of the very serious problems facing the overall society and very briefly i'll tell you what some of those things are in a general sense. we also aren't serious enough. we're not very mature. we seem to live to be entertained and we've turned our backs too often on the many instances this profession president of the united states.

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>> i'm not a journalism student and like a scientific or article because i often find it very depressing apply together this. >> i can relate, actually. >> do we think others that are worthy like news? >> when you read columns and that sort of thing haushgs do you access them? >> on-line. >> anybody else? >> social media.

on facebook. i'm a fan of just about every print newspaper as well as magazine and things like "politico". >> since i don't know social media that well if you're doing social media and that's the correct, how do you then access news or commentary. >> for example on facebook the new york time has as facebook. you can go to that page and like it when they post an new article or what have you, that'll come up in your main feed so if you're a fan of the new york times or the huh?ing on the post they'll all come in when you log on to facebook. >> right? so does think one who gets their news from sources other than the very traditional sources - say, the "new york times" cnn or your

nightly news tele ccatelecast, questions about the reliable sources that you use for news? is anyone concerned about that? yeah? >> i think to tie into the social media aspect, i'm a journalism student so i guess i'm paying more attention this, but there's a sense for example when there's breaking news. i'm from puerto rico for a price that's not covered by these main news outlets. it used to be on-line and now it's shared and some people treat it's a traditional news article and it may or may not be. >> yes. so i'm going to talk to you.

journalism students may have a clear understanding of this, about one of the fundamental issues we need to be concerned about and a ware of when we're accessing our news and that's the difference between state reporting and opinion, journalism. do need this microphone or not? you guys i guess can hear me. i have a tendency to walk around. the first thing i'll do is sort of in a brief way explain how it works tradition at a now. you have reports, as you know who are on the editorial side of a newspaper and they'll go out and report on stories and come back and write them or if it's on television, they'll put it on the air and essentially they're spaced to just give you the facts ma'am. we know it's never quite that cut and dry. your really not supposed to be

editorializing when your writing news story in the newspaper or some other publication. um... contrasting with that, we have opinion journalism and that can take different forms so you can have an editorial for example, and in an editorial your actually speaking for the newspaper, so an editorial in the "new york times" is a position that the "new york times" has formally taken on any of the issues of the sometimes you'll see assigned editorial ability more like a column but that's opinion journalism. when you have on the op-ed page opposite of the editorial page and the point of establishing an op-ed page and the times is celebrating the 40th year of the times establishing an op-ed page. the point of having an op-ed page is having a diversity of

the subject on the op-ed page is not supposed to be - is not the voice of the "new york times". it's not the opinion of the "new york times". the times may agree with on something there but the times may often dissgreechlt you have on ed's and admissions that come from outside generally with people that are experts in their field. maybe someone from okay democracy you writing about economics or science on this issue or that issue, but it's more like explanatory journalism an opinion in it. and then of course you have a columnist and that's the best thing in the world to be if you're going to be in the news business. but the columnist, not only is it opinion journalism but you

have extraordinary freedom. at the new york times the columnist write about whatever they want to write about. they're not edited and they don't have to follow times style. your supposed to be creative in your writing and in your approach to the news and that sort of thing and it's really the further end of opinion that you'll find in traditional newspapers. is there anyone that has questions about that- essential break down? you all understand that. okay. then there's one other thing and this goes back to not the opinion stied but the news side and that's analysis. so you could have a reporter, for example who is - i don't know - say it's a political reporter writing about what somebody is - some position a candidate is taking in a

campaign. it's perfectly legitimate on the news side to have that reporter put the issue a little more in news story might do by giving an analysis or explaining for example, how this position really differs tradition from the stand that this party is taken or putting it in a historical context. you might say this is a democrat but this is a democrat who has broken away from the traditional posture of a kennedy or a clinton s or something like tha. that's someone using their expertise to explain something more fully. then we get to the stuff that's more difficult. that break down works extremely well if you're talking about something. a newspaper, a paper like the times.

a paper like the "washington post," even your traditional local papers. it's works very well if you're talking about your standard television news because you can have reporters and anchors there but you can also have someone coming to do commentary and that sort of thing. but it really breaks down when we talk about this new media landscape where you're getting and commentary from anywhere and everywhere. so you have the whole range of things that we see on-line. and then television which has gotten - well, i'll put it this way. television news is really, really, really different than i was going up and watching television news. used to be walter cronkite and it was pretty straight at you and you might have meet the press or other talk shows on sunday morning and that was pretty stayed as well.

now, all bets are all off. what happens is, you not only get - um... - you not only get straight news, you not only get analysis. you not only get opinion, you get out right craziness in the media. now. especially on-line and to some extent on television so. what happens is you don't have reporter reporters scrupulously deciding, i covered this thing, i'm a reporter and i'm supposed to keep my opinions out of it. you have reporters out there. boom, boom, boom. this is what i think and this is what i should be thinking and so forth. times reporters are constantly reminded not to do that and they tend not to do that on the air. but we know there are a lot of networks where things are a lot

more free wheeling than that. and then you have all kinds of people that don't have much in the way of journalism credentials at all and come on television in a bombastic tone tell you what they think. here on the right, or maybe here on the left. then we have those talk shows where it seems like the goal of the shows is not to that diversity of opinions but to see who can sheik the loudest and who can be the most out lanish and outrageous in presumably an attempt to drive up the ratings. what you get then in my view is just dim. you're not - i don't see how viewers looking at this kind of chaotic situation can come away in any way better informed than when they first turned on the tube. and then of course you have the

out ride madness so you have a situation for example, you get this all the time on talk radio. you get it a lot on a certain alleged news outlet on television. that has - that now has several potential republican president candidates actually on the payroll. i wonder what network we're talking about here? and here, when we get into the crazy sphere and talk radio is really - and you're on line outlets are really the ones that are nuts on this, that's where you get the stuff where they tell you obama is not really a citizen of the united states. where they talk about death panels, you know, where the democrats are trying when their doing their health care efforts

to dispatch grand ma and grandpa to the great beyond that the government is planning to go door-to-door to con fizz skate your guns in america. it might be funny because in my view it's such a lunatic quality about it. except that it's dangerous. i covered a story in pittsburgh were a guy killed several police officers and he absorbed - i'm not blaming this on the media, but i am saying that that the media is certainly not helpful in this instance. this guy absorbed the crazy notion that obama was going to kwon if i skate all the guns in the country and he gotten

together his whole collection and ended up with a shoot out with police officers and several police officer where is killed. time magazine recently had a cover story about the rise of violent militias and that sort of thing. i'm old enough to have seen the more recent tragic examples of what can happen when these wild beliefs get out there and when they're not curbs but in some cases, are actually encourageed so we saw what happened at the - what were the school in virginia tech. we saw what happened there. we saw what happened out in oklahoma city and we can have myriad examples. i grew up in theer ra where president's were assassinated and you had riots in the

streets and that sort of thing. it is i think, imperative in a free total society, to of course have the free-throw of information and we have freedom of speech and of expression, but it's also, i think, imperative, to keep the tone of our discourse within some kinds of reasonable bounds, first and for most so, that we get our views out there and your informing people that you might want to inform about what your views are and what they mean, but also to prevent people from going off in the way that's in hinged and you get results that none of us really want. it's - so it's important to have you're a sophisticated understanding between the differences in straight reporting and an analysis and opinion and whatever else is doing on out there and it's the only way you're going to be able

to navigate this new media landscape that's become so difficult. now all of this is happening at a time when i think, it's very difficult to have gate this landscape and all of it is happening at time when i think the media is focusing on more on trivial matters and mittsing some of the most important things of our era. we have absleet obsession with celebrities so. michael jackson will die and that's big story. i don't deny that for a moment but we trite as it was somehow comparable to september 11th or the death of a kennedy or martin luther king, jr. or something like that. and i mean, that's just craziness. this is an obsession with celebrity that has gone, moo my view pe beyond a reasonable doubt all bounds.

you can be watching television and see breaking news! oh, my goodness let me catch this. lindsay lohan has shown up not courthouse. whoa! did she really? what were we interrupting for that, you know? so you'll have anchors on some of the - it used to be on the cable networks but sometimes you'll see it on the other networks as well where they urge viewers. one just hysterical on some story. urging viewers. tweet us. not sure how you say it. we used to call it twittering and then a high school kid said it's tweet. made me seem like, never mind, what it made me seem like, but any way you have people on television saying, you know, tweet us, tell us your opinion

and we'll put it on the air and tweeting is like this 25 words or less or something. what is? it 140/ings or less? that sounds like a news line-up so tweet us and we'll put it on the air. why do i want to watch tell vision to find out what viewers are saying about things going on in the world? i want to find out what the professional journalisms are saying. i want to be informed if i want to go talk to my neighbor, all i have to do is walk down the hall. or they're saying send us your e-mails if they were saying give us a tip about some important story that you're aware of and we'll check it out, i would have no problem about that, but if they're saying, we're going to put you on the air with whatever madness is off the top of your head, i have all kinds of

problems with that and i end upturning the television off. oh, i have another pet peeve by the way. have you seen the way they cover weather stories. now, and i saw one today before i came over here i. can't remember where this was but there was ridiculous hailstorms somewhere and they said, hail is big as golf balls and it had this guy out here. poor fella didn't have a what on and all this stuff is reigning for testimony heavens and this is no exaggeration. he's on the television. mic'ed up and cameras rolling and he's going, oh, my god the stuff is coming down in ways you can't believe. point a camera outside the window and let me see the hail coming down if i want to spend time watching this in east bow

dunk whatever. then rainstorms the whole idea is to wait until the water is up to your waist and the reporter is in danger of being blown off camera which i guess is good t.v. in danger of drowning. we don't need this. al robinger, my friend was on a balcony. must have been a hurricane and he got blown off his feet. he was on the air live. blown off of his feet and i haven't seen him do that since then by the way, so i hope al is staying indoors, but my point is, one, you trivialize the story by just sendsing someone out there to get buffered by the rain or wind storm. it doesn't make the story more compelling seeing the reporter

getting drenched and two, unless it as storm with consequences for the rest of the nation, why is national television giving these sorts of things so much coverage in any event? and why are these big - i mean it's weather. why are these weather events, something that's going on in the southwest or something that's doing on in the northeast, why are they such big news in there that all the news networks and outlets give them so much coverage. i presume it does it for ratings but it takes time, money, energy away from more important stories. oh, there's also the public opinion poles. i do think, obviously that elections are important news, but now so much of the coverage of elections is driven by how

the poles are going, you know, who is up? who is down? trying predict who's going to win an election. when in fact, let's have more coverage of the issues these contenders are talk about and it's not have to be boring. do it a way that's interesting to your viewers or readers. explain how this issue or that issue really effects you and or your family. show the way people are being effected by this issue all across the country. i think that all the journalism outputs has really blown the coverage of the great recession. the worst economic downturn since the depression of 1930's and we should have been out there since this thing hit. showing what's happen together poor and middle class people. middle class people. because people have been out of

work and suddenly no locker have money to buy food. show them at out of their homes in record rates for closures. what happens to them? talk to them and explain why this for closure crisis has gotten so bad. families givening living in car. teachers being let go by the tens of thousands because of budget crisis. show what happens when we have those drastic budget cuts and what happens to the families when the mothers or fathers are thrown out of work on massachusettses we need to hear about that rather than hearing about lindsay lohan rather than hearing about the weather storm or joe whatever his name is got blown off his feet because a

gust of wind got up to 60 miles an hour in - i don't know - southern tennessee. why is it like this? let me see if we have. we don't have a lot of time but i'll just mention briefly a serious story that is a result of what i - that resulted directly from what i think as trivialization of the news and that's the shirley shirnnv story. an african-american woman that worked the agriculture department and this fella. right winger by the name of andrew bright bart that's made a career of having to try and set up people that he perceives to be on the left. he released this edited version of her speaking at a naacp

convention a long time ago that sounded like she was m making racist comments about white people. turned shiite was not doing anything of the kind. this was a long talk she was giving explaining how she had overcome some of her more difficult racial feelings. this was a women's who her father had been killed a racial struggle and had struggled with the issues and come out in a really good place. the entire talk was an inspiring address. any way, this little exert came out and they gave the wrong impression this woman was trying make. what happened this era of instant journalism, reporters, i don't even think of them as

reporters but these talking heads on television are on the air, they show the clip and then they give instant not just anal spis but their opinion and not just opinion but out rage about what should happen to this woman. the general consensus is she's racist. that's obvious. look what's happening in the video. we can't tolerate this. when it's white people doing it it's just as wrong when it's black people doing it. it's this. what happens the obama administration goes into panic mode and in less than 24-hours. less than 24-hours without so much as hearing or a conversation with this woman to find out what it was that she had said or done, she was fired. she was fired. ousted from her job. why did that happen? because there was a media fire

storm generated from the right. but it wasn't just the right. you had so-called journalists in the center and from the left looking at this clip on television and making decision this woman had to go and the obama administration fell for it and got rid of her. she was offered her job back later on and got an apology and she chose not to go back to the administration. so why is it like this? i blame it on what i call, the mpe syndrome. money, power and ego. the networks and news outlets are interesting in ratings and big bucks. reporters representative robert andrews chores are part of ahmad quest for individual popularly. they want to be selections themselves in many cases and nearly everyone is lusting after access to the most powerful people in the country and the

world. now there's something natural about that. i mean if you have an interview with president barack obama you would want to taught that. if you were having lunch with hillary clinton and you're doing a lunch interview and it's le gate mate news and you want to say, this is what we talked about. this is what she said, this is how i got that exclusive. i don't have a problem with that. but when that sort of thing is what drives your entire journalism mechanism, then you're going to end up in trouble and you're going to provide a disservice to your readers or to your viewers so we have to keep that ego in check. and then as i mentioned, all of this is causing us to give tragically short coverage of

important issues of our time. this is include corporate take over of american democracy that was what i was writing about with john baner. the staggering increase in economic in be quality. systematic d destruction of the middle class. the constant state of warfare. most people are not paying an attention to the war in afghanistan and the continuing conflict in iraq at all and we don't see a lot of coverage about those wars on television. those war, we're already enduring grave consequences as a result. we're not giving - i think adequate coverage to the growing in tolerance and out right hatred that's poisoning the atmosphere threatening in great

for congress over the last few decades. those of us privileged to be in the press have an important responsibility to serve as a check on those with tremendous power in our society. our most important job. most important of all is to help establish and maintain well-in formed citizenry. people are hurt when we don't take our responsibilities seriously enough. i'm going to stop here with my presentation. but i'd love to take some questions from any of you who would like to about any subject that you'd like. yes, sir? >> i'm jonathan and i'm a junior in political communication. firstly, i find it interesting you discriminate against people's views on how cable television portrays them on the side during their news casts because of the forcefulness or

the medium that they portray the it seems interesting to discriminate against sources. >> i'm not sure what you mean? >> you said you didn't like how people put up facebook comments - that they request people to tweet and send in their e-mails or whatever and will put them on the air. yes. >> journalist shouldn't have sources coming with their information. i found that interesting. >> i would never say they should not have sources. i think journalists should use sources to take information and then exam exam tin source to f out if there's a legitimate story and report on it themselves. i don't see television news or other traditional news outlet auzion forum for the public. you're right. that is my view. my view is that if i turn on a news cast that i'm assuming this

is the being put on by responsible reporters and editors and producers, technical personnel, all in a very professional way. when you have unfiltered - when you give unfiltered access to the public to put it on the air, your hearing from any uninformed whacko from anywhere in the country. why do i want to watch that? >> i'm presuming there's filters on that? moving on. you take shots at fox news and their model ofing on the and cheek, they're in balance. >> ing on the and cheek? >> fair and balanceding on the in cheek as in not being fair and balanced as they claim to be. >> i'm suggesting that fox news is not fair and balanced, correct. >> it seems the market has only so much tolerance for james

lair. the market demands the kinds of content we create and these social elements that you don't like in immediate dwrand extreme is elements. >> have an absolute right to your opinion on that. my personal opinion is i would like news not to be driven by the market if you want toothpaste to sell, let that be driven by that i don't wants an a consumeer of the news, for it to be driven by the market so. you're right in the way your characterizing my position. so i can't argue with that. >> it would be great to point the finger at the consumer instead of the producer of the news. >> well they don't have control over it. i've heard your opinion and i appreciate it. thank you very much. >> my name is robert and i've been reading a lot about him and he actually published a piece on the last year about the idea of having competing frames in the

media. having different sources. having idea logs on one side under the other and leaving it up to the consumers of the media to like analyze this media in order to make a more informed decision for democracy. he wants equating democracy. you agree with the stops this robert enemenemen? >> i think as much as anyone else you have the right to put your views out there and if someone wants an idea log on the right competing with an idea log on the left, i mean i would have no problem with that. i probably wouldn't watch the room or read the piece, but i wouldn't want that to be the fundamental way that we present news to the public. i would rather have the public getting their news from

professional, well-trained journalists in whatever the media might be and let them make a decision on how they feel about the issues from that rather than hearing you know, from the idea logs, but there's no reason. i certainly wouldn't try to sensor the opinions, views. commentary or anything else from someone. >> discredit them? you don't discredit the opinion of glen beck? >> well there's a difference. you can be well informed and not be someone like glen beck that believes barack a booobama has p seeded hate for white people. i don't think that has some basis in fact if your moving to the standpoint of no basis of

fact and using that as a moons of performanceing the public think you're doing a disservice. i just want people that call themselves journalists to do the hard work of immersing themselves the facts, doing the research. understanding the issues that their talking about and not what wering the factual aspects of what they saying even if it's commentary and even if it's opinion. but if you're just going to use the fact they have an ideological position to say anything and everything, i'm not in favor of that. yes, ma'am? >> hi. i'm a junior. you've talked about a lot about a lot of madness and the media is covering that from obama being a citizen or the issue

with share irley but all your examples seem constrained to the right. can you point out any similar examples of such things happening from the left or is this madness only on the right? >> no. i don't think it's limited the right. i think examples from right the easy examples of late that's in part because president barack obama is president and the issues for the last couple of years or so, but if you went back to the george w. bush administration, you could find chapter and verse of craziness that was coming from left. things that were said about bush that were just off the wall. off the charts, and i'm not more in favor of that than craziness

to the right. but, i don't think that there is a general equivalence. i don't think it's - safe or accurate to say, we have a lot of whacky stuff coming at us from the right but lot of whacky stuff from the left and we just should of globally denounce it. i think especially in recent years there's more whacky stuff coming from right than from the left. i think responsible figures in the media have an obligation to point out the whackyness wherever it's come from and i think lately more of it is coming for testimony right than from the left. >> on this sort of encouraging of whackyness and using people on t.v. shouldn't encourage that sort of thing, would you equate glen beck with someone like

keith owner man. they basically do the same job. >> um... i want to punt on that. the reason i want to punt on that, ordinarily i would be happy to go ahead and give an answer. i haven't watched keith night after night after night so i'm concerned about saying. glen beck is whacky and i can give you chapter and verse on his whackyness and then someone might say, here is a glitch clip from owner man. can you believe he said that? and i have to respond, i didn't know that he said that. but my impression is, here's the impression. my impression is, that glen beck is much more willing to traffic in nonsense things that have no

factual basis than keith is. i don't see him as that kind of a figure. yeah? >> i mean, i agree wholeheartedly with what you say. i mean i got into the journalism business to change the world and to make sure that people were informed correctly, and - but i think that there's kind of a central issue of - that it is - i mean, practically, what is there to do? are we as journalists going into it - i mean this is a business model in photo urine list from example. papers have been shrinking for the last 15-20 yearss. that there's no space for say like a ten picture photo essay on afghanistan because t-mobile doesn't wanted to add ver tiez

next to diagnose babies or soldiers so the business model is then. we're not going to look to the big organizations for funding. we're going to work for them and save our bills and get individual grants from people like pulitzer center for crisis report together do these important u informative works essentially. and i feel that, you know, i mean, how do we approach the issue? i think it's clear that people aren't getting information they need, but how do we - i mean, first of all, i kind of am of the opinion that socially there isn't a demand. i mean i don't think that the majority of americans want quality information. they want know know there was an earth quake in haiti and that's it. how do we engage people? are we engageing the corporate structure of news or is - i mean

at a toil? >> there's two important elements and i agree that they fight one another. in terms of corporate element, it absolutely makes it very difficult for a serious journalist to get his or her work published or on the air. i absolutely agree with that which is why i made the comment a little a while ago, that both as a reader and viewer and journalist my sill of journalist, myself i don't like the idea of letting the market decide the journalist. i repel that idea eventhough that is to a great extent the reality at the moment and has been to some extent all the time. so, it is more difficult now for serious journalists and

i think that young journalists are up against - an extraordinarily tough situation. what i would say is, eventhough it is tough, you have to absolutely put your nose to the grindstone and do the best journalism you can and try to find an outlet for this great journalism where it's photos or magazine pieces or where it's a video piece you would like on television or something like that to the second part of your question, is about the idea that there's not really a demand from the public for that kind of journalism. i agree with that. there nots demand there but you create the demand. you create a demand with really compelling journalism. if you - if you talk about some

of the groundbreaking pieces that edward marrow did back in 1950's on television when network television was such a bland medium you just really couldn't believe it. but - the quintessential example it seems to me would be the civil rights movement. if you go back to the 109850's god knows there was no demand for news stories or television coverage of the way black people were treated throughout the country but especially in the south. people were in favor of segregation, but the civil rights movement evolved any way and then you had this fantastic journalistic coverage of events like the way that you know when the fire hoses came out and dogs

and the - you had the coverage of the campaign itself. you had coverage of the effort that martin luther king was doing. the month from ri busboy cot and all that sort of thing. no one would have suggested there was a market for that kind of journalism but the stories became so compelling that they created demand and that's what i think we need now and that's what i think we could do with the stories that have come out of this recession that struck in december of 2007'. it's been a long time now. if you start putting these families on the air and started to let them tell you about the suffering that they go through when you talk to the kids and talk about what's happening when we're dismantling programs in the schools and that thing. when you talk about men and women out of work for two or more years or more. when the times said men and women over 50 out of work are

seriously afraid they will never work in the society again. we need to be out there pounding the paiflt telling those stories. telling them and putting them on the newspaper and on the air and if you do it compellingly there will be a market. i believe that absolutely. we have time for a couple more. yes, sir? >> i'm joe, i'm a senior. two points i'd like to ask. you can't speak to keith but what's the difference between what you do on on ed and the time contributors do on fox? >> the - one, i don't want to limit it to fox. i think fox is in an egregious example but it's not limited them by any means. two, i think the idea that

public figures who are interested public office who may in fact run for president of the united states should not be on the payroll of network news, programs. three, when you have figures like glen beck saying things that are patently untrue, there are many others, beck is the quick example that comes to mind but there's many others. when they're saying things that are absolutely untrue. when people insist president barack obama is a muslim for example. when you have the nonsense stuff that you have about climate issues. you know, that's just whacky to me. that's not what i do. i do do reporting and base my

opinions on fact. i interview public figures and people who are effected guy issues of the day. i name nigh sources and i quote people directly and that sort of thing. and then i give my take on it. and i tell you this is what i think. it is labeled opinion. it's so clear that this sacco lumm and this is my opinion. you can have another opinion and you're welcome to have it and not only are you welcome to have it, the times will put an apposing opinion on the same page that will often happen if david brooks is on the same page i am. it's a world of difference from the kind of thing i'm talking about. i'm not opposed to what i call the craziness, because it comes out of the conservative political environment or an even a right wing ideology. i'm apposed to the stuff that is

crazy that is vicious that is not based on fact and that sort of thing. that's what i'm apposed to. sure. >> i think you referenced the issue of your remarks. i have to ask now. i know for a fact that john baner gets death threats on almost a daily basis if someone takes a shot at him because they read in your article that she's a sleaze o d do you bear responsibility for that? >> no. i was criticizing his behavior and things that he did. but you have these voices out there. you have a - who's the woman - in the midwest? you have all these commentators who talk about for example second amendment rights.

you have a right to go and get your gun to do this you have all these folks talking about making stand against issues and you have this idea and keep coming back to this idea of saying things that are not true. saying things that are false. so there's a real danger here of giving this a false give lens so that if you talk about someone writing about what i think that is scandalous behavior. a congressman passing out money on the floor of the house of representatives and you equate that with some of the outlandish true things coming out from the crazies, that's false equivalence and i just don't accept that. yes, sir? >> um... part of what you said earlier and a hot topic obvious obviously is the change of media

right now. journalism seems doomed. i guess one of the biggest issues you have and i agree, is sort of the possible collapse of professionalism in journalism and specifically when you use the shirley shirkok case and you publish and edit that's one example of the collapse of professionalism you think with journalism moving with it on-line or whatever it may look like, can professionism be maintained and how? >> professionalism can be maintained and the way you maintain professionalism is through individuals like yourselves. any of you that might be going into the professionalism you have to maintain personal standard of conduct and professionalism yourself.

i will write stories based on the facts or or go on television and talk about that or post pieces on-line based on the facts themselves. ly go out of my way to make sure that i'm correct about these facts. that i didn't just take somebody's word and it turns out they made mistakes or something like that. that i maintain the highest standards for myself and try to maintain the highest standards for whatever organization i'm with and if you become an editor, a produce, a boss, insist your staff maintain the highest standards. that's how you keep the quality of journalism up. it has nothing to do with the medium itself. you can have great journalism on radio, on-line, in newspaper on television but you have to main tin the standards. >> i would say that part of why you do those and the "new york times" does that is they have that institution called the "new

york times" that demands professionalism and when you bring it to a medium where all of these other voice cans come in and - i guess i'm asking, can an institution like the "new york times" exist where people - that's different question. it's a big difference between can the "new york times" exist and can quality journalism still exist? it's not one in the same. there just used to be a paper called the herald tribune and there's a zillion that no longer exist but you can still have quality urine list annoucement this country. i hope the "new york times" stays in existence and flourishes but even if we lost the "new york times," which i think would be tragic. even if we lost the "new york times" that would not mean you could not still do great urine list annoucement this country. people have done great

journalism under much worse conditions than we have now. people have done great urine list annoucement society is where they didn't have freedom of the press. where, freedom fighter where is oppressed by the authorities. where you actually risked your life if you tried to tell the truth about what went on in your society and yet still great journalism blossomed from those really terrible places, so yeah. i think that not only do i think we can still have great journalism eventhough the landscape has changed to the degree it does. it's more essential i think now than ever that we maintain high standards of journalism. i think i have to wrap it up there. i that ca thank you for the oppy and i look forward to the opportunity to talk to you again. >> i want to thank bob for coming here and want to thank all of you for coming here, and posting some really good,

challenging in many cases provacative questions. this is what bob and other columnists should do is to make us think and i think we should also, and you as you did here today should make them think in return and explain and defend what they do. bob will be back throughout the semester and throughout the year. i hope you will seek him out and engage with him further. i could make mo one observation and it's in fact, why wanted to him on part of this. we used to have clear cut categories. there was the story. the straight story. then there was a new as analysis and mike remembers, out it would be libelled news analysis and there would be a commentary

saying commentary. a, the labeling is not so clear b, the filtering in many cases no longer exists and c, we have this new element of bloggers. participants and what one of the things that glen beck has done, which is very provacative is he's stepd to the other side of the podium. he's gone from being merely a commentary if he's been that and now a participant calling upon people to organize behind him and on his behalf. that's fundamental change in many ways and i will merely with this story demonstrating how clearly times have changed. when i was a bureau chief at cnn issued guidance to reporters when they did alive shot speaking to the camera please don't use the words in your live shot, i think. it's not that we don't think you think. we know you think, but the

audience actually isn't interested in your opinion. your there to report the facts. that was the guidance and it's fundamentally changed. now you as a correspondent. i've done this because i've done that that your meant to be a central personality in the exchange of information that makes you by definition or interpre telled and that's rei r warded and becoming the norm. things have changed. bob herbert thanks for laying this out for us. thanks for your candid exchange with the students and if you want to linger for a bit you're welcome, but we also know you have to be moving on and you'll be back. thanks very much. [applause] >> thank you, bob. >> you're welcome. >> next, live, your calls and comments on "washington

journal". then news makes with stephanie sheriok president of stephanie's list. >> most generals they're greatness is what they do on the battlefield. tried showing washington's greatness is as much what he did between battles. simply holding the content together. >> part of of the interview with ron chernow in the washington biography on c-span's q & a. .