over $261 billion had been paid out for those projects. c-span.org more information. >> cspan is now available and over 100 million homes bringing you a directly to public affairs, politics, history, and nonfiction books as a public service created by america's cable companies. >> this week on "q&a," clark hoyt, a former public editor of "the new york times. he has finished three years as representatives and has watched all of the rippers -- watched all of the practices at the time.

can you remember the moment of you becoming the ombudsman of the "new york times" came to you? >> it came to me in a phone call. i was on my way to being a professor for a semester at davidson college in north carolina. i got a phone call from an editor asking me if i might be interested -- if someone were to call me and asked me if i were interested in being the public editor or ombudsman, how would i respond. i said, i would be interested in talking about that. >> why would you be interested at that time? >> well, being an ombudsman is a difficult but intriguing job. it was before i had run. "the new york times" is kind of the pinnacle of the newspaper profession, i believe.

i thought it was an unusual opportunity and i was interested in it. >> what happened next? >> what happened next is there were a couple of phone calls about it. then, my wife and i were literally in an airport waiting lounge on our way to a vacation and i got a call saying, can you please come to new york and talk more seriously about it? after that occasion, i did. the job was offered to me. i took it. >> what about the job, by the way, who talked to the most? >> bill keller talked to me the most. >> what about what he told you that he wanted in treat you? >> that is one of the interesting things about this job. there is no written description. i am the third public editor of

the times. each of us has approached it in a different way. i am sure it will be approached in a different way. he asked that i helped the times uphold journalism. there was really know what the description. i signed the most interesting contract you can imagine with "the new york times." i did not report to bill keller. i did not report to offer sulzberger, or anti rosenthal. i had complete independence to look into anything i chose to look into. i could not be fired unless i simply sat down and failed to perform in any way, or five violated the written ethics policies of "the new york times." >> i read your column almost

every sunday. how many words did you write? did you -- did they have to publish what you wrote? >> they did have to publish what a road. my columns were about 1100 words long each. i try to hold them to 800 words, but it crept up. i captive at 1100 words. >> once they said, we want you to do this, here is what we will pay you, if the outside world knew what that was, would they say, that is what i expect, or, he has done this for nothing? i really don't know what people would expect.

the pay was fair. i was satisfied with it. it was not a luxurious amount for me because my wife is an editor at "usa today," which is headquartered in the washington area. our home is here. i commuted regularly to new york. i would go there monday morning on amtrak and come home wednesday night. all of the expenses associated with that came out of my compensation. >> you are not there anymore? >> no. part of the contract was i could not have written for "the new york times before it became public editor. i cannot work for or write for in any way now that i am finished. to make sure that a former staffer is not trying to even scores in some way and to make

sure that once in the job of public editor, someone is angling for a future post. >> where would you put "the new york times" in american journalism? how many years did you work for -- work as a knight rider? >> that company no longer exists. i think the journalistic standards were extremely high. second to none. i was very proud of my career there. "the new york times" occupies a special place in american journalism and has for decades, partly because of the investment that company has made over many years, partly because of the fact it is the new york times, new -- located in new

york. it is the pinnacle. >> there are people watching this saying you are full of baloney. they hate the "the new york times." talk shows excoriate the new york times for being anything from socialist to communist to whatever. you are, too. >> i received my share of male like that. they excoriated paper for being a captive of corporate journalism, a defender of the right-wing status quo. it is being accused of what every particular reader or person with an ax to grind, from whatever advantage.

they're coming from, if the paper does not comfort them, it is subject to attack. "the new york times" does not consistently comfort anyone. that is not what it job is. >> it is a publicly traded company. it has two classes of stocks. the family has controlled it since the late 19th century. it remains in control. >> you quoted arthur sulzberger jr., saying that you are dumber than you look. what was that meeting like? >> that was a joke more than anything else. i remembered it and laughed about it. on my first day at "the new york times" in the old building, i was taken up to his office, and ushered into an anti room of

the office to meet him on my first day. i had met him before, but this would be formally agree to it. he sat down opposite me and he slapped his hands down on his knees and said, you are here. you must be done more than you look. his point being the public editor is the person who will take it from all sides. they will take it from inside as well. there is always a certain gallows humor about why someone would want to put themselves in that position. >> where is the hometown? >> i was raised in a military family. i was born in providence, rhode island. my father was stationed at the naval station. he was then sent on an aircraft carrier to the pacific for the

duration of world war ii. we lived in succession in california, philadelphia after the war, pearl harbor, honolulu, new york, key west, and the family finally settled in miami. >> is there any particular moment where journalism jumped in front of you? >> journalism jumped up with me from when i was 9 years old and lived in a neighborhood in honolulu. my older brother and i found it -- founded our little neighborhood newspaper. it was extremely high tech. it was paper -- you did a master and put it on a gelatin. you make copies on g off theel. -- off the gel. we had such rebidding news as

whose dog was dumping on whose yard. i went to columbia. >> why? where were your parents before columbia? >> they live in key west at that time. i chose columbia because it was in new york. i confess i was an ok student. i was not a great student because i majored in new york. >> what do you mean? >> i love the new york. i took advantage of everything there was there. the invasion of foreign films -- i went to everything musical i could find, from jazz in the village to the metropolitan opera. i have a great time. >> let me reach on something. if you talk to people your age and mine, we are about the same age, in the journalism business, is it reaching to say

their hearts are broken about what has happened to institutions like "the new york times?" the institution of journalism, whatever publication, i hear it time and again. >> i hear that about -- a lot. there are two ways to look at what is happening. you can look at it and lament the passing of great institutions, newspapers that are being hollowed out in the face of tremendous economic pressures created by technology. you can have your heart broken and say, there go the good old days. i chose to look at it differently. i think -- i lament some of it and i worry about some of the

standards and maintaining journalistic integrity as we move from one media world to another. i think in many ways, this is an extremely exciting time. the entire world of news and information is being reinvented. i don't think we know yet what the successful business models are. we don't know yet what the platforms will look like. this is an extremely exciting time. >> in 2006, you gave a speech. the report on that, clark hoyt painted a dim picture of the state of american journalism during his talk last night, asserting the mainstream media must be vigilant to remain relevant in the increasingly

competitive industry of the information. >> "dam" is his word. i am not sure -- "dim" is his word. knight ridder owned a lot of newspapers across the united states. the company really had a footprint across the country. >> so, you got dim. what is going on in these communities? washington, d.c., had 200,000 subscribers. >> it is challenging and difficult for newspapers. i gave that speech in 2006 after the demise of my company.

i was in a gloomier mood than i am today. it is painful to see newsroom jobs go away. there are thousands fewer journalists in this country than there were. i think that is a problem. right here in washington, d.c., there are hundreds fewer journalists keeping tabs on what is happening in our government. i think that is a problem. but, i think that all of these open up opportunities. there are ways to create new channels of information, new ways of delivering it, new ways to pay for it. it is a bubbling ferment right now of invention. several years ago, one newspaper did not exist.

this is a nonprofit news room that does not own hippy presses or camera equipment, but partners with others across the country, other kinds of media from television networks to "the new york times" and provides high-quality investigative reporting. >> stop there for a moment. banking operation heavy into the democratic party, why would these people give $10 million a year to this enterprise? >> they believe in journalism, among other things. they and the leadership are embarked on an effort to expand the funding base and so it is not dependent upon anyone. they are active democrats.

i defy you if you read the output of it to identify a partisan agenda. >> why do many conservatives look at "the new york times" and say -- that his words started -- it is a liberal newspaper. you dealt with it probably every day. >> i think there are a number of reasons for it. "the new york times" is unabashedly liberal newspaper on the op-ed pages. it takes liberal editorial stance. its lineup of regular columnists is overwhelmingly liberal. even its one reliably conservative columnist david brooks is an iconoclast who does not fit any category easily. another person's who looks to be a developing conservative columnist does not fallen to reclassification.

but, i think the impact of the editorial and op-ed pages and tend to create an aura that can spread over the paper. it is also true -- "the new york times" is published in new york. over half of the readership is in the tristate area. it is a national newspaper, but it is based in its mindset, which comes out of that world. it is socially more liberal than other parts of the country, for sure. on the weddings pages, there are same-sex couples. there are marriages and unions that are placed right next to heterosexual marriages. they have been for a number of years. the paper does not give serious credence to creationism or

intelligent design. i think there is a view of the world that some on what i would call the far-right don't even share before you get the questions of partisan politics. >> you said in one of your columns that it is not the fox news of the left. what did you mean by that? >> what i meant by it is i think fox news is designed to appeal to and comfort a court with a certain political point of view, a conservative point of view. >> is that good or bad? >> it justice. i want fox news and i am always fascinated by its view of the world compared to the view of the world you see in other media outlets.

the stories they highlight, the way they are described, and i am not getting to bill o'reilly or some of the unabashedly opinionated parts of fox news. i do not believe "the new york times" is close to that. >> conservatives say you went to columbia and you may be a liberal, and you like new york city, you think "the new york times" is where it begins and ends, but we'd like fox. they look at the world differently. are we healthier because of them? less healthy? how much do people in new york blame fox for the evils of bad journalism? toi don't know the answer the last part. are we healthier because of that? i say this. you and i are roughly the same age and we grew up in a different media world. there were two, maybe three

national news magazines. there were three broadcast networks. walter cronkite became the most trusted man in america, who nightly told us what the news was and helped to shape that to a great extent. there were two national newspapers. "the new york times" was not national at that point. "the wall street journal." it was a very different world from today. there was no such thing as cable news. there are now five broadcast networks, depending how you count them. "usa today" did not exist in that mix. "newsweek," "u.s. news" are struggling and one of them may not exist in the long run. "life" magazine, the circulation in the billions no longer exists.

there are many more voices today. i think that is healthy in many respects. the danger for any society is a view -- is if you don't have some core of shared facts and values, ultimately, there is a great danger for the society. i do worry about that. >> in a speech, the writer said you defended the use of anonymous sources as a necessary evil, adding the news business has worked hard to minimize their use. i have some stuff here. what did you find that "the new york times" about anonymous sources and how you feel about that today? >> i do defend the use of anonymous sources in circumstances. i do think they're necessary. they were necessary -- "the new york times" won a pulitzer prize for a story that revealed the bush administration's extra

legal system of eavesdropping on american citizens, electronic eavesdropping. some people saw that as traders. i thought it was an important story and it led to reforms. that story could not of been written without anonymous sources. i probably wrote about this subject as public editor more than any other -- i think "the new york times" uses to many of them. their use in -- there used to frivolously, too cavalierly. readers were upset about it. journalists tend to think it is a journalism conversation. some people do not believe in anonymous sources and argue some theory. readers don't like them. they don't trust them. they wonder if they are made up. they wonder what is going on here.

something is being hidden behind a curtain from me. when a newspaper uses an anonymous source in an article about the decor of apartment building lobbies in new york city or in a fashion review in which a person anonymously says some designer's clothes are not where rebel, this is ridiculous and needs to be stamped out. when they are needed, they should be rare, exceptional, necessary, and the necessity should be clear to readers. >> there is a story -- you won a pulitzer ones. -- once. i came across a columnist from "the detroit free press." give us the overview. >> in 1972, george mcgovern was

nominated as the democratic presidential nominee in miami beach. he chose as his running mate a relatively unknown senator from missouri. i was a junior reporter covering the convention. as the junior-most person on the team, i was assigned -- everyone else was going on vacation after the convention. it was a different world. it was not nonstop campaigning. i was assigned to go to missouri and write a profile tom eagleton. i was on the airplane to the way to st. louis. an anonymous caller telephoned "the detroit free press" and asked to speak to the founding patriarch of our company. the operator put the collar

through to his grandson, who was an editorial writing in turn. young jack knight heard the caller say that eagleton had a history of severe depression that was treated with electroshock therapy on more than one occasion, and the republicans knew about this and would use it as a dirty trick late in the campaign, and it needed to get out now. something needed to be done. he urged the caller to call back with more detail. he had the presence of mind to realize there was not enough to do anything with. the caller promised to do so. i went into st. louis not knowing the call had taken place. i went straight to the st. louis post-dispatch and asked to look in their library. i saw that there were -- i got

all of their eagleton clips. i saw there were these gaps in his public life. he had held public office in the state for many years. he got to attorney-general before he was elected senator. there were these gaps of sometimes a month, two months, three months, where there was nothing. the gaps, sometimes there were little things like, he has checked into the mayo clinic for a physical, or he is suffering from exhaustion, and there was one article that made some suggestion about a drinking issue. when i got to my hotel, i got a call saying this anonymous caller called. they called back with the name of a doctor. i went out to the doctor's home in a suburb. the doctor was retired.

i said i was clark hoyt and i was here to talk about the time in 1960-whatever when the senator was treated for electroshock therapy. if i knocked on your door and said that on a sunday morning, you would say, you need some help. all of the color went out of his face. as the door was being slammed in my face, all i heard was "i cannot talk to you about that." i knew it was true, without question. he did a lot of other reporting. we ultimately went to south dakota. mcgovern and his campaign staff for vacationing, as they did in those days. i was promised they would produce senator eagleton for an interview and his medical record. they already knew this. the caller had called that

campaign. they knew they had trouble. eagleton was on his way to meet with mcgovern to discuss what they would do. they decided they could not have reporters make this an investigative story. he held an impromptu press conference and announced it. >> before you had written it. >> yes. we received the consolation prize of an interview after his announcement. that was not all that brief. >> this man's name in joel. he wrote this for "the michigan messenger." he was upset by the way "the new york times" portrayed it in the obituary of eagleton. the whole thing was you got a pulitzer for discovering he had a mental illness instead of the story itself.

>> i think at the time, what people were saying was that -- i am not sure the story would have been handled by any news organizations that way today. we felt strongly we could not publish anything without talking to him, without getting a lot more information verification, details. it would be irresponsible to do some digging -- do something. >> what would happen? >> i think that had more to do with the prize than anything. >> what would happen today? what do you think what happened today? the same situation, a person has information, where do you think they go? >> i believe there are lots of responsible journalists who would do what we did. but, take a look in new york at a recent case involving david pattersonpat -- erson -- david

paterson. a top aide was accused of abusing women. if "the new york times" was reporting that story, and gossip websites began saying that the paper had a blockbuster bombshell, going to knock paterson out of office, stories about sex, drug abuse, all of them off the mark. part of this proliferation. it creates this incredible bosses that sometimes make -- incredible buzz that makes time-consuming investigative journalism more difficult. you are under a spotlight. >> what did you think of "the national enquirer" whole thing on john edwards?

they were so successful in accounting that circumspect -- that situation. some people considered the pulitzer. others did not consider it. in history, has any publication like that ever gotten a pulitzer? >> no. "the national enquirer" has never got a pulitzer. one of the issue is paying for stories. what do i think of the edwards' story? i wrote a column about it at that time as things blow up. i felt "the new york times" in particular and mainstream media were slow and showed slow reflexes on that story. "the national enquirer" dribbled that out over a long time. i can understand some of the -- why some of the initial stories

did not provoke more of a response. later on, by the time your photographs of the senator in a hotel room holding a baby with a woman, i think everybody should have been asking harder questions in pursuing that story. >> he was still a major player in the democratic party. he was being talked about as a possible member of the obama administration. no comment, but you did not hear it from me. we talked about this earlier. you talk about it in one of your pieces about access.

people are afraid in the journalism business that they won't get access. how big a problem is that in a town like this? have you ever thought, we will never get in the white house again? >> i think it can be a problem. i do not recall an instance. knight ridder was not -- there was no new york or washington outlet. we have down -- we have far larger circulation than others in this town, but we did not always have the visibility. the issue of the secretary of state won't return my call if i say this in an article did not necessarily a rise the same way it might "the new york times york" or "the washington post." i would say that it can be a problem. i don't know the degree to which this is true.

it seems to me "the new york times" and "the washington post" both missed the skepticism that did exist in this town about the need to go to war with iraq. knight ridder, journalists like john walcott and his colleagues, really dug into the story and went against the grain. i do not know the degree to which people at the papers thought that if they did that, they might be shutting themselves out. i always wondered if it played some role in that. >> when were they the maddest at you at "the new york times?" >> different individuals were mad at different times.

there was a story that won a pulitzer prize for "the new york times" that i had difficulty with. it was in the presentation. there was anger over criticism of that, the pentagon's information campaign to get generals and ranking officers, feeding them information that would be used as military analysts on cable network news shows during the war. i thought the story was excellent in exposing the existence of the program, showing the efforts that were being made. it was not necessarily quite as clear to me that it had an impact on the air.

i felt the paper, in the way it presented the story, photographs on the front page, many officers had many different levels of engagement with this, and it was not all clearly explained. >> you say there is an entire body of scholarship devoted to what social scientists called a hostile media. who invented that term? >> i wrote the column, but i don't remember who invented the term. it is a bit about what we were talking about before. that is that there is a tendency if you don't support my point of view, if you are reporting unearthed facts or present an issue that is in a

way that does not comport with my view of the world, i am angry about that. i think you are out to get me. there tends to be a leap from, maybe this is a different way to look at things. maybe i should think about it in a different way. people seem to go instantly to motives. hidden agenda, rode reporter, conspiracy. i have seen all of that hundreds if not thousands of times, if i -- as i would receive mail from readers and non-readers. >> that was not her final column. you said "bias is a tricky thing." none of us are objective. on the bias thing, if you were

sitting around with the fox people before they start of that network, what do you think you would have heard, when they came out with "we report, you decide"? all of the phrases they use about bias -- were they making fun of the business? did they really believe it? >> i don't know. i was not sitting around. >> what do you think? you know people in the business get upset when they hear that. >> i think watching it and listening to it quite a bit, i think there is an element -- >> the fair and balanced comment. we are fair and balanced. >> perhaps they believe it.

i think what they really believe is that there is a public perception of unfairness and imbalance in the media. they will take advantage of that. there is a strategy there. it is a business strategy. it is clever. >> i hear people say, i don't want that anymore. i don't read a newspaper anymore. i do not trust them. there is a problem. >> absolutely. >> why? you spend your life in this business. what is that people don't trust? >> people are less trusting of all institutions. they don't trust government. look at what is going on right now. people don't trust the media. people don't trust people who are angry at large corporations. people are angry at lawyers and do not trust them. you name it. >> what happened? >> it has been going on for

quite some time. there is a large mistrust of the institutions in our society. >> where did it start? >> it is hard to say. some people would say it started with vietnam. i am reading a wonderful biography by alan brinkley. the 1920's and 1930's were a time of cynicism and mistrust as well. there has always been some undercurrent. technology today and the proliferation of voices tends to magnify everything, to speed it up, to make it bigger, louder, more intense. that is part of it. there have been strained as long as there has been american history of mistrust. today, it is magnified and amplified. >> let me keep asking another question. where did it start?

>> i cannot tell you that. i don't know. >> when did you see it get worse? >> in my own life, i sought get worse during vietnam. >> why would it have accelerated their? >> people thought the government lied to them. many thousands of people died for a war that those waging it were themselves skeptical about. some of them saw it as not winnable. we all lived three-time in which society seemed to be tearing apart. i am not sure we ever fully recovered from that and fully got back together. >> what institutions do you

trust the most yourself? >> personally? i trust my doctor. because i live in it and know it and believe i understand it, i trust the media in a way that many people know. people who complain loudly, you do not hear as much from them. there is a large amount of mistrust. >> "the new york times" has a slogan. "all the news that is fit to print." >> it has been a slogan for so long. what is wrong with it? >> back to when you are right in your column, one of those you had a tussle over was the john

mccain story. >> i regard that as the single biggest mistake they made. i believe it was a bad story in the sense that they raised one of the most toxic subjects you could rain it -- raise in politics. it was an allegation of sexual misconduct by a presidential candidate. if you're going to raise that, you had better be able to prove it beyond a shadow of doubt. they could not do that. having raised it, i think they failed to make the case, which played into what we have been talking about. liberal newspaper, republican presidential candidate. it was damaging. >> catholic church. you wrote about that. constant reporting about the catholic church.

>> what about it? >> what is the beef you get from outside reading "the new york times"? >> from within the church -- i heard from the church hierarchy, from within the church, there's a feeling the paper was anti-catholic, that it was unfair to par on these instances of child sexual abuse in the church, particularly as it began to -- as the stories began to escalate to the point that they reached the cardinal, the current pope. there was a feeling the paper was out to get the church and the pope. it was on some kind of unfair, anti-catholic crusade. >> you're right in your column -- you used to publish letters.

here is one from a monsignor in philadelphia. november 8, 2009. "with respect to maureen dowd -- >> it is interesting. a nun in the church sent me an article in a catholic magazine by a writer pulling out all the

positive stories that "the new york times" wrote about the catholic church, about catholic clergy, and lay people doing things for communities and society. the article was basically making the case that it is pretty hard -- this is not my article, it was someone else -- it is hard to call the paper and anti-catholic if you read it broadly. i think that the nature of the scandal in the church inevitably made it big news and front-page news. these are not isolated cases. there were hundreds and thousands of them. the church pretty systematically was more concerned with protecting the

clergy and the hierarchy than dealing with the victims. you and i both know the old watergate thing. it is not always the crime. it's the cover-up. the church is going to endure this kind of coverage until this is fully, openly dealt with and expunged. >> how many times as public editor did you get a call from the executive editor or the managing editor and they were really ticked? >> sometimes. it would depend. i heard from arthur once when he did not like a particular column. he was very simple. civil. i heard from bill and jill on a few occasions. they would be on happy -- unhappy. sometimes, i said in my

farewell column, i really felt ultimately and broadly supported by them in the sense that even when they were not happy, they kept civil, on the subject, not personal, and in the end, we would agree to look for another day and come back. >> how many ombudsmen are there at papers around the country? >> a declining number. i cannot tell you how many there are now. newspapers, as they shed staff and downsize, have been losing ombudsman. "the new york times" still retains them. there are others and run the country. sadly, the first newspaper ombudsmen was that "the liberal courier-journal" in kentucky and that position has been eliminated at that newspaper. interestingly, i belong to the organization of news ombudsman,

an international organization. its acronym is o-no. it is growing around the world. latin america, asia, the world is embracing the concept as american organizations tend to be walking away from it for financial reasons. >> i said i would be interviewing you, and i ask someone what they thought of the paper. they said they love "the new york times." they said they do not understand why the paper would waste their time -- they have someone like you, and they are criticizing the reporters. it is a ridiculous way to do business. did anyone ever say that to you? >> i have heard that more than once, sure. i would say that -- i don't agree with that view.

i would say that the role is important. it shows a great deal of courage. it shows a great deal of strength of that organization can open itself up to internal criticism and allow, on its own pages, examinations of areas where it may fall short, where it may fail. one of the reasons the paper comes in for so much criticism as it has long been perceived as an essentially impregnable fortress. nobody knows how to talk to it, to reach its, to ask questions, to complain to a. -- to it. it is a valuable avenue for people to engage with the newspaper and to raise issues that need examination. like all human institutions, "the times" makes mistakes. it does fall short.

better than most, it tries to correct them. often, there is still an institutional resistance and defensiveness that a role like the public editor helps to break down. >> back to the column you wrote, this one came in from the phone. november 10, 2009. he says this.

what about that earlier charge of secularists, atheists, members of left-leaning organizations? >> that is an extreme character resist -- characterization of the readership. in my own experience in engaging with readers, "the times" has a wide readership across the political spectrum. even conservatives who may view it as a liberal newspaper say they could not do without it. there is no where else i get the international news or the cultural news that i get in "the new york times." that is a letter written for an effect. this person is angry about stories and does not want to see them. they have drawn a caricature of the newspaper and its readership, which i believe is

inaccurate. >> on the left side, this is the project that is the center for american progress action fund. it is under climate progress. "the new york times" has been criticized -- that is from the left. this looks like a piece of journalism. headline, the whole thing. how often did you get criticized from the left? >> not as often as from the right. it would surprise people on the right to know that. there was unhappiness with the paper constantly from the left. this is one example.

there was another example about the acorn -- there was complaining about that coverage from the left and right. during the presidential campaign, believe it or not, there was complaining from the left about the way the paper covered the campaign. i you don't like the news, get mad at the messenger. >> define "ombudsman." >> readers representative, somebody charged with helping a newspaper to examine its own practices and to look at and correct instances where it is falling short. isnow that you're done, it over, never to write for "the new york times" again, what is the change in your view of them from the day you started as

ombudsmen to the end? >> i have a great deal of respect for "the times." i did before i went in and i do coming out. it is a newspaper that is deep and rich in talent. i think that, unlike most news organizations, i wrote something to arthur sulzberger and told him at the end, when i was leaving, i told him the story john s knight "the miami herald." he bought it just before world war ii. paper rationing came in the war. the dominant newspaper, "the miami news," made money hand over fist with advertising during that time. miami was a big training and staging area. there were lots of troops and families there. "the miami news" went to town

with advertising. "the miami herald," the legendary lee hills, recommended to jack night that they limit advertising to one page in the newspaper and go all out covering the news of the war and the community for the people who were there. at the end of the work, "the miami news" was way behind. "the miami herald" was the main newspaper. it dominated south florida. "the new york times" is doing the same thing today. it is investing when others are cutting back. it is investing in the future. i believe it is one of the most powerful things i observed up close during my years. >> if you were to advise print journalism to do something different to get people to come

back to them, what would that one thing be? >> i am not sure people will come back to print. i think young people have moved to the internet and moved to social media, and moved to hand-held devices, and told the paper in our hands is something you and i believe in like to do. i am not sure that is the next generation. i think what needs to happen is the values of journalism, the values that make reporting good, solid, integrity-based, independent report thing important to people, need to be carried forward on to these new platforms. that is what needs to happen. >> clark hoyt, the just-retired ombudsman of "the new york times." thank you. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> for a copy of this program,

call -- for free transcripts, or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q-and- a.org. this is also available as a c- span podcast. >> coming up, we will take your questions and comments. after that, senator tom harkin hosts a discussion about the americans with disabilities act signed into law 20 years ago today. "washington >> this morning on "washington journal" gerald prante on what