anyone who would suggest for a local government to build a library is somehow a violation of the first amendment. i want to go to the notion of the entanglement that comes with subsidies. everyone has mentioned postal subsidies and i know you are familiar with the long history of government trying to manipulate postal subsidies to either favre -- favre speech that the government like. the supreme court has held that because of the nea subsidy, it can demand conditions based on

content. public broadcasters are a wonderful asset, but they do not have the same commercial rights as advertisers. with those examples in mind, how would you respond to the entanglement and the first amendment problems that are created? do you see subsidy as an opportunity to impose conditions on media across platforms that you'd be unable to do through direct regulation? >> these points are very well taken. it takes us down into the weeds, of course. i am not saying that it is easy. i am not saying that it is without difficulty. i am saying that we are facing a genuine problem going forward. genuine problem going forward. is right that -- barbara

is right that the journalism is a profitable business. we're not talking about the death of its. there is a secular and cyclical change going on and only when we come out of the recession are we really going to know how much is one and how much is the author. anyway you look at it, there is part -- part of this is secular and there is some very fundamental change. i do think we need to look at ways to do it. there are better ways and there are worse ways. if you believe that journalism,

especially local tourism, is essential to democracy. again, i am not endorsing that. i am just pointing out there are ways to skin this cat. we want to avoid the mistakes of the past. nothing is perfect. i point to the example of for all the problems that there are , npr and pbs has worked remarkably well. it has great promise. these are platform neutral things. i do think that we need to design them. i do think that you make a very,

very important warnings about the kinds of problems that can arise. we need to design around them. >> we heard on the earlier panel that a broad band internet and we have clearly seen its effects on the newspaper industry. does it pose the same problems for broadcasters? >> do you want to answer that? >> do you want to answer that? >> c-spahos[captioning performed y national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> there have been bright spots on the horizon, and for one thing, the united case is going to benefit the local stations.

they will do this in the upcoming election cycles. i really do not want to go there. i really think that this is all part of a very long-term secular change, and the newspaper and the broadcasters will be impacted. >> do you have a view about this? >> this is not as bad for the newspapers because they were never dependent on the classified advertisements. this disappeared in this did not affect the television stations the same way. there is also the audience that is drifting, the lower advertising rates, on air, and there is no question. and by the way, on the one

hand, some things are going to get better, the economy is going to get better. but there are some ways that the bad parts of this have not played out. for all the benefits that broadband will bring, the reasons that this wills community newspapers are doing relatively well is that craigslist has not gotten there yet. but he will. >> maybe not. >> so when the classified sales keep going down, some of the smaller newspapers are going to have those problems as well. >> have you found anything so far in your study that would be a response to that question? >> i think steve summarized very well. >> good. >> thank you. i think this is addressed to anybody who wants to take it. six months ago, my thinking on these issues were very close to

gene's. today, is a little bit closer to andrew's. a lot of it is based upon research of the historical role government indirectly subsidized in the press and some of the ideas that were talked about here. it did cause me to think about this issue in a much different way than i had before. my own view has sifted as a result of that. i am a child of the 1960's and 1970's. when one talks about journalism, there is one more that captures journalism at its best. are we in danger of losing the capability of this happening again? that word is watergate. that is the classic example of how journalism save the republic. if we are going to move into a situation now where the ability of investigative journalism is

going to be harder to maintain, because of these economic problems, why are we putting at risk? even though i am concerned about the first amendment side and integuments, the lesser of two evils is having some sort of subsidies that preserving the ability to do what investigative journalism did in the past. is that a price worth paying? >> i see what you are saying in terms of moving to the middle of the panel. i think these are robust times. i think that investigative journalism is going on in some many different ways from groups that are internet-only. they live, investigate, ago. there is a model in china where localities hire investigative reporters to report on certain government corruption.

i think these are great, robust times for that. i do not see that in the same fashion. i think there is a commercial viability that still exist. news organizations that have been with us for a long time still have trust despite skepticism. there still seemed -- they are still seen as trust for the venues and sources of information. i do not think that necessarily this innovation is practiced -- is what we're talking about. we're talking about the mechanics of saving entities here. >> i am also going to give a response even though i am the moderator. i am one of those people that is action working in journalism in

washington when that watergate story was being investigated. even in those good old days, there was still a tremendous pressure placed on the washington post company because they also owned television stations that had to be licensed. that was used specifically as a threat. the reason watergate was successfully investigated by the washington post because of a courageous owner who saw her duty and had some very good people working on this story who were able to begin to unravel it. for my money, it will always depend on the commitment of the ownership. what barbara said about to commit to watch dog journalism, that is going to distinguish journalism in the future. that is helpful. >> there are now 60 capitals that have no reporters covering them. -- there are now six state

capitals that have no reporters covering them. there is a significant loss of a journalistic capacity. that is what we're really talking about here. we're not talking about particular entities. we're talking about the journalistic capacity, in particular with respect to public affairs journalism. that combined with the local nature is really where the most concern is an economic theory would suggest there should be the most concern. >> to highlight that point, there had been a $1.6 billion contraction in newspaper spent on editorial. then they went around to foundations and said how much money do foundations put into

journalistic start ups? it is a tremendous innovation. they came up with about $150 million. that still leaves a gap. >> last question. >> this is picking up on the last conversation. i hear discussions of how expensive it is to print and mail newspapers and the failure of classified and horoscopes and what have you, it sounds to me you're talking about business models and you're not talking about journalism. we're really talking about saving the newspaper business model? i think mailing newspapers to people, i do not think you should even think about that. >> we're not mailing newspapers. >> we're not mailing newspapers. we are mailing advertising to people. that is what i was saying. we do not mail newspaper. may be some very small

communities do. we deliver them because people want it. there are still many people who want that newspaper there. yes, we are looking for a business model. we're looking at ways to tweak our business model, to save money in ways that do not inhibit the journalism. for example, it has been widely reported better newspaper in detroit, we reduced home delivery to three days a week. we're still printing newspapers seven days a week. the delivery cost being so high, we're just delivering three days a week. it has been a tremendous success. there are ways that we can look at saving journalism and saving our business and the two are not mutually exclusive. >> my concern is that a lot of discussion is about preserving business model. steve, you told me that a lot of the folks have come up to and

talked about how do we say their copyright? how can we make sure that google does not link to us? if we're really talking about saving journalism, let's talk about that. let's not talk about preserving business models. business models have to change when you have destructive technology. >> i did not hear anyone say that they did not think that business models should change. i think there was a real connection brit anybody else want to respond to that? >> i just think that you cannot talk about how you are going to maintain journalism without talking about the business model. that is why people are talking about business models. they're not talking about business models in the sense of, we need to save every single newspaper that is out there. at the moment, however, newspapers -- is currently the

case that newspapers get 90% of their revenue from their print version. yes, they are facing competition from that from on-line news organizations. they're not at liberty at this point to just say, we're all going to go on line. that is not going to go -- that is not going to work. there is a big transition going on and the whole question is, how do you save journalism? word you get the money to save journalism? -- where do you get the money to save journalism? how else can you get revenue for foundations? as part of its, it is the government policies that could change that would help us with the funding for journalism

broadly conceived across all platforms. >> there is no shortage of demand for news now. there is traffic for news on line and it is booming. the problem is not that people have decided that american journalism is on interesting or unreliable. the problem is the business model. that is what has caused the collapse of journalism. a couple of people used to turn market failure and it has a specific economic meeting, but it kind of robb's me the wrong way from the colloquial sense. a lot of what happened is rampant market success that has caused this problem. part of why ad rates have gone down is that advertisers do not

have to waste half their revenue. people do not have to pay for stuff that they were not interested in. they can pay for just a sliver that they are interested in. advertisers can go directly to the product that they want to be associated with break in a lot of ways, -- associated with. a lot of ways, things add up to create this one serious problem with accountability journalism. >> i want to explain the term market failure. market failure in this sense means problems that the free market on its town may not solve. -- on its own may not solve. there is a nemesis on public affairs news because there is a possibility of free wr iting. if i am a voter, i can be rationally ignorant of how i

should vote in the election. the chance that my vote is actually going to make a difference is infinitesimal. i will not invest my time and energy in finding out all about who i should vote for and all that kind of stuff. i am going to -- i am not going to pay money. i am not going to demand news about that. this is an issue that has been studied t. it is a potential source for an insufficient consumer demand for public affairs reporting. the basic concept of this type of market failure is this. you do not kids significant consumer demand. we're all delighted with the vast quantities of news that is

available for free on the internet. unfortunately, that free does not pay for journalist salaries. >> we're going to have to call an end to it and continue this on the coffee break. please join me in thanking our wonderful panel. [applause] >> coming up this morning, a

speech by the jordanian a mbassador to the u.s. then "washington journal" and a discussion abut the u.s. and russian security deal and the arms deal between the two powers. >> this weekend, john dean is the guest on book tv. the council to nixon will take your calls on c-span 2's book tv. >> c-span. the public affairs content is online and you can connect on twitter, facebook, and youtube. >> now, the jordanian ambassador

to the u.s., prince zeid ra'ad zeid al-hussein, speaking to the council on u.s.-arab relations. he was the president of the international criminal court. this is an hour and a half. >> sponsored by the national council on u.s.-arab relations, with the assistance of the ronald reagan building and the international trade center. i am the vice president for the programming, at the u.s. arab relations. it is my pleasure to welcome you here this morning, for another in our series of conversations. i will let dr. anthony introduce the ambassador, in a few moments, as well as some of the guests.

but first, i would like to invite the archbishop, theodore, to offer, for all of us, a voice to the prayers for peace. these are set in many languages, with many traditions. and we are all looking to our own traditions to find a vision of peace. cardinal? >> i am happy to offer a prayer. if you come early to the meeting, you will have to give the prayer. i am very happy to come early and do this. the god, who has always been present in this part of the world, in a very special way.

we of the abraham tradition, jewish and muslim and christian, we want for there to beat peacefulness in this part of the world. and we pray, as the holy father did in the holy land, not too far away, for peace in the holy land, and for israel with solid borders and the understanding that there will be peace, and that they have the right to be there, and to be a nation, respected among the nations of the world. and we pray for peacefulness in palestine. they need to have their own borders, and a viable situation, with peace and justice for all of their people.

and we are praying for everyone in palestine and israel. some time ago, the arab world spoke about a common word to begin their conversations, with the christian world. love your god and love your neighbor. and this is found in every tradition, in the ancient druids tradition of the hebrew scriptures. in the holy koran and the gospel. give us the grace to have this love for you and love for each other. if we love each other, we will be at peace with each other, and we will find this piece. we asked you to bless everyone, who has been a champion of peace for so many years, and we look forward to his words tonight. let them be inspired by you and

the people who are gathering here. and we joined for you and all of those who believe in one god. we ask this in your holy name. -did tha>> thank you for sharinr prayers' with us. will not have the leader of the council on u.s. arab relations. dr. anthony has been working with the arab world, and the near east for many years, and he is a product of bmi and john hopkins university, with a ph.d. from georgetown university. and i want, particularly, to say

that the work of the national council is never the work of one man. every good work takes a person of vision. this has been his vision for more than a quarter of the century. he has been traveling widely in the region, investing deeply in understanding, in being both cultures, learning the language and culture, sharing the traditions, with great joy and with great insight. and as we share this occasion with bridges of understanding, there are few who have done more to build this bridge of understanding. i would like to say that the-in the name -- this is a bridge, and this is a bridge that will

go both ways, between the united states and the arab world, between culture and tradition. and we can learn from this. this is my pleasure, to introduce the other speakers. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. we will have a speaker from the international trade center. this particular center and their facilities have been host to a number of national councils on u.s.-arab relations. and this has quickly become an remains the leading place to have public affairs meetings in the nation's capital. >> thank you so much. it is my pleasure to see all of

you today. i welcome you to the international trade center, the official center of the united states government. i would like to welcome his royal highness, the distinguished panelists, and other press that are here today. i would like to express our appreciation to the cardinal for his opening. and the members of the foundation who were organizing the panel today. at 3.1 million square feet, the international trade center is the largest building in washington, and is considered a crown jewel. this is the second-largest federal building behind the pentagon. this contains a number of public and private sector tenants, with 27 conference rooms and

five-star catering. the office for trade promotion works with the extended network of the private-sector partners to bring international trade events open to the public. we are working to foster the international dialogue and a greater understanding of the cross-cultural communication to stimulate greater peace and economic development across the world. as one of the premier trade news, and conference centers, we are also the world trade center of washington. this is a non-political association, with headquarters in new york and 300 members across the world in 90 countries, including jordan. the reagan building works with different organizations and one of these shows will be hosting

the congressional trading agenda with the international trade association. there will be commentary by some of the leading congressional staffers with the upcoming trading agenda. on may 14, we will have a nobel prize laureate, who will be speaking about his new book, "building social business." on behalf of the general services administration, i want to thank you so much. dr. anthony? >> we are pleased and privileged to be hosting this, in association with bridges of understanding. the former ambassador to the united states was with us -- and

he has brought several of the other ambassadors among them. in addition to our own ambassador, from jordan, who is here today. catherine is an individual who is the epitome of the grass- roots, non-governmental aspect of activism, and civic engagement and public affairs. she is a member of the foreign scholarship board, of the fulbright commission, and we are very happy about this because the late senator was the chairman from the inception of the national council and the advisory board. >> thank you.

good morning, and welcome. i am wanting to thank the national council for this lovely opportunity to host this. we share their mission of building an understanding and education, and awareness of the arab and islamic world. we admire the work that you do with these models. the national policy-makers conference and the outstanding publications. you have been doing this more than 27 years. your aunt -- we are honored to be your partner in the. this is a great honor to welcome you because bridges of understanding have their founding with the other co- founder, the former ambassador and his wife. we became friends, and

initiated the founding of bridges of understanding. this is to build and promote understanding between the united states and the arab world. we do this through education and youth, sports, artwork, and the media. these projects are very different. there was a rally that was held in new york from the summer of 2008, that showcased in the musicians, to a program that was called sports for peace, which brought women from iraq to learn to play basketball and leadership skills. and there was a small contribution to help translate great arab works into english. there is also a program to connect american high schools

with those in arab countries. we would like for all of them to see each other in person, but this may not always be possible. i will talk about foreign policy, government, women's rights and education, the environment, and they are engaged in very frank conversations, doing away with stereotypes and building an understanding, and an awareness of the perspectives of each other, and they say that they will go to the middle east. and the middle eastern students are not interested in america. maybe they are not what i was told that they were. we have 12 partnerships and we will need 25 for next year. i would like any suggestions for the different high schools that we may be able to connect with. one project -- we want to bring to an emerging female

journalists for a briefing session about journalism, media training in washington. and they will stay in the houses of the families throughout the united states and get exposure to local members of the media and stay in the houses of these families and then we are hoping that in the end, we can do an exchange of the media fellows. i just want to say to all of you, you all have a great knowledge of the arab world, we have a great curiosity and a great passion. i would just like to encourage you to help us in building bridges, to come forward to us or the executive director with any ideas. send us an e-mail. we love grass-roots ideas and we are open to anything. thank you so much for being here today.

>> thank you, and congratulations on the co--- on co-founding this organization. this is one of the many places where we can join our hands, and it is now my pleasure to introduce the speaker. his royal highness, prince zeid ra'ad zeid al-hussein. he embraces, in his own focus, and professionalism on many issues that are of interest and our concerns and needs, pertaining to all of those who have come here today. as the ambassador of jordan, he was preceded by the man that we made reference to earlier, but was also serving at the united nations for 6.5 years, as the permanent representative to the united nations. and prior to that, as the deputy

representative to the united nations. he has been involved in peace- keeping, piece-making, conflict resolution, with university and law. he represented the delegation to the international court of justice, and he heard the issues pertaining to the building of the wall, separating the additional areas of the west bank territory. this is from israel proper. this was diminishing the 22% remaining of the palestinian territory for the palestinian state. this was down to 14%. he has been involved in issues pertaining to justice. and he was there with the

international criminal court, which many americans have questions related to public policy. he has been as focused as any of the arab ambassadors in washington on the final questions going to the arab and israeli conflict. jordan is one of the country's that has the issues with israel and egypt. they are concerned with settlements of jerusalem, and much else. please join me in welcoming his royal highness, prince zeid ra'ad zeid al-hussein. [applause] >> thank you for that very warm welcome. i am honored to see you here.

i hope that you will correct me if i go astray in the next few minutes. i am delighted to be with so many of my friends, and as you all know, i come from a culture smitten with the love, and speeches, and a love for the oral method of communication. so much so that often, after delivering a long speech, i will sit next to my wife, and like all of the men who are insecure, i would look at my wife and i would feel confident, and i would say, what do you think? and she would give me a look that you can only get from your wife, and she would say, there were three opportunities to sit

down. yesterday, i was in the in the sea. and i was thinking about what i would say today. and i came to the conclusion that really, there is nothing to say beyond the edge -- that which would be repeated, that this is of little interest to the audience. and have the circumstances of the present, with the crisis that stretches from the mediterranean into south asia, this has begun to wind into something that is so challenging, that words become meaningless. in the face of a faith which we have little choice but to submit to. with the recognition or in the recognition that the collective will has brought us -- has not

brought us to the defining place. and now, of course, we should take stock of all of the recent, positive developments that have taken place in the middle east. i was reminded of these yesterday with a group of journalists. the successful formation of the lebanese government, something that should be applauded. the balloting in iraq a couple of weeks ago. this is something that we have to take pride in, and as you all know, the challenge of putting together a government is usually difficult. and when you appreciate how difficult that this was to have the election and when all the work was done by the people of

iraq itself and the security, organizing them, this is something that we have to very much appreciate. there are signs that the relationship between the united states and syria are improving. generally, i think that these are moving in the right direction. there was the summit that included in libya of few days ago. notwithstanding all the pressure that was based upon the initiative -- there was the fact that israel has yet to embrace this. the commitment has remained steadfast. but do we not also recognize that arabs and israelis alike,

and this is considered at the level of government, they present a rather sorry picture of ourselves, in terms of how we have responded to this conflict. when one considers the report issues from a couple of years ago, with the strategic foresight, the indian think tank, about the loss of earnings. the estimate was up to about 12 trillion dollars that were lost in earnings. the potential wealth of the region plowed into the western afghanistan programs. this was as a result of the investments that were lost. is this not the case that we could argue about being a burden

for the rest of the planet. are we a stress to the peace and the security of the planet, with the cute -- the force is like a centrifuge that can be brought into some momentum, or something may happen, for instance, in jerusalem. in addition to being a burden, this is a constant threat to the international community. we are a non-player when it comes to the larger discussion. i cannot think, in the last 60 years, of one of initiative, a single major initiative, divorced from the middle east, that has nothing to do with anything connected to the middle east.

that the arab or the israelis have presented in the form of the solutions, or an attempt to answer questions. whether this revolves around poverty or the planet, or the sustainable development. issues of a more broad, global nature. is this not the case, and if you look at all three of these, these die mentions, they can argue that this is a sorry group, and perhaps, we would clearly deserves to get a failing grade from this perspective. and then, there is the other question. whether or not we are truly deserving of this, the middle eastern peace. when you consider the number of opportunities that we have lost, either by design or to

circumstances, since 1967. can we say that we deserve this when you consider that a large segments of one population is ready to belittle the colossal crime that was the holocaust, and on the other side, there is a large group of people who cannot grasp the effect of the occupation and the degradation of another people. this is -- are we so deserving of the peace, when the denial of the pain can so easily be traded in the historical exchanges. do we deserve this when the conflicts, feeling so necessary for the peace, can be so easily upstaged by the more primitive

feelings of fear, and insecurity. do we deserve a piece when we can so easily give ground to the extremists, and those with views of the extreme. and perhaps, taken from that angle, we are not so deserving. but as we all know, there are people who continued to suffer on one side, one on the other. there are people fearful of future suffering. this situation, as we all know, cannot be tolerated. there is another constituency. they are aspiring to survive on the collective security. they have the more broad and more challenging conflicts facing the globe and they have to find a shelter and very soon.

and peace in their region. this will, at long last, bring some relief to this particular part of the world. jordan, under his majesty and his leadership, like many other arab countries, is deeply supportive -- of the desire from president obama to establish peace in the region on the basis of two was states, side by side in security. this can be done. when it comes to peace, there is nothing that is impossible, and in 1995, i was serving with united nations. by the time that we reached the month of july, we were convinced that there was conflict and bloodshed in bosnia

for another 10 years. the fighting was intense, the weaponry was plentiful, and the hatred was very clear. we had exhausted every form of peace agreement. and we had the cease-fire and the hostilities. we simply could not see a way out of this. if someone said, in six months, the fighting and killing will be over, you could say that the fighting has continued in other ways. but the killing will be over. nobody would have believed that this was possible. but this was possible. and we believe that if we were acting decisively in the moment, that we can achieve something here. and of course, we are very

close to seeing the beginning of the proximity and at -- thereafter, we will build upon them. there is, however, the question of jerusalem. this occupies the attention of the world at the moment. and perhaps, i will be able to divide the way that we see this into a couple of parts. naturally, there is a very deep meaning to the muslim people, and people of the faith of abraham. and yet, we are close to the position where if we do not stop what is happening around us, particularly with the settlement movement, that is working very

intensely, if we were not able to stop the plans of the mayor of jerusalem, with respect to eastern jerusalem, we will be in a situation where they simply will not be peace. if jerusalem has been lost on the ground, and we believe that this is gone, it is not possible for any future government to go to war with their own people over jerusalem. this is the truth on the ground to negotiate the settlement. this is beyond the realm of possibility. we are in a state of terminal crisis. and of course, what would happen is that -- there is the case of israel having a problem with the palestinian people. there is a question of the

islamic world, with 1.5 billion muslims. they would be in a state of high anxiety. and of course, israel would be facing its own demographic challenges, considering the framework for peace. the aspirations on the part of the palestinians at the national home, this has been undercut. the other aspect to what we see happening is the potential for something to go bad. on the 21st of august, 1969, interest from australia burned down a mosque. there were several days of intense rioting, once this had been burned down. i cannot imagine if there was anything equivalent to that today. what if we woke up -- i do not

know where we would began. we would be so lost. and i speak for almost every government. we would be shocked, and we would wait to see what would happen. and if you tried to gain this scenario, the consequences are not accountable. the world will be beyond something beyond all recognition. this has happened before. we must take every measure to make certain that common sense is part of every action when we consider jerusalem and the surrounding area. in 1969, the year that the mosque was burned down, there is

a british physician who was working in the abraham hospital in upstate new york. and he was having to deal with elderly people who were suffering from a disease from the 1920's, that is called the sleeping sickness. they were a catatonic. the physician was administering the drug that is commonly used for parkinson's, for these people. miraculously, almost, he managed to revive them, and for some time, they engaged in life and -- in a manner that had been impossible with meeting the friends, and discovering themselves.

and then, as all of you know, they just began to relapse into this. the story was so famous that there was a screenplay about this, and this became a movie that was called, awakening. you cannot help but feel that when you look at the middle east, and you consider the development from madrid, and beyond, and the regression, from the late 1990's onward, he cannot help but feel that unless we all resolve to solve this problem, and we do this very quickly, future historians will look back at this time of peace as a brief awakening, a brief moment in time that

introduced itself to us and then departed very quickly. and of course, the tragedy would be beyond words, i think, for all of us. because we have to survive this together, will we will not survive this together. we will all suffer. having said this, i have nothing left to say. this is never quite true. i have offered these reflections, not in answer to the many questions that you will have, but i think that there is a form of reflection from the practitioners, who are spending a great deal, looking at the problems of the middle east -- middle east, with no shortage of

frustration. i thank you very much for inviting me and i look forward to answering your money questions. thank you. -- your many questions. thank you. >> as is the custom, we have several cards upon which we will abide you to write down your questions. and he has agreed to respond to them. this part of the session as the cerebrosideal massage. these kinds of questions -- here is one of them. israeli politicians, repeatedly raised the notion that jordan should be the palestinian state, given the large

palestinian population. how do they respond to this, this frequently-presented proposal. and what, related to the question, is their future with the palestinian population? >> it is nice of them to dispose of jordan in the way that they see fit. what i think is very concerning about this, largely on the right in israel, is that this is built on the notion that those who advocate peace, are weak and moderate, who simply do not understand adversity. and this is the same stream of opinion that you have in the arab side, in the form of those who believe that resistance is

the only way to carry on the day. unfortunately, were, unfortunately, history is littered with examples of leaders who have said to their people, that the sacrifice that we must endure, the resistance that we must encourage, this is the only means to succeed. because these leaders, so many of them, have brought the people to discussion. the only real way to succeed is to negotiate the settlement, based on some notion of justice, for the people who suffered. and to fulfill the national aspirations of the people who desire them. i do not often hear the palestinians say that they want to turn jordan into palestine,

where the palestinians like to say, we support them. this is the end of the occupation. much as they can govern their affairs, uninterrupted by foreign interference. i believe that this is the position that we will take. >> thank you. the next question is about religiously justified political radicalism that has become an accepted and often deadly method of expressing political and economic grievances. alice jordan wanting to deal with these things, within their own borders? >> this is a question that i think needs to be answered, from different angles. i think that -- he is right,

when he published his work on the environment, he said that in the world of today, we are all holding multiple labels, and these labels must be held in some sort of balance, and so i see myself as a jordanian, and a muslim, a father, a husband. i have these cultural tastes and these political ideas, i enjoy to play chess. and i look at myself through these systems, and basically what they conclude, is that the extremists among us, they will attach importance to one label, to the exclusion of everything else. whether you are chauvinistic, a nationalist, or someone who is

supporting an ideology so strongly, that this replaces everything else. his argument is that truly, the human being of today will be able to doubt everything, and then, through argument, can either settle their doubts, or ask further questions. eventually, we have to renounce violence. we must strive to make certain that war is not thinkable. we cannot continue to inflict suffering on people because we believe that they are -- we are right and they are wrong. this is not sensible. in terms of how we see extremism within our own family, this is clear, -- that

with many of the leaders in the region, saudi arabia, of course, and the president of egypt, they have taken measures to address this issue. we know that this is fundamentally an issue that will confront us, as muslims. we must address this issue. and for the different programs, we have been trying to make certain that many of the people who preach have been through the schools, and they are well- aware of islamic jurisprudence. this was not the case years ago. most of the people speaking in the mosques did not have the training that would have been essential to do this.

and i think that we have made certain that this is now the case. we may embark on a series of initiatives. a common word -- this is the initiative that draws many scholars, over 100, from the islamic world, in opening up the dialogue with christian brethren. such that we can make certain that there is harmony between the christians and muslims across the world. and this is fundamentally grounded in the injunctions, to allow this energy of god, and to love thy neighbor. and so, this is common to these religions and we have enabled a program of international standing, based on this. there are many practical measures that we will be able to take in