participated in the invasion of cuba. after the transfer power, many people who did not like him very much fled cuba appeared where they fled to was mainly right here in miami. >> >> of course the election of the first black president is a landmark in tremendous change in american attitudes. had there been -- not and that change, he would have no hope of prevailing. >> it is hard to relax, but you have to be calm enough where you can make a split second decision with no help -- do i move on, do i follow off, what do i do now? >> watch video coverage at the c-span library.

watch what you want, when you want. >> on monday, hearings began on fall and hacking, and the culture practices and ethics of the british media. the hearing focused on hugh grant. justice leveson was appointed to oversee the relationship between the press, and police. up next, a portion of the hearing, featuring the testimony from hugh grant. this is about 2 hours 15 minutes. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> i, hugh grant, do solemnly, sincerely, and truly declare and affirm that the evidence i shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. >> thank you.

>> mr. grant, your full name please? >> hugh john mungo grant. >> thank you. there is a statement of truth signed by you on the third of november of this year. please confirm that is your first statement. >> that is. >> than you did a second statement on the 11th of november. again there is a statement of truth. >> yes. >> what i am going to do -- >> before you do anything, mr. grant, i am very grateful to you for coming. i am conscious that you're speaking of matters to you or prefer if you would prefer were

not deployed in the -- you would prefer were not deployed in the press. i am grateful you are assisting the inquiry with your evidence. during the course of the afternoon, we would likely have the brakes, but if you want a few minutes off, it is sufficient that you indicate it, and i would be pleased to a courtier the time. >> thank you very much. >> we do not have time on it. >> i am sorry to hear that. [laughter] >> your evidence divides in fact and opinion. i would like to start with fact. in relation to your career, everybody of course probably knows all about your career, but you made it big with a film in 1994, "four weddings and a

funeral," but you did rather well with a film in 1987 called "maurice." your career then took off. you said and initially the press was favorable. can you tell us about the favorable part, the good part in your own words? >> it was fairly brief, but of course on the back of the success of "four weddings and a funeral," there was a spurt of good will. i think the nation like having a film that was popular, funny, and doing very well all over the world. we enjoyed a few british cinema successes we get and i had a positive press.

>> s that stage was their interest in your private life? >> there was a great deal -- at that stage was their interest in your private life? >> there was a great deal, beginning at the premiere of the film, when the press became very interested in me and my girlfriend. >> i think we probably remember that premier. perhaps theon to darker side, and mrs. -- can i move on perhaps to the darker side, paragraph seven. i will not cover the event of july, 1995. >> i wish you would, in away. a mile out to break-in? i think it is an important point i make in the statement for the questioning and the campaign i have done recently about what

diversey as the abuses of some sections of the british -- what by somes the abuses and t sections of the british press. i was arrested. it was on public record. i expected there to be tons of press. i have no quarrel with it. it is important to make that point. >> fair enough. there was an incident involving a break-in to your london flat, fourth floor. the front door was forced off of its hinges. it sounds like it was professionally done but there was no damage in the side fleck. >> no damage and nothing was stolen. this came at the zenith of them are rest p.m. los angeles. i was back in london.

i managed to get out for the day or the night, and when i came back the flight had been broken into. -- flat had been broken into. nothing was stolen. the police came around the next day to talk about it, and the next day. the day after the a detailed account of what my flat looked like in a british tabloid. i remember thinking was that a burglar or the police that told them that? when i told the story to tom watson who was riding of book about this kind of thing he nodded knowingly saying that method of breaking he has come across with several other people that were in the cross hairs of press attention.

it is doubly-sinister to me because you have to walk up a lot of stairs. i thought it was a bad choice for a normal burglar and nothing was stolen. it had never been broken into before. >> i suppose the logical possibilities are either a week from the police, where the burglar was acting on the construction of the press to gain site of the inside. we do not now which i caucuses is correct. >> i think the most likely scenario is both. >> or a burglar who has decided there is a way to make some money. either way. >> fine. >> this was at a time when there was a lot of press desperate to get even.

it was four forced up. i know -- stores up. i know they were desperate to get some kind of action. >> in paragraph 8, you deal with various libel action, all of which were successful. can you give us a general idea of how many libel claims we are talking about? >> i do not know. it has been 17 years since i became of any interest to the tabloid press. i can imagine in those 17 years half of a dozen, or maybe 10? i just mentioned two here because it would be boring to go through them all. in themselves they are not significant but these examples are.

>> the example you give in paragraph 11, february, 2007, are you suggesting that that story must have come from phone- hacking? >> what i am saying it is "the mail on sunday, called ran an article saying my relationship with my girlfriend was on the rocks because of persistent, late-night phone calls with a studio executive from warner brothers. it was a bizarre story, completely not true. is sued for libel, and one. damages were rewarded.

i was thinking about how they could come up with such a bizarre story. i realized although there was no studio executive from warner brothers that i had any relationship with, there was a great friend of mine who runs a production company associated with warner brothers, and whose assistant, as happens in hollywood, is the person who rings you. this is what she used to do. she is to leave messages. -- she used to leave messages. she would leave a charming, joking messages saying please, a studio executive back.

she had a voice that could only be described as plummy. i cannot think of any other conceivable source except those messages on my mobile telephone. >> you have not alleged that before in the public domain. >> no, but when i was preparing this statement, i looked at that, and then the penny dropped. >> it is decent speculation on your part? >> yes, but i would love to know -- i think mr. kaplan said he would like to put in a supplementary statement. i would like to hear the explanation for the article. what their source was.

>> i might come back to that. the next article you refer to is in paragraph 12, your statement which was run in the "sunday express." the point about this article, and we have this on on the bottom right hand side. this was entirely not true? >> it was an article that purported to be written by me, which i have not written, and i have not even spoken to a journalist. it was completely made up or patched and pasted from previous

quotations i may have given in an interview. that is why they lost their case and head to apologize. >> the statement in open court makes the point that you did not contribute to the article in any way. there are two examples of defamation claims. you also are providing privacy claims. the first one comes over litigation on paragraph 13, a visit to chain cross hospital, and tito's which are not necessary to go into, but it -- details which are not necessary to go into, but it did evolve into a claim, is that correct? >> yes.

>> you also had complaints that were upheld. >> finally, and after a lot of effort. they were reluctant to do anything. finally i got a tiny recognition that my complaint had been upheld deep in the newspaper without referring to what the complaint was about. >> the adjudication you all have in the bundle under tag 4. >> ok. i see it. yes. >> they upheld the complaint. they noted that the complaint raised issues involving confidentiality and sources.

the delay had to do with issues of jurisdiction. rightly or wrongly, it will not be possible for us to go into this. there were questions raised. it took them time to resolve the questions. once the results questions they upheld that part of that complaint. do you understand that? >> iraq understand the debt is what they wrote, but -- i understand that that is what they wrote, but i fail to understand how an individual's medical records be inappropriate for commercial profit, what did -- why did it take them so long? >> you can see that in the first

paragraph of the adjudication. >> we do not know from this document-the date of this adjudication. you said it took a long time. do you know the date? do you remember approximately how long it took? >> of my recollection is that it is about three months -- my recollection is it is about three months. >> there is another similar complaint, or issue, and you touched on this in paragraph 15. this is much more recent. it involves a visit to the chelsea and westminster hospital.

are you happy that we talk about that? >> yes, otherwise i would not put it in a statement. >> the article itself, under hg 1, on internal numbering page 14, or the number ending 1932. hg 1 is tag 2, mr. grant. >> thank you. i have it. >> i'm going to s q to comment about this, -- asked you to comment about this.

the details do not matter, but you ended up in the emergency room, and what the article is trying to say here is a famous man that waited his turn. we all know from these departments you might have to wait a long time. this all reflects rather well and you -- on you. >> that is not my interpretation of the story. the classic tabloid technique to cover a previous breach of privacy is to wrap it up in a nice story. if the photograph someone's baby, they will say what a pretty baby to stop someone from suing them. this is exactly the same. it says not only that i went to the hospital, but what i went for. the complaint that i was dizzy and short of breath, which is an

intrusion into my privacy. they deliberately dressed the upper edge it -- dressed that up as a favorable article. >> it ended up with the payment of damages or to a charity. >> it was not just "the sun." the express -- "the express" also ran a story. at this point i was wary about losses. i try to short circuit it by saying there would be no lawsuit if they each paid 5,000 pounds

to a charity i supported seen as they both talked about my health -- has supported, seen as they had both talked about my health. "the express" refuse to pay a penny, and "the sun" agreed to pay 1,500 pounds. >> the point is not whether this is true, but it is an intrusion of your privacy. is that your point? >> i did not think any british citizen would expect -- i do not think any british citizen would expect their medical records to be made public or appropriated for commercial profits. i think that is fundamental to our british sense of decency. >> to be fair, we do not know

the source of the story. >> maybe it was just a lucky guess. >> i do not think they're suggesting that, but it could be a number of different cases. >> what would they be, sir? >> they could be evidence -- there could be evidence about this later, but the story apparently came from a picture agency that had been tipped off by a nonmedical employee. >> it was their picture, so that is weird, but for them to know the details of why i went there, it had to be someone with access to the computer where you register. i hope and i am sure that it was none of the medical staff. i suspect it was the age old system of someone at the hospital been on a retainer from

either a tabloid newspaper or a picture agency -- is anyone famous comes in, -- if anyone thinks this comes in. i am quite sure -- famous comes in. i am quite sure that was the source. that was the case again in the case of my baby. >> in paragraphs 16 and 17 you deal with other intrusions on your privacy. i would like to move on to paragraph 18 and the section razzi.pauper r.o.t.pa you give one example about being

chased at high speed. can you tell us more about that? >> that was a relatively common occurrence with two of the girlfriends i have had. they both have children, and in both cases -- a share, that is not fair. the first girlfriend, -- actually, that is not fair. the first growth and did not have children. the second girlfriend did -- girlfriend did not have children. the second girlfriend did, in in the early days of our romance was followed and chased even when she had the children in the car, and even when the children were crying, they pulled up, and the children were frightened. they would continue to take pictures. then they would be borne by in

national newspaper. >> -- be bought by a national newspaper. there are two kinds of press photographers. there are those on staff with the papers. they occasionally show a modicum of decency but they did not in the case of my baby. they staked out a new mother for three days. she could not leave her home. there are the much worse freelance paprazzi, who are increasingly recruited from criminal classes. they very often have criminal records. they will really stop at nothing, showing no mercy, a fix. the bounty on some of these pictures is very high. i suspect that the ones who for instance were chasing my profound and her children were

the freelance types, the ones that tried to take pictures of girls in skirts and digitally removed their underwear. i suspect they were the ones following princess diana when she died. "the daily mail" promised they would never buy pictures from again, but subsequently they did three months later. >> not now, but later i would come -- like to come back by the mechanisms which any of that could be controlled. . >> sure. >> you tell us in paragraph 24

that were earnings start to come about how to protect privacy, and amongst the advice given was that phone numbers should be changed frequently a. can you remember when those warnings started to a minute? >> i can not exactly. and i'm guessing it was early- 2000's. 2000, 2005. >> were you the direct recipient of the warning? >> i had circular e-mail that was sent to clients. i remember looking at this list saying these are some of the things they are up to. be careful of blue suits, your phones and get your car --

tooth, your funds, and get your car swept. >> then you save some came to the commissioner's office. >> yes, out of the blue. >> can you remember if it was a policeman? >> i have always been confused about that. he was not wearing a uniform care maybe he had a rank. -- uniform. maybe he had a rank. he came to my house, set in my kitchen, and told me they arrested a private investigator whose new book contained income and personal details on a number of people and -- contained in a cement personal details of a number of people, and i was one of them, including addresses of

close friends. i said who is this person working for? they said it looks like he's working for most of the british press. >> which might suggest it was the information commissioner's office. >> i think you will find the information commissioner employs ex-police officers. >> yes, we know that because there was a story about one of the police officers who was shocked that the end of this enquiry they were not allowed to interview the journalists that hired a private detective in the first place appeared >> you are in danger of four shuttle in -- place. you are in danger of foreshadowing evidence we will hear next week.

it is clearly the information offices position than ever discovered evidence related to phone-hacking. if that is right, it suggests your recollection must be incorrect. >> i definitely know this was not that case that came to me. i cannot understand why they would tell me on man had my address, because everyone had my address. he also had my phone numbers, -- if he did not have my phone numbers, high would not understand why he would come to see me. >> -- i would not understand why he would come to see me. >> your address could be obtained in breach of the data protection act. do you follow me? >> yes.

>> it might be the you are associating what could have been a reasonably limited, if not on remarkable discussion, which was limited to breaches of the data protection s, and extrapolating from the left, and bringing in more sinister details -- extrapolating from that, and bringing in more sinister details. >> we will not come to an agreement on this. they were telling me about flagging and that sort of think >> wa that the phrase they used -- thing? -- thing. >> was at the phrase they used? >> i am not sure. was 2004. >> part of the -- it was 2004.

>> part of the system is your desk about their response. you should not assume that he is asking the question, necessarily agreeing or disagreeing with the proposition. >> i understand. >> was the name mentioned by the police officer? >> since the inquiry was about the arrest, it is difficult to manage and it was about anything else. >> you learned -- it is difficult to imagine it was about anyone else. >> you learned that subsequently, did you not? >> yes. >> the next event was a chance encounter with mr. paul mcmullen. you deal with it in paragraph 26 of your witness statement. >> yes. >> tell us about the chance

encounter we read about. you ended up in the same car as ham. >> yes. i broke down in my car on the countryside just before christmas last year and thought "what am i going to do, i am late for my appointment?" amazingly, a van pulled up, and i thought some nice person has come to help, and instead stepped on man with a great long lens. he came over, and was taking lots of pictures. i was not entirely polite. i kept saying do you want a lift. finally i did, and i was in the

car with this man and my friend, and that is when he revealed he was a former "news of the world" feature editor and he kept his camera in the glove box of his car in case of a happy accident. he went on to tell me these fascinating things, boasting about how extensive phone- hacking had been at "news of the world," how they had enjoyed the incredible sycophancy of five consecutive governments, the way they paid off police. i was thinking i wish i had a tape recorder. >> the next time you saw him you did have a tape recorder. >> that is right.

>> there is a piece about this which is in our bundle, hg1 , and onal numberpag page 15 the internal number it ends 1933. is this a verbatim transcript of the recording? >> there are boring bits left out. i put in the juicy bits. >> i am not going to go over all , you understand.

on the very bottom of the first page, it reads at the moment "and... it was not just "the news of the world" and it continues. do you remember what goes in the "...?" >> that was one of the boring bits, or it was something sinister. it could be adapted jukebox was too loud. -- it could be that the jukebox was too loud. >> we could listen to it if you agree. do you have a problem with that? >> i do. i feel like i did my revenge

number on paul mike mullen, -- mcmullen, and i feel that issue is done with him. it seems to me too harsh. i do not want to send him to prison. in addition to which, he had to be given some credit for having been a whistle-blower on all of this stuff. >> i have to continue with your question. it was not just "the news of the world." very much a leading question, was it not? >> yes, but i'm not a lawyer. i am allowed to s leading questions. >> fair enough, -- ask leading questions.

>> fair enough, but there is no evidence that your e-mail was involved. do not share speculation or an opinion. we're looking for evidence appeared there is no evidence, is there? -- evidence. there is no evidence, is there? >> the evidence before me would be the article we spoke about earlier and paul mike mullen's answer to this question. -- mcmullen's answer to this question. ok. let's look at the answer. when i went freelance, the biggest payers we thought would be all called the news of the world" but actually it was -- would be "the news of the world," but actually it was "the

daily mail." he is talking about selling a photograph of you, is he not? >> he segues into that. i did not leave anything out. it helps, you can come listen to the tape. i left nothing out. it was him answering when i went freelance that the biggest pair was "the daily mail." >> what you are asking is to read carefully what he said and interpret his answer, and one highly reasonable interpretation is he is limited in his evidence? >> as i said, he segues into that answer. i agree that it is strange

syntex. it is a segue. i have no reason to believe that his answer referred to "the daily mail" been involved in -- being in phone-hacking. >> had he been drinking? >> had i been drinking? >> no, had he been drinking? >> he did not seem drunk at all. >> you then say, why did they buy a phone-hacked story? >> it was interesting if they were involved in phone-hacking i

said it would they buy a phone- hacking to which he answers that for four or five years they had been clean, but before that they were as dirty as anyone. they had the most money. >> he is not given any details there of any specific phone- hacking activity by "the daily mail" has he? >> no. >> we could read on. the rest of what he says is quite controversial. it is probably best if i do not read this out. some of it is controversial indebted names particular names of people -- in that it names particular names of people. >> you know perfectly well there

is a police investigation going on. i have to be extremely careful that i do not prejudice any potential prosecution. >> of course. >> and i am sure you would not want to either. >> no, i would not. >> this has been published in the public domain. anyone can go it -- google it, and we will leave it it at that, if you do not mind. are we saying for clarity that is the inquiry wanted to listen just to the bits of the tape that we have been discussing, is something you would be comfortable with or uncomfortable with? >> those bits because i do not think they sent him to prison.

that is fine. >> i want to be clear i am not being too coy about the investigation, but i do not want to add unnecessary material into the public domain beyond that where it is necessary to go to identify the culture, pensions, and ethics of the press. >> i get back. >> to be -- get that. >> to be clear, we are also hearing from mr. mcmullen. >> good luck. >> that is a helpful begin yet into the incident. ngette.

we have heard two witnesses speak about the same situation. could you tell us a little bit about that meeting? >> yes. they harangued my lawyer. they wanted to show me some evidence. they explained -- is quite a formal thing. then they said is there anything you would recognize. i looked and saw various phone numbers of mine from the middle of 2000, to about 2005, along with some pin numbers and access numbers.

then there were other names i recognized. people around me, people i knew, and in one case, it triggered a memory of a couple of stories that had been in "the daily mirror" and "the daily mail," and die from that interesting. -- and i find that interesting. they reject parts. subsequent to that meeting with the police, i was very interested to know who had commissioned that page of hacking, seeing as this story had not appeared in "the news of the world." >> you mentioned the "daily

mail." it is not in your witness statement. >> yes it is. >> my apologies. you have. ok. >> just for the avoidance of doubt, the top corner which we are cyphering, that was in fact someone you went to -- you linked to local news of the world -- "news of the world." >> i was told i needed access, and it seems to be a journalist. it seems to be that he commissioned the work, but it appeared in "the mail" and the

mirror. >> industry will not be able to solve today. -- a mystery we will not be able to solve today. may i move on to your supplementary statement. this deals with quite recent events. it culminates in the injunction last week. we have seen a copy of his judgment. first of all, can i ask you please to look at page 22, which will be behind your witness statement in the bundle, not in a separate tab.

we are not going to go -- we are going to go into as much detail as you want me to print it relates to the front page of " news of the world" from april of this year. it looks like these are photographs taken with a telephoto lens. >> i would imagine so. i was not aware they had been taken. i wish i could find this. what is the tab number? >> you will reach the end of your witness statement, and the first couple of pages of the exhibit are the article we are referring to. are you with me? >> i am on the second tab. >> third.

>> you could have my copy if there is a problem with it. >> thank you very much. >> is it one, underneath the statement? >> yes. we're not concerned with the headline or the details, unless you want to discuss it. the real point is that this is a telephoto lens and you are not aware these photographs are being taken. >> correct. >> you also state that you were not asked to comment before the piece was published along with the photographs. >> correct. >> what might you have said? >> i would have said nothing. i would not have returned calls.

no one would have returned the calls. >> might you have taken proactive steps to protect privacy, for example, legal action? >> if i had done that, it would have drawn attention to the story. my motivation was to protect the mother of my child from a press storm. anything like you suggested would have alerted the media and her life would have been made health, as it subsequently was. -- hell, as it subsequently was. >> and by doing nothing, it was anyway, was it not? >> we held them off for a surprisingly long time. after this article they followed

her around. she was a signal, pregnant woman, being tailed by paparazzi, one in particular who frightened her a lot, but they did not have anything to print that could link her to me until i visited the hospital after the birth. again, this seems to be a leak from the hospital. at that point, the dam was breached. we were bombarded with calls, saying we know that this happened, that a baby was had in the hospital, and that hugh visited. they even knew the fake name she checked into the hospital under. my attitude was to say nothing, which we did for a long time. a lot of pressure was put on. in this case, it was "the daily mail" that seem to have all the information. they can't sing we were going to

print the story anyway, -- they kept saying we are going to print the story anyway, what is your comment? i was wise to the technique and they did not want to print the story based solely on the hospital source, so they needed a comment from my side. that is why i said nothing. i asked my various assistants, and my public-relations people in america to say nothing as well. >> before we get to that stage, paragraph five, your parents on "question time" -- your appearance on "question time" in july, and we see what you say about the phone number. and a man says tell hugh grant to "shut the fuck up."

>> i immediately called my lawyer, which we did, and then the mother, probably rightly said let's not do that because there is always a chance of a leak from the police, and that would bring down the press storm. so, we did not. >> the police were willing to assist, were they not? >> yes, they were. >> then, they were called off because of concerns from the police. >> from the police to the press. yes. >> you touch on this in paragraph 6 in your second statement.

i am going to ask you to exclude speculation and opinion. do you have direct evidence of leaks from the police to the press of which you could give us evidence? >> i am not sure where a supposition winds into evidence. >> let's start with your knowledge of. >> all i know is that for a number of years, although it did get better in recent years, if someone like me called the police for a burglary, a mugging, something that happened in the street, the chances are there is a photographer or a reporter on your doorstep before a policeman. whether you call that supposition or fact, i do not know. on top of that, i have all of paul mcmullen's recorded testimony about what he said about paying the police.

>> there you are commenting on other people's evidence. can we confine it to your own evidence? >> sure. it was not just me to experience this phenomenon of reporters or paparazzi coming around instead of policeman. others complained of exactly the same thing. >> right. >> what i'm trying to do it is asked you to give an example of something -- ask you to give an example of something that might give rise to the notion that there was a leak from the police to the press. >> i am try to think of a specific one. i certainly remember my girlfriend been mugged, we called the police, and photographers came around first.

>> ok. thank you. going back to your second witness statement, you visited the hospital the day after childbirth. >> yes. >> if you do not mind me be giving the date, it was near the end of september. >> yes. >> what happened after that visit in terms of the press? >> well, i had been very reluctant to be present at the birth because of the danger of a leak from the hospital bring in this press storm down on the mother of my child and what was about to beat my child.

i had made -- about to be my child. i had made plans. on the day after the birth, i could not resist a quick visit. i thought i could try to get away with it. it was very nice. the day after that the phone calls started from "the daily mail" saying we know about the baby, hugh having visited, we are going to write this story. all my fears had been justified. >> the evidence you provide the inquiry in relation to that it is again in exhibit hg2. we can provide it to you

separately. >> there are examples of e-mail and texts dated at about three weeks after the birth. >> yes. thank you. >> to be clear about this, "the daily mail" did not publish a story until the news had been broken by someone else. >> they threatens to, but

because we did not comment, they did not until it was broken by an american magazine geared >> you say threatens you, but another way to look at it is until they have a comment confirming the truth decided not to publish. >> that would be wrong. you could bring up my assistant or the publicity people in new york started to get the calls as well, and on these phone calls it was consistently "we are publishing these stories tomorrow," which is a part of brinksmanship. >> whenever they were saying to you to get you to confirm -- what ever they were saying to you to get you to confirm the story, it is effective did not publish the story, did they? >> they did not .

>> it is a fair inference that the reason is you have not confirmed the truth. >> i disagree. i think they did not publish a merely on leaked information from a hospital, which was unethical. >> they may have obtained the information from somewhere else altogether, they have not? >> it is >> it is possible, but highly unlikely. the whole story has been the subject of "news of the world" interest, one in journalists in particular. when "news of the world" was closed down, the journalist appears to have moved over to "the daily mail," because a lot

of the calls come from the same journalist now representing "the daily mail." >> there is no evidence that the journalist took any photographs with him from "news of the world" to "the daily mail"? >> the photographs were subsequently published in "the daily mail" when a they published a story about my baby. whether he took the pictures himself or one of his photographers took pictures, they are the same pictures "news of the world close could use, "news ofes -- c the world" used, long lens photographs.

>> before going back with the incident which culminated in injunction proceedings, we covered this in paragraph 20 of your supplementary statement. it potentially was a very dangerous incident, because the grandmother had to jump out of the way of the car. >> the house where the mother of my child and my child were besieged was surrounded by these paparazzi, and ask my lawyer what could possibly be done.

maybe if the they get pictures of some of these people, we have a chance. the 61-year-old grandmother of my child went out into the streets, it took a picture of a man sitting in a car with a great big camera. he turned around, took a lot of pictures offer, wound at the window down, shouted abuse at her, and as he drove out, he minister with his car, drove up fast, made her jump out of the way, and then did a u-turn and menaced her again with the car. >> the police were involved, were they not? >> the police had been called. >> at the time, you offered to go out and get a statement or investigate the matter with the mother and grandmother it -- did you know about that? >> i think we may have thought about that brett i cannot remembe-- i think we may have

thought about that. i cannot remember that fact. >> they were told that there is no suggestion this was in proper. is that possible? >> that may be true that he said that and it might have been right. a police investigation would have taken some time and would have it put one bad pap away. seeing as this was an egregious event likely to warrant an injunction against all of these people, that seems like the right tactic to be adopted. >> no one is questioning the tactic with the strategy, and we know what has happened. as a little coda to these

serious matters, your publicist put out a statement about -- >> in the end, having held off all that time, the inquiries and to bring the sugar from the papers, a magazine in america, "us" magazine, got hold of the story, at which point i was in no-win situation. in the end, what i decided to do, because the story within hours was going to go in everywhere, particularly the british tabloids, and i was very anxious that they would give it a twisted spin, i thought the best thing to do was to be as honest about the thing is possible. i said i was delighted with the birth, but i did not want the papers to write a twisted

version which suggested that she was a jilted boyfriend. i tried to find words to say that -- jilted girlfriend. i tried to find words to say that she was a friend but not a girlfriend. we had a hasty conversation on the phone when i was in germany. it was not the ideal circumstances. i was dressed as a campbell at the time. [laughter] >> maybe you were, but i can confirm this is your publicist speaking on your behalf. "he and the mother had a fleeting affair, and while this was not planned, hugh cannot be happier or more supportive."

putting it bluntly, or rent you leading -- weren't you leading with tehe chin? felt it was important to be honest and not to say that it was a girlfriend or that it was unplanned pregnancy that i was running away from. i did not want to seem like a monster who was running away from my girlfriend. it is true, i had been given a hard time for using those words, which is ironic, seeing as it is actually the truth. but that does not seem to be very popular. >> well, what alternative strategy might be to simply confirm the birth of the child, you are a delighted father, an

otherwise words to the effect, "this is a private matter, and neither the father nor the mother wish to comment further." >> yeah, which would have been an invitation to the papers to write about the relationship i had with the girl. >> you write in one piece about the "daily mail" about -- other newspapers have put in similar pieces. in "the times," words to the effect that you should marry the woman. in "the guardian, close but something altogether, the modera -- in "the guardian,"

something altogether complementary. the scene from each of them is not inconsistent. >> first of all, there were a supporter of the pieces as well, especially in the broad sheets, that gave me some credit for having stood up and saying, " this is my baby," and providing for the child and the mother. the hatchet jobs -- that's fine. i expect that to jobs -- expect hatchet jobs. that is in the story of the past 17 years. but it makes you grind your teeth when they are based on falsities. the idea that i have a 21-year- old german girlfriend -- i don't. it was invented by tabloids and

copied by british pachacks. in fact, if i had been a really good father, i would not have visited at all, seeing as it brought down a press storm on the mother's head. >> i would just finish this little sequence of evidence before break. in times of your privacy, is it your position and that these matters should not have been covered at all in the press? is it your position that they should have been covered in a which didy, awa way it misrepresents -- >> if you cling to the naive notion that these papers are there to report the truth, nothing would be wrong with that. there's not much more to it than that. but that does not sell

spinapers, so a nasty has been given to it. hence the extraordinary efforts of some papers -- "the daily mail" paid 125,000 pounds to her ex lover to sell pictures of her. >> it is the nasty spin they can put on at the store, which, had they reported in a fairer and more accurate way -- >> no, there are moments of intrusion into privacy. if someone can tell you about a celebrity's baby, that is an invasion of privacy, for instance. but there is also ugly spin being put on a lot of this stuff because it sells papers better. in the opinion of some people, a

particularly ugly span in the last few weeks given to the birth of my baby is not related to the fact that i am here today giving evidence in this inquiry, and is referenced in some of those hatchet jobs. she gives my concern about abuses of tabloid press as a particular reason why i should be loathed. it is possible for some people to see a connection between those at a job -- those hatchet jobs and what i am saying here and have been saying the past few months. >> i would suggest, just a speculation on your part, you don't know and that is out the story broke out all, do you? >> unless my cousin rang up "the daily mail," it is hard to draw any other conclusion. >> do you know how the american

paper or magazine got hold of the story? >> no. >> ok, that may be a convenience -- >> we will have a break, and you can have a break, too, but let me ask this -- you have been granted relief funds. has that grant of relief been reflected in your child and her mother being left alone? >> yes. very grateful for it. >> you will be conscious that i have made it clear that i would want to know if intrusion and as a result of anybody giving evidence to this inquiry? >> i am, and i am grateful for

that, too. >> very brief matters of chronology. the first was raised in connection to the 1996 "daily mirror" article that mr. grant refers to in his witness statement. can i give you those dates? we have managed to obtain them. as i understand it, the visit to the hospital was in may 1996, the 29th of may. the article which appeared in "the sunday mirror" was in the 25th of june, 1996. the adjudication was not until the 27th of july, 1997. me. grant -- mr. grant in his recollection was perhaps being somewhat generous. it took over a year for the adjudication to rise.

as i and our stand, a the coakley most -- but as i understand, a judicial climb was issued in 1997. the judgment he refers to in paragraph 14 was given in december in his favor. can i move, seconded to the injunction -- can i move on secondly to the injection -- the reports of the police and the decision to follow a simple course instead, at least in the first instance? can i just remind you, sir, that the incident relating to the paparazzo who was trying to run over mr. grant's baby's grandmother took place on the fifth of november, and i applied on the next day for an emergency injunction, granted by the justice. the purpose, of course, was to

immediately bring the campaign to an end, which, as you just heard, it did with it remarkable efficiency. that is all i wanted to say, sir. >> this chronology, actually, comes out of the justice's judgment, which we have got. thank you very much. we will have 10 minutes, or as long as mr. grant needs. >> can you refer to -- you referred to in detail the story written by both "the mirror" at

"the mail." i am not asking you for details of the stories as such, but can you help me with an approximate date? >> summer 2004. >> thank you. going back to the issue of press misreported, particularly in the context of your supplementary refer to twoou articles in "the sun," don't you? >> do i? what do i say? >> paragraph 17.

towards the bottom of that paragraph. >> yeah. >> this is the second statement. >> it is. >> thank you. want to goreally over too much of the detail of it unless you are content that i do so. you see it in the article in "the sun" on the third of november. first of all, it shows a picture -- it says that you are holding hands with someone. anyone who looks closely at the photograph -- if you are holding hands -- >> correct, you can see the palm of her hand.

>> if a woman in the photograph were correctly depicted -- >> well, again, i am used to this -- >> it is separately -- we have provided -- it?r. grant has >> no. >> so the three girls in this article, the three pictures of the girls -- >> we are looking at the one on the bottom of the page. >> two girls -- >> that is the same grow? >> that is the same girl, yes. >> the article on the following day, fourth of november, is a different young woman altogether. >> "the sun" published this

article, and there is a picture of me and a girl who is not the same girl. in fact, i have no idea who she is. one of the reasons they are not able to find pictures of me and my new german girlfriend is because i have not got one. they had to find a picture of me and some girl. >> to be fair to the article, i am looking to what it says and not any inferences or a note that can be drawn from it. this woman is not described as your girlfriend, is she? >> well -- want me to read the whole thing now? >> she is not described as your girlfriend, is she? >> i'm sorry about that. he ought to have a chance. >> to me, the headline "hugh and new girl three weeks with baby."

maybe i'm reading a different language. >> i am just trying to be fair to the author of this piece. >> you have been very, very fair to news international and its associates -- >> as i have been it fair to everybody -- >> you tell me backstage that you would bowl me straight. >> let me continue to bowl you. >> down there at the bottom line, end of the article. >> it does at in the middle a local report which is the report from a german magazine. >> correct. which says that after this innocent dinner i had with this german girl -- not this one, the

one pictured on the page before -- i dropped her off in texas, and because the proper r.o.t.c. got a -- dropped her off in a taxi, and because the profit but a rather boring shot -- the paparazzi got a rather marjah, they made this up. i only when on about it in the statement because it was eparch lipstick used to beat me over the head with my daughter. they look for any stick they can find and go, oh, yeah, much too young girlfriend, even though she doesn't exist. it was in many papers. >> i am just seeking to analyze what appears in this article and get your comment on that date

you have finally given me that -- you have kindly given me that. >> can i just ask, what is the position of the papers and in germany? >> i said in my main same and that this is one of the problems when something is mis reported -- it gets splattered all over the internet instantly great it is now a fact that i have a german at 21-year-old girlfriend. 80s and stick to beat me with again and again to --, and eight it -- it is a stick to beat me with an and again, and it becomes rather wearying. >> is it possible to do something about this in germany? >> it is not like it is libelous. i am merely giving an example of the use of lazy reporting and misreporting to beat someone up

a bit. if the girl was 12, i would have sued -- >> i understand the point entirely, but i am trying to understand what i can put a box around in this country, whether by way of recommendation or otherwise, what impact that might have elsewhere in the world to somebody who is not merely a national figure, but has international status. do you see the point i'm trying -- i'm grappling with -- >> if the story emanates from abroad, as this one did, your recommendation would have to be that you at least have to check the facts.

as hard for me to believe -- quote for hours from such a piece of tittle-tattle. it does not matter that much. >> i am not concerned with this particular answer. who precisely, what circumstances. i am trying to look at the bigger picture, and the bigger picture is not merely the whole regulation of the press in this country and the culture and practices, but also how impact -- how it is impacted or affected by what happens abroad or what happens on the internet. i'm just trying to -- >> all i can say is that when it comes to stories being copied it around the world, they are copied from the internet,

particularly, if they come from a website that belongs to a newspaper, because newspapers are generally considered to have a certain gravitas and the news gathering techniques to have a certain professionalism. often that may be a mistaken assumption, but that is why -- you know, it's the story is -- if the story is on a newspaper website, it will scatter much faster than if it is just someone's blog or tweet. >> my question is really aimed at the impact i can have on other press activity in relation to someone with a reputation, simply by doing what i can do in this country. >> well, there is obviously

nothing you can do outside of this country -- >> i agree. >> but if you made our press being or professionally, the stories they write would not be so damaging when they spread around the internet. >> the question arises where storage is -- where stories initiate from. >> well, that is always difficult to know. >> i am just trying to grapple with the whole problem, that is all. i'm not focusing on individual stories, for reasons you understand. >> yeah. >> all right, we will move on to "the sun." i'm going to cover some opinion, try to look at the bigger picture. before i do that, can i looked

ask you about publicity? you referred to the publicity you have in the u.s. how many publicists do you have around the world? >> i have one. they are in new york, and i only use them sporadically when a film is coming out, and not for -- they aere like anti- publicists. they are fending off a publicity. warner brothers will be desperate for you to everything, and their job is to say, "no, he is not doing that treaty might be doing that, that is a classy one." know any oft d this until they got a call from british tabloids say "heat had a

baby." >> is this in relation to you in your dealings with the press? >> when a film is coming out. they try to be an expert on what tv show is a good one to do when you are in russia, and to be honest, they throw up their hands when it comes to britain. >> we did see in relation to that little piece in "the sun" about your health, her publicist declined to comment -- >> they called -- >> just wait for the question, please. it looks as if, rightly or wrongly, someone at "the sun" contacted your publicist for comment and quite rightly got no comment. >> phoned the the publicist in america, which is unlikely, or they phoned my assistant in

leaded she is not a publicist. -- phoned my assistant in london. she is not a publicist. >> a p.a. is not really cruel to advise you in terms of dealing with the press -- it is not really her role to advise you in terms of dealing with the press. >> in terms of the british press, i only have myself. >> you consult your own advice and no one else, is that correct? >> you are talking about the british press? in 17 years, i only have given a two interviews to the british press. the rest have been brought from abroad or pasted and invented. the question is not really a rise -- does not really arise.

>> one interview in 2002 was brought to my attention. it relates to the time you are doing a film with sandra bullock. cannot remember the name of the film. >> "two weeks notice." >> the question you got was how frustrating is it for you that people are more interested in your love life than your films, and your answer was, "well, i do get frustrated, but i understand where the interest comes from." it is pretty obvious, isn't it? >> of course people are interested in people's lives. we have that natural curiosity or prurience. it is not say that you can

obtain that information illegally. >> you continue, "what i think about actors, i know i would much rather hear about who they are shagging than one film and they are doing next." >> that remains true, but that's that does not say that the information should be obtained illegally. >> fair point. you then go into an area -- >> the quotation, i think, comes from a press conference with a thing called the hollywood foreign press association, the people who control the golden globes. it is always a very light- hearted occasion and i always try to give light-hearted answers. as i say, my main statement, prior to about a year ago -- is the subject of the british tabloids came up in the

interview, and i took the line that everyone else in the country who has ever been in the crosshairs of the british tabloids would take, which is to give a neutral or flippant answer. to speak out and criticize is to invite a terrible press storm on your head, hatchet jobs, etc. the answer that you are refering to there is one of those flippant answers. >> that is why i was not going to read this out. you quite rightly say that whatever the interest of the public may be in your private life, that cannot justify the use of illegal and probably, you -- what happens if the information has eventually entered the public demomain, and once it is in the public domain, the press wants to comment on it?

is it fair and right for them to do that, in your view? >> i think not. if they obtained the information illegally, why should i help them with their story? the motive in the first place was money, profit. it is never public interest. what i tell them making money out of invading the privacy -- why would i help them making money out of invading my privacy? >> it is a little bit a microcosm -- for whatever reason, "the daily mail" don't publish it, and you made your point about how "the daily mail" updated information, and eventually it comes out in the united states. once it is out in the public domain, is out in the public domain. everyone else can now

comment on the story which is now, by definition, in the public domain. >> yes, and from experience, not only will the, uh, but -- not only will they comment, but they will write with embellishment. it could have a very wrong or twisted slant to it. hence my decision to put out a statement. >> you add an extra dimension, quite rightly, that we have got a story which is now in the public domain. it is unclear, particularly if it is in the states, how american magazines or newspapers obtained the story. we simply don't know. once it is in the public domain, it is in the public domain

across the world, and the press here can comment upon it. your point is that what they are not allowed to do is embellish the story and add bits of news which are untrue. let's agree upon that. but if they stopped short of doing that, but all they to his comment on you, maybe in a way you don't like, do you have a problem with that? >> no, i don't mind. believe me, i am very ready for that. i have experienced a lot of it. as i said earlier, i slightly gnash my teeth when those adverse comments are based on wrong facts, like having a 21- year-old girlfriend. i was trying to protect the mother of my child. that is annoying. but of course everyone is entitled to their opinion. >> obviously, the inquiry needs

to consider this issue of embellishment which is incorrect, and the ways that can be corrected or dressed. one way is that you can bring proceedings of defamation. >> if my lawyer thinks it is defamatory, yes. >> what about the plannedto the -- what about complaining oto the pcc? >> i experienced, as you saw -- back in 1996, it was not a positive one with the pcc. they to a year to decide to give the hospital my medical records. i did not have a lot of faith in them. in the case of recent events, my lawyer did, while we were trying to work out a strategy to get rid of these paparazzi reporters

who were besieging the mother of my child's house in making her life miserable -- he did send a warning letter to the newspapers and he sent it via the pcc, and there was a 10% dip in activity outside the house for maybe 12 hours and then it was back to normal. my view of their -- my verdict on their contribution to this is that it was ineffectual. >> another factor in your case which i suppose adds -- >> sorry, let me impose -- just consider that for a moment. the pcc at the moment is monitoring -- provides a service to certain of the press, but that won't ever touch

paparazzi. one of the things one would have to think about is whether one could devise a system that bites, irrespective of whether you are employed by newspaper. >> yes. you are probably right. or to somehow kill the market for those pictures. i think it would be no rope paparazzi if there were no big national papers paying for the pictures. i am not quite sure which end of that are you attacking first. >> the question then arises, going back to want from a moment ago, about international interest, because one could it do something about pictures in this country, but one would not

be able to regulate the sale of pictures of brou -- pictures abroad. >> that is true. but i think, if i'm right -- in france, there are various laws -- you cannot take that picture in a public place, and that does give a much more humane, civilized existence to people in the public eye, despite the fact that, presumably, those pictures could come back in from abroad. is that what you are saying? >> there are problems. one could think about the domestic market, which is what i am mainly, obviously, focusing on prod. but someone with the international perspective, because of the interest that has been shown in you internationally -- i am

wondering how that plays into the picture. >> i don't know the answer to your question, i am afraid, in terms of international -- all i can tell you is that not just in my opinion, but in the opinion of other people who are quite old mount around the world and who, for instance, sometimes to publicity tours, whatever, were unanimous in saying that by far is the worst territory to do publicity in is this one. >> you are right, and maybe i should not worry about anywhere else -- >> there are certain pockets of quite toxic yellow journalism around the rest of the world, but on the whole, is still done with a certain elegance, and elegance that we've lost for the last 30 years in this country. >> thank you.

>> what you perhaps said is directed to "the daily mail." can i ask you, whether in the context of this article or more generally, is one strips away the factual inaccuracies, particularly in relation to the german woman, it do you have any other broader objection to her piece, notwithstanding that it is very critical of you? on a human level you could say of course, i don't like to read that stuff. but i am thinking more abstractly as to where the boundaries should be drawn in terms of regulating these piece s. all she is doing is exercising

her right to comment. >> that's fine. it's sad that is based on some of lazy reporting -- on so much a lazy reporting. and it is also possible that many of my friends, professors of journalism, told me that it is clearly a hatchet job because you are speaking out against the tabloid press. that may be true. but comments are comments. i was persuaded that because of this. that it might be -- because of this theory that it might be a stick to beat me with because of this, it might be relevant. >> i put in the equation is three other articles which are admittedly not of the same language put which made the

same critical point about you. we are weighing a lot of material of a similar nature. >> i have not seen all of them, i think it got -- i have not seen all of them, thank god. it is perfectly fine to hate me. i had become very accustomed to that date it has been extremely fashionable for a long time. that is what i expect in this country. >> mr. grant, we probably have another half hour. can you give me the opportunity now to, as it were, elaborate your opinion? your opinion is contained mainly in your first statement. paragraph 39 and 40.

>> this is where i go through my -- >> what i would like to do it is make sure that we have got your point. your first point is what i think we all agree -- celebrities and politicians who suffer at the hands of popular papers, and you have given us quite a few examples there. some of the examples you have given -- the man being -- the human beings testifying before this inquiry very shortly. >> particularly vulnerable people, victims of trauma, such as the dowlers, victims of london bombings, soldiers killed

in afghanistan. that i talk about collateral damage -- my phone was hacked, but so was my assistant's, whoever it might be, innocent people having their privacy invaded just because of the collateral damage. and that i talk about innocent people who have been a monstered by the press, like christopher jeffress, madeleine mccann, who the press implied were guilty of heinous crimes when it they were innocent -- >> you did not mean mandolin, you met her parents -- did not mean madeleine, you meant her parents. >> i'm sorry. >> i did not mean it to get at

you, i just want to be clear about what you said. >> with "at news of the world," you express your opinion about that. here is one of the central points of the inquiry, what we are trying to investigate. we have looked at all the evidence, and we have heard your position on that and you have given us a direct evidence with relation to mr. mcmullan, and everything he says will be put into account. >> i would like to echo one of the earlier witnesses, that given the cross-fertilization of journalists in the tabloid world, it is unlikely they only practicing dark arts for one title. they are always swapping titles, and i cannot believe they did not practice those arts in other places as well. >> throwing the baby out with

the bath water point -- could you elaborate on that in your own words? >> well, it is a commonly voiced opinion that you cannot in any way regulate or improve or legislate for the worst practices of the worst journalists in this country without damaging free speech, without muddling public journalism, and the want endlessly batted about is not throwing the baby with the bathwater. i have always said that it is not difficult to tell the difference between what is bathwater and what is a baby.

to most people is bloody obvious. an excellent journalism -- we are lucky to have some of the best in the world in this country -- out of the bath. >> it is a difficult distinction to make, what is good journalism and what is not i think it is a lot less grey than people make it out to be. >> and your point about every regulation leading to too many y -- can i askn - you what your positive proposals would be with regard to press regulation? >> you are on -- attempts to regulate the press would lead to

zimbabwe. i simply make the point that that is way too simplistic, and very often insincere. it is often used by tabloid newspapers to protect their lucrative business model -- almost no journalism now. is the abrasion usually through -- it is the appropriation usually through illegal means to sell for profit. this argument that you cannot in any way deal with a state like zimbabwe, it is not only absurd, it is convenient for them. there are many gradations of regulation between zimbabwe and the total for all we have now. -- total free-for-all we have now. >> this inquiry is concerned

with gradations particularly in the middle of the spectrum. no one is suggesting anything close to the form of regulation that would lead to zimbabwe or tyranny. we are concerned with something much less extensive than that. >> you are, yes. >> can you help us with positive suggestions? >> there are forms of -- if you take one end of the scale state regulation, and the other end self regulation, there are various gradations in between, including what some might call co-regulation, which would be regulation by, say, a panel comprised of partly journalists but partly also not journalists,

but experts in the field, professors of journalism, who draw up a code of ethics and apply with proper sanctions, either financial or in terms of apologies, but which would need -- this is where it gets interesting -- to have any teeth or to be meaningful, it would have to have as a backstop some kind of regulation. otherwise it would be easy for the express group, as they have done now, to walk away from the pcc. you could set up some wonderful new regulator who would find some appalling abuse by a paper, find them at 200,000 -- fine them 200,000 pounds. there has to be some sort of the statute at the back to make it meaningful. there are people much more expert on this than at me and i am a sho -- i am sure you will

be calling them. >> we will be calling many people with a range of ideas, but from my perspective, it is a topic you ever thought about carefully and obviously, suffered, as you describe, and has had the experience as you describe, justifiably or not -- i want to make sure you have the opportunity to say anything you want to say on this subject. >> that is where i say that there are midways to make everyone happy. the press is, after all, the only industry in this country that has a profound influence over other people, over our citizens, that is regulated only by itself. no other industries like that. whether it is medicine or advertising, it is all regulated. no one calls for the regulations to be tougher than the press, and yet there is not what it is -- it would be a

lovely idea if it would work, but has been shot absolutely not to have worked for the last 20 or 30 years. we have had some any chances and it has been a failure. this is the big opportunity now, this inquiry, in my opinion. >> privacy cases never being taken against "the guardian," to your knowledge. >> yes. there is a lot of the squealing from the tabloid press about these injunctions, saying it muzzles the press, has a chilling effect. i make the point, first, no one has taken up privacy case against "the guardian." why is it that in the vast majority of these injunction

cases that the newspaper question never turns out to defend their peace? the judge sits there and asks, "where is the paper?" they never turned up. i think we know the answer to that. i make the point that ultimately, it all comes down to public interest, and it was better to decide whether a piece of journalism is in the public interest or not. would it be a judge, or would be a tabloid editor who stands to profit commercially from the piece? i would argue is the judge, and most of the judgment in these injunction cases have been right. the judges are quite ready to roll the other way, whether rightly or wrongly, but they were quite ready to rule the other way.

there was always fuss about a -- tap -- there is always fuss from the tabloid press that is bogus and inconvenient. >> the related point -- permission to appear as been refused by the single low justice -- lord justice. we understand the application is being renewed. primacy being a rich man's join -- privacy being a rich man's toy. it depends on agreements, doesn't it? >> it depends on that and having

a proper regulator. if you have a regulator, if you have your privacy of used, or libeled, you should be able to go to regulator and skip the whole court process. that would be the most wonderful thing to come out of this inquiry, if you can access of that kind without having to go to court. but there were always be cases where people have to go to courts, and if they do, it is scandalous, in my opinion, that what is going through parliament now on the back of the jackson accord, people without great means will be excluded from justice. if you look at the dowlers, the phone-packing case against "news of the world," they would not be able to make that case. chris jeffress, the man wrongly accused of that murder in bristol, maligned by the press,

had to use cfa to get justice. people haves, those no justice. this whole campaign to restrict the use of cfa's has been heavily pushed by the tabloid press, and the government, in its infinite obedience, has said yes, fine. >> thank you. are clear on that point. the exposes carrying out public interest defense. you have already made your position clear on that -- >> well -- >> please say whatever you wish to say in addition. >> there are certainly cases where there is a public interest defense. if you are a politician who

campaigns on out family values platform, it is of interest if he is having an extramarital affair or likes to dress up as a nun. we need to know about it, because he is a hypocrite. but i think the vast majority of these exposes are not in the public interest, and the public interest defense offered by tabloid newspapers are very flimsy at best. "he trades on his reputation." but he doesn't. he treats me on the idea that he is out -- a brilliant -- trades to me on the idea that he is a brilliant footballer. i read in "the independent" this morning the same thing, that i

trade on my good name and that there is a public interest defense in going into my private life. i've never had a good name. i'm the man who was arrested with a prostitute and the film still made tons of money. it doesn't matter. >> ok, that is very clear. the impact idea. >> yes, another very common defense of what i would call the privacy invasion in history, and what some call the tabloid press, that people like me want to be in the papers, and therefore our i go on at some length to

explain how that is a myth. in my business, what i need is not to be in the "daily mail." is to be in enjoyable films. that is 85 percent of success. 10% of success is that the film as well marketed. right at the end, about 5% of this excess, the bang the drum a bit and do publicity. it's quite minor and you are under an obligation to do it. sometimes it is a contractual, sometimes it is a moral obligation. someone has put up a lot of money for the film and hundreds, sometimes thousands of people have worked on this thing for a year. if you did not do publicity, you would be a monster. you have to do a little bit. but it's only 5% of what contributes to a success of a fell.

-- success of a film. what everyone does now is a favor broadcast media. human reach people much faster. if tabloids were so important to the success of a film, actor or singer, why is it none of us in the large ensemble cast talk to any tabloid newspaper at all and the film is still gigantic? the theory put about by tabloid papers is that they are responsible for the success of the films and they create stars. is entirely spurious. either it is mad at arrogance because they live in a funny cocoon of self importance or it is highly convenient because it gives them a chance to say if anyone criticizes us, it's hypocritical. >> it goes back to the start of your, the successful part of

your career in the early 1990's. didn't it help your career that you were quite constantly in the public eye? >> no. >> didn't that make you more attractive to other filmmakers? >> know. what may be more attractive was that it made money at the box office. that's all they cared about. i was arrested with a prostitute. you could not go positive in the press and i was still very hirable because the film made money. in terms of the career, that is what studio's care about. audiences only care of the film as entertaining or not. i could show you examples of films with a wall to wall coverage and then die when they cannot because they are not entertaining. it is a big myth. i have argued with my lawyers over the years, forget money,

forget the apology, just make an undertaking for them to never mention my name again. i could bring you a list of hundreds of people in the public by who happily sign off on that. it's such as ms -- is set upmyth. last thing anyone wants to be a british tabloid paper. so long as the work you're doing at that moment is ok. >> to deal with the last aspect of the points -- paragraph 83 of your statement, what the consideration -- if you do in interview with the paper or

magazine, it does my give a lifelong license to publish what you want -- it surely gives some license to, and, possibly unfavorably on the subject matter of the interview? >> that would be absolutely fine. but i am talking here about intrusion. i have heard the defense quite frequently from tabloid papers is a few have ever talked about your private life, you have no right to an expectation of privacy, which i think is absurd. i've only done to interviews ever with the british press, but whenever anyone does do an interview, it's a bargain. the paper gets a boost in sales and the person getting an interview gets a bit of noise

about their first -- about the forthcoming project. when it's over, it's over. i would not expect to you to come to me every afterward to say you sold me milk once. i would think you were mad. >> more specifically, your point is have conducting the bill -- having conducted the middle contract, it does not authorize the press to investigate you or go after year in an unethical way or intrude on you? >> i do believe in -- and enshrined in our bill of rights, article 8, is a basic expectation of the right to privacy and i don't think he should have to give up because you gave an interview about a film to the "daily mirror." >> [unintelligible]

>> you see them glamorizing themselves. we might be a bit naughty but we get the story. when the story has been obtained by hacking the phone of a murdered schoolgirl or the family of a soldier killed in afghanistan, i don't find that a lovable and body. i find that cowardly and bullying and shocking. most shocking is that this has been allowed to go on for so long with nobody putting their hand up and saying stop. not the police, because they are intimidated. not the government because they have been intimidated. >> you have touched on proposals for the future and they are encapsulated in paragraph 88.

>> in a nutshell, it seems to me it should be unacceptable and illegal to deprive a person of their privacy. it is not rocket science. the way i would protect it is i would resist the clamor of the privacy stealing industry to close down privacy law as it emerged through the human-rights act and i would disband and create a proper regulator with teeth. not only would that protect people from abuses of privacy or libel, but it would be there to protect good journalism. this is the other side of all of this. i am keen on libel reform. i'm keen to see good journalism protected as much as one possibly can.

but i personally feel the license of a tabloid press has had to steal british citizens privacy for their commercial profits -- for their profits, very often vulnerable citizens, is a scandal that weak government for too long have allowed to pass. >> is there anything else you wish to tell the inquiry? form ofa strange interview in the sense that i wished i had been able to read my statement all-out first. it has all been need defending positions without anyone knowing what the statement actually says. >> this statement will be available.

>> i hope people read it. >> they will. of all the points i would like to think you wanted to bring out, you have brought out. >> there was one final. because i am tired, i would not mind reading it. i do not want to see the end of popular print journalism. i would not want a country falling into power or success. i would always want to protect the british empire to take a pass and the free press is the cornerstone of democracy. no question about that. there has been a section of our press that has been allowed to become toxic over the last 20 or 30 years. its main tactic being bullying,

intimidation, and blackmail. it takes a lot of courage to stand up to. this country has had historically a good record standing up to bullies and i think we should stand up to the bully now. >> thank you very much. although you may have felt you are on the back foot too often, it was a way of getting the picture across so that everyone has had the chance to ask questions that the thrust of the evidence contained in your statements is clear and you have no need to doubt that i read it or not paid a full attention to it. >> thank you very much. >> anything else?

>> the issue of anonymity, if i may? >> let mr grant returned to where has come from so that he may relax for just a moment. >> you made a ruling on the ninth of november. if anyone was thinking of exercising their right, on section 38 of the act, the time expires on a wednesday. since then, there has been a draft anonymity protocol and you invited any further submissions to be with you by thursday at 5:00. i was raising the matter to see if you wish to confirm the protocol or add anything?

>> essentially, many of the points to be may i take on board. i'm happy to clarify some things if they need clarifying. i am not entirely sure they do. i would be surprised if any thing in the protocol could impact on the fundamental decisions i made in my ruling. but if there is anything that needs to be done tomorrow, i will do it. i think there are 2 slightly separate issues. there is the anonymity i have granted to one of the clients and there is some and not on the consequences about how we're going to deal with the evidence in the absence of anybody saying

anyone -- saying anything to the contrary. i propose to maintain that anonymity and allow him to give evidence in away that ensures it and that will require taking certain measures. for example, he is likely to give evidence in a cleared inquiry room. likelyse, nobody, i'm not to have the running transcript, but to publish a transcript soon thereafter is possible in case something needs to be redacted. in that way, i hope the evidence will be put into the public domain in a form that does not damage the anonymity he has sought and which i have found to be justifiable.

if anyone has any comment, i appreciate you have only recently seen the suggestions in that regard, i would be interested to hear them. i will make sure i have got a final protocol for you to look at tomorrow, but i do not think it should make a difference to whether or not there is an issue worthy of ventilation in the divisional court, which is your decision entirely. >> we just received submissions from the metropolitan release -- metropolitan police this afternoon. those will have to be considered. >> the reason there has not been one is because it was only up

until the end of friday i saw the last one. now that you heard i have not got the mall, i did not want to finalize anything until i had heard from everybody. >> there is one issue that needs to be talked about. when he gives his evidence, he will not give any evidence as far as a named newspaper. >> i have made it clear, if not in a ruling, i have made it clear in argument in relation to any anonymous witness, an order to protect the position of any of the media, it would be quite wrong to allow names or titles to be identified. i'm not going to make decisions

about names and titles. i am looking at custom and practices and ethics across the peace, which is why my questions to mr. grant were of a general rather than the specific topics. i would adopt the same process for hjk. if that is a matter of concern to anybody, they should say so. thank you. thank you very much indeed. i repeat my thanks as i will to all of the witnesses, particularly as those who have come voluntarily. thank you very much. >> all rise. [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> good morning. could you call the next witness? >> i confirm the evidence i shall give shall be the truth, poultry and nothing but the truth. >> i will say to you as i have said before, thank you very much for agreeing to give evidence. this is a voluntary activity and unconscious that it exposes personal matters that affect you in the public domain, which is one of the things you are concerned about, so i am very

grateful to you. >> crack ask you to state your full name? >> joan alison smith. >> we can see that on the big screen -- before i ask any detailed questions about your statement, could i ask you to confirm the content of your witness statement is true to the best of your belief? >> yes. >> you have the statement and front of them, for those who do not have the statement, could you tell us about who you are? >> i have been a journalist for more than 30 years. i started at the sunday times, working for the insight team doing investigative journalism, stories like the iranian embassy siege and so on. after that, i decided to go

freelance and i have written for a lot of national newspapers, the guardian -- "the guardian." "the evening standard." i am the author of six published novels and i -- my most famous books -- [inaudible] i also wrote about [inaudible] and i do human-rights work from 2000 to 2004, i chaired the english panel committee set up to protect freedom of expression around the world. at any one time, we were looking at about 50 writers, academics and poets in places like syria and china, trying to make representations on their behalf.

we started sending people to observe the trials if they were in court. in 2005, i observed a trial in is tumble for the person on trial for insulting turkish identity. i got involved in a literacy project, collecting books in this country. i did that with the times and they gave me space to launch children's books. we were able to collect a quarter of a million children books which weeks set up to ship to libraries in different schools. i do both of those things. >> thank you very much. can i ask about one a specific part of your career history? in paragraph of of your statement, this is work that you

do with the human rights policy department policy office. can you tell us about that work? >> robin cook was a friend of mine. in 2001, just before the election, he asked me if i would share his big speech as a form -- as foreign secretary. afterwards, he wanted to talk about how he had put into action the ethical dimension of his foreign policy which had a very famous statement he made. at a lunch afterward, i met his special adviser and the head of the human rights policy department. they said to me that we want more involvement with ngos. date suggested if i was thinking

of sending someone to observe a trial in the summer alike belarus, which is a frightening thing to do, that we could at liaise with the foreign office and they would put us in touch with ambassadors. we set up an effective system. i asked someone from the committee to go observe the trial. they got a lot of help from the ambassador, which was very fortunate. there is a very unpleasant scene where the court was cleared by the kgb. we did it things like apartheid talks every year on the future of turkey's application to join the european union and we did a lot of monitoring of human rights. we gave lists of things like all of the books that have been banned in turkey over the last

year and whether journalists were still being imprisoned and so on. >> all of work there and freedom of expression issues. how important do you consider freedom of expression for journalists to be? >> it is absolutely essential. it seems to me a free press is a cornerstone of the civil society. if you do not have a free press which is able to call politicians and big companies and corporations to account, i think you have real problems. i have always felt i was very lucky to pursue a career in a country girl did have a free press because i'm very aware of what happens to journalists in countries where there isn't one. >> do you consider yourself to be a celebrity? >> not in the least. i am a very minor public figure

in the sense that i write books. increasingly, people who write books are expected to turn up at festivals and talk about where we get our ideas from. i am a writer. i can speak in public and i have. i do not think i am somebody whose private life would be much interest to the reading public. apart from the papers pyrite apart from the people who write my novels, most newspaper readers would be baffled to know who i was. >> a brief question not your personal life. you see in your statement, for a number of years, you were in a relationship with the mp for europe? is that correct? >> yes. >> was there anything illegitimate or secret of about that relationship? >> he was my partner from 2003

through 2010. i was quite open about it. just before i first appear in that the notes, we had been to a conference in venice in 2004. we had dinner with the former prime ministers of italy and sweden. that does not seem to me a secretive way to conduct their relationship. >> uc in paragraph 27 -- you rarely mention your private life when you write columns and so on. can you tell me whether you have ever discussed your personal life in your columns and what sort of things do you typically say? >> very rarely. once, dennis rang me and said -- i was writing for the

independent that day and i was talking about the changes, the way beijing has changed and people of my generation do things that our parents would never dream of. it was just a sentence about how my partner climbed mont blanc. >> you have appeared in the famous notebook, so let me ask you about your experience in a phone hacking. when did you become aware you might have been a victim of that? >> i got a mail from the detective of operations. >> can you tell us about what he did? >> i got in touch with the detective.

here are by a details, including my address and phone number. he sent an e-mail back and said those are all of the details we have in the notebook. he invited me to a meeting and i went to my lawyer. two detectives came and i sat next to one of them. there is a ceremonial unveiling of the notes. i'm sure a lot of people have gone through this. we are going to show you some pages from the notebooks. can you tell us if you recognize anything. the first page is my name and address and phone numbers. as the pages go by, there was a note of the fact i was writing for the "independent" and the " *." what i found shocking was he

seems to have been an obsessive note taker. as well as writing in the corner, he made notes of dates and my name and address and details appear in the notes for the first time on the fifth of may, 2004. that is approximately six weeks daughter wasolder killed in a skydiving accident. that had attracted a huge amount of publicity. i was shocked that in that time when he was briefed -- as you can imagine, it is not an easy time for anyone when a girl has died in such circumstances. the "news of the world had been interested in asking them to listen to our voice mails. >> can you tell us what your reaction was?

>> i am amazed by how shocked i was. in my journalistic life, i have had one or two bad experiences. i was caught in a riot in sierra leone of last year which was pretty unpleasant. i do now recognize the impact of shock. on that occasion, i did not. i was in a daze. there was a note that i was going to conference in spain to meet other writers. i was going to barcelona and he was coming out the following weekend to make a speech in spain and we were a arranging to meet up. i was part -- i was amazed at the level of details on the notes about flight times. it appeared he had been getting information from my voice mail.

the police said to me caught is there any way he could have gotten this information legitimately? given that it was about two months after the bombing and madrid, there is a high level of security around government ministers. it seemed very unlikely. i remember leaving that meeting and had to go to a meeting in the city. my mind was buzzing and again the, you the suddenly start thinking, does this explain something? i arrived at my meeting slightly early and the director came in and said are you all right? i realized after word it was just complete shock. i had no idea what was happening. >> you said you were writing a column. what sorts of things were you

writing about? >> i was writing a lot for the "*." vivian westwood was having a retrospective. i interviewed her. my name was on the cover. i was also writing columns. it was on a eighth of april -- do you have that document? >> yes. there had been a huge amount of interest in the marriage of the back comes at that point. they were doing what celebrities often do, which is to negotiate their way through a personal crisis while not alienating the media. i wrote a column and i suppose what was in the back of my mind

was the interests of reporting of the death of dennises daughter. i wrote a column saying that people make unwise decisions. celebrities think they can control the media and keep them friendly. the appetite for stories is so remorseless that they lose control of the stories. i was saying that i found very disturbing we had gone from a situation where the idea of privacy is to be a shield for hypocrisy and people used to do terrible things and their private lives and pretend they were upstanding christian gentleman. now people have almost no privacy of all and i was saying in this column that if i found it incredibly shocking that no matter what happens to people, whether it is bereavement or marital problem, you are expected to deal with it in the public eye. i wrote this column and then

the i was fired. >> [inaudible] >> from i have been able to understand about this activity and a number of names in the notebooks, it has to be said that the spying was on an industrial scale. this could happen to almost anybody. to be an have incredibly famous actor. you just have to be tangentially, come into the office of somebody that is well- known. there is such a gap between the cultures of the two parts of the press. it would not even occur to them and think about the argument.

>> you have now had a few months to digest the information. how do you feel about that night. tell us about how you felt? have you had time to reflect? >> i do think there is a wider lesson to be drawn from that, i think i mentioned this at one of the seminars. tabloid culture is so remorseless and its appetite is unable to be filled. the people involved has lot of -- have lost any sense they are dealing with human beings. when i was doing investigative journalism, i had to knock on the door of someone who was bereaved. but it was not because i wanted to know how it felt. it was because i was writing about murders.

there was a purpose that i could explain. i think this is very different. this is, everything has become a story and we're all characters. i've said this in my riding. the tabloid press, we are two dimensional. is just -- we are fodder for stories. >> [inaudible] these articles [inaudible] as recently as december of 2010, that had ended. what is your view -- is that

appropriate? >> it depends entirely on the context. it seems to me there is a difference between someone who is in the public alike politician who makes what i would call traditional family values part of their political platform. if someone says the sanctity of marriage is very important and people should not have cohabitation all relationships or anything like that and they then part with their family and election literature, maybe that is a different situation. the point is that neither dennis nor i either courted the press and invited them into our lives. quite the opposite. this has gone on at a low level for be several years. journalists always come in this

chummy kind of way and tell us about your relationship with so and so. if i want to put my private life in the public domain, i could do it myself and i would get the facts right. why do i need you as an intermediary? when i got this call, it was only a few months after i had left dennis. the journalists who contact you realize or care you are in a vulnerable state. that you are still processing the feelings of a long relationship ending. it's not a very nice. i was in bed jim and i had been running. i removed all my clothes and i got a parcel in the mail -- we gather you and dennis are no longer an item. i thought what a wonderful metaphor. i am naked before the tabloid

press and why shouldn't i be? >> some people might say the press are entitled to violate the relationship of public figures. regardless of whether they make statements about the virtues of family life and so forth. what do you say to that? >> i think it's the old confusion of not understand between what interest the public and what's in the public interest. private life has become a commodity. i wrote a whole book about secular ethics and morality. i think adults lead their lives and lot of different ways now. i think the legalization of civil partnerships is a great advance and marriage should be available to them. adults lead their lives in quite a sophisticated way now and do

not use one model. yet the tabloid press lives in a 1950's world where everyone is supposed to get married and stayed married. if anything happens outside of that, it is a story. >> there are two articles -- one that is from of the 19th of june in 2005. the headline is [inaudible] the other article is the one confirming your relationship is not happening. >> i did not know you could be secretly divorced. i thought he had to go to court and it was listed and so on. i think there is interesting confusion between secrets and private.

forn't want to speak dennis, but i believe he regarded his divorce as a private matter. he did not go round buttonholing journalists saying did you know i just got divorced, but i did not know it was secret. >> you were contacted and asked if your relationship had ended. did you complain about those articles at the time? >> it never even crossed my mind. >> why did not crusher mind? >> i have seen too many versions of press regulation in this country. they are adequate bodies to deal with this kind of problem. by the time you complain, the articles are out there anyway

and all of your friends have read it. you're not going to get much in the way of redress. >> i have been asked to go one other question to you. it's about an article he wrote in the "evening standard on the fifth of december, 2001. i will paraphrase this. this is an article about elizabeth hurley and her relationship. you obviously discuss the issues between the two parties at that time. you set out at the end some of the use. can i ask you this -- you wrote about the elizabeth hurley and wrote about their private life.

if, as you say, the tabloid has become overzealous about reporting, why do you yourself write about celebrities? >> because i have been writing since the 1990's about the mistake celebrities make of putting too much of their private life in the public domain. i did not doorstep them and bring them up. they put that in the public domain. if you read the article, what i am saying is this is a very dangerous thing to do. i said the same thing about princess diana. it gets back to something i said earlier. people think they can put their private life in the public domain and think they can control what is said about them. given the -- at the time, elizabeth hurley was a pregnant. i thought she was in a very vulnerable state and there is an

underlying misogyny in the media that i thought was a dangerous track she was on. if you look, you will see i talk about the underlying bunny's there is in our culture about women who are beautiful and base their careers on their appearance. and the dangers they lose their reputation to, to use an old- fashioned word. i'm always incredibly happy when i get a chance to smuggle feminist ideas into the popular press. >> thank you very much. you have explained you have been fighting for press freedom across the world. i want to know whether you have any views on the current system of regulation? does it work and do you have any views on what you would like? >> i don't think it does work.

i'm very opposed to any idea of state regulation and i am opposed to any idea of licensing new journalists. there are two things that need to happen. one is about regulation, one is about culture. there needs to be a successor body to the pcc which is not dominated by editors and has representations outside. there ought to be things like if newspapers don't take part in it, they should lose their exemptions. there should be a characteristic for them taking part in it. there ought to be much faster right of reply. it should also take in mediation in other situations like where libel might be involved. it needs to be a much more complex and capable body, but on top of that, what needs to happen is a change in culture.

we do have a tabloid culture which i think is almost infantile in its attitude to sex and private life. they go around like children who just discovered the astonishing information their parents have sex and peek around the door in hopes they might see it. the rest of us get on and live our lives. the obsession with sex and private life has become remorseless and pity list in terms of what it does not just to celebrities and crime victims, but just ordinary people. >> thank you very much. is there anything you would like to add? >> i don't think so. >> i've got a couple. you have identified on a number of occasions the ethics of what you call the tabloid press. is there, or should there be any

difference to the ethical considerations which are put into the work of reporters by any section of the media? >> no, i don't think there should, and i think that's the real problem. when i first started out as a journalist, i was not particularly aware of any code of ethics, but i knew why i had become a journalist in a young and idealistic way, i wanted to change the world. i thought it might be necessary at times to break the law. i was threatened a with prosecution which did not happen but i think the two things have diverged much too far and it should be possible to have a vibrant tabloid press which does the kinds of things the "daily mirror" did a few decades ago when they were a crusading paper. but that is not something they

see themselves doing anymore. there is a separation that is very damaging. people like me who write for the broadsheet press, i feel like a different breed from the people who work on tabloid papers. >> the second question is you have seen the material assembled from the notebooks. do you have any sense of whether you were being targeted because of you or because you were an adjunct to mr. mack jayna? >> i think the latter. -- mr. ashamed. -- mr. mcshane. >> i suppose i was collateral

damage. >> thank you very much. >> we're going to take a short break before the next witnesses. >> i think that is sensible and i'm perfectly content to let people have a break. i will say the same to witnesses who are coming. this is not an always entirely pleasant ordeal. >> there was a flood in fort wayne. people were filling sandbags, desperately trying to keep the river. air force one stopped and had a motorcade. he took off his jacket and my memory is he filled three sandbags, said hello and i to everyone, got back in the car and got back in the plane. but that night, what filled the airwaves was not three sandbags, it was reagan filling sandbags

with his shirt off. >> sam donaldson, andrea mitchell, and christopher dodd talk about the legacy of ronald reagan. new york city mayor, michael bloomberg, and marriott huffington discuss the american dream and opportunities in the u.s.. neil armstrong, buzz aldrin are awarded the gold medal. for the entire schedule, go to c-span.org. >> the newly designed c-span website makes it easier for you to watch today's events live and recorded. it's also easier for you to get our schedule so you can quickly scroll through all of the programs on the c-span networks and receive an e-mail alert when your program is scheduled to air. you can access our most popular series and programs like "book tv" and "the contenders."

you can find out where to watch the three c-span networks on the all new c-span.org. >> in the name of the greatest people who have never [inaudible] i'd toss they got one before the feet of it tierney and i say it segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever. >> for most of his life, george white polis was an ardent supporter of segregation, outspoken against the civil rights movement. he ran for president four times and lost. one of those efforts, cut short by a -- by an assassination attempt. >this week, george wallace, at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> the white house education

adviser joined the discussion on college education quality, college affordability, and how to engage students in higher education debate. education analysts and activists talk about how to make more practical and effective policy decisions in how students can insure their voices heard. this one hour and 25 minute event is hosted by the center for american progress, which had just released its first study on higher education in the country. >> i am director of the post secondary program here at the center for americans progress. i want to welcome you to the event for the release of our new brief, including student voices and higher education policy making. for those of the familiar with the work in post-secondary education, we spent the last few years working on the issue of college affordability, but from a slightly different tack than the sum of our peer organizations who do excellent work.

the conversation has tended to evolve around -- to recall from how do you make college more affordable quest toward how do you make quality post-secondary education more affordable with regard to price and cost? we have evolved over the last few years, to core bodies of work. one is around consumer information that has been rolled out by julia morgan, the principal author of the brief we are releasing today. that was about creating a user friendly consumer information with the hope of creating a more competitive market. the second this technology and how technology embedded across the research functions can bring down the actual cost of delivery of higher education. today, we're beginning in additional plank of policy development.

students have typically entered the policy-making process after things have happened. howe beginning to explore student voice can be more deeply embedded in the governance of higher education. this is our first treatment of that topic and i'm looking forward to the conversation today and that it starts over the next few years. to kick us off, i would like to introduce, from the partner organization here to introduce our speaker. >> good morning, everyone. it is my pleasure to introduce our first guest speaker, the senior adviser for the white house policy council. she previously focused on

developing solutions to the challenges of college access, affordability, and college completion. prior to this, she is the director of relations on student financial assistance. her research focused on college access programs, community colleges, and the ability of low and moderate income families to afford college. she also previously worked for teach for america, gear up in massachusetts and the congressional black caucus foundation. shields a bachelor's degree in political science and secondary -- she holds a bachelor's degree in political science and master's degree in education policy and management from but harvard graduate school of education. relevant to the topic today, she has been incredibly successful at the white house through questions large and small and has been interested in hearing the student perspective. join me in welcoming our first speaker. [applause]

>> thank you and thank you put to you all for being here today and being interested in such a relevant topic. education policy is one of the most interesting areas anyone can be involved. it is one that garners a lot of interest. when i think about my colleagues at the white house domestic policy council and staff, there are people working housing, health policy, energy policy, and you don't usually have random people on the street telling you what you should do about housing policy. but anyone who hears i work and education will give a perspective. that is largely in part because someone has -- because everyone has gone to school.

binkley, i have pretty clear direction on what my role should focus on. by 2020, we would be first in the world with respect to the proportion of our young adults with college degrees. in thinking about how we achieve that goal, we realize we have a college completion crisis in the nation, that people don't think about in the same way we think about k through 12 for high- school dropouts. nearly half the students to start do not finish college. that is alarming when you think about it. but it is a goal that engulf my work. when people hear about the goal think it is primarily an economic: they want to make sure your the best educated work force and we have a strong economy in the future and that is certainly true. the president wants to make sure we have the best and most

competitive work force in the world. but the roll as much broader than that. when you think about the role of colleges and universities, it to create citizens who can participate actively in democratic life. they are supposed to be prepared to be good citizens and the benefits are broader than those of just purely economic means. by having a college degree, you are better off. unemployment rates are half of those who do not have a bachelor's degree. but the role of higher education for civic life is something we don't talk about as much because perhaps of the times we are in. but it is interesting that this is the role of higher education. we don't necessarily a model with as much as we should. students are supposed to be prepared for civic life. what better way to be prepared than being in gauged on campus in the roles of decisions made

while they are on campus. being an active participant in your society while on campus and thinking about and being involved in the decisions that impact you is a great way to model what we expect of higher education. too often, the voice on campus is missing. the different perspectives i hear are often of those of college president, vice- president, the student financial aid administrators, college counselors who all have something to say about college and higher education when that end user is the student. the person who is supposed to benefit is that student. it is it to sell, we have a student voice. we often hear from them when tuition increases, long after the actual decision has been made to increase tuition. sfax administrators know how to deal with that and realize this is going to make some students

and happy, but true, valuable input when the decisions are made to pull back funding at the state level or the decision is made to include a football team that will suck resources because they don't bring as much in, -- i went to vanderbilt, the best way to for many places, it is a drain. when you have decisions being made, up where the student voice. the reason for students not having as much of a voice are varied. this paper does a great job of letting them out and explaining the transient nature of a student's life. if you end up graduating, you will not be there after a while. those are things that impact it.

i do want to thank the center for bringing this issue to life so that we can start to address some of the solutions to this problem. when we think about cost and value of college, students and their families have a lot of power. they can vote with their feet. you cannot really have that influence if you do not know what the outcomes are. you are waiting in the blind. this administration has done a couple of things to address that. we have a new center for transparency on our department of education website. we have increased transparency with information -- it tells you

a little bit about their outcome said that tenants are thinking about the graduation rates. recently, in the midst of an announcement about student debt , there was a portion, one that is important. a financial aid shopping sheet of sorts that we developed in conjunction with the consumer financial protection bureau. it has a broader range of authority and can help students better understand the differences between the cost and values of different types of colleges. when you are choosing between college, if you knew how much your monthly payments were going to be. compare that on a similar basis. those are the types of things that we're trying to do to empower students and their families with information that they can use to make a

difference. knowledge is power. we are trying to be as transparent as possible and encourage colleges and universities to do the same. we're always looking for additional ways. i do not think we have the answer here of solving the 2020 gold, but we're also -- but we are always looking for solutions. the center for american progress is doing great work here in opening up this conversation about student voices can make a difference. i am glad to see so many of you all year. i am looking forward to the session. thank you. [applause] >> she has agreed to take a few questions. it looks like he might get off easy.

i have one question. what is next? >> the consumer financial protection bureau is taking in but on the financial aid shopping street -- is putting a financial aid shopping sheet. we would hope to have a final version of that that you can use in your everyday lives. beyond that, we have a list of colleges that are increasing cost and looking for better way to make sure that students have that information. >> what about the net price calculators? >> we are looking to -- there is a requirement that every college has on their website a net price. for those of you may not be familiar with the window -- lingo, it is the difference between the sticker price minus

the average amount of financial aid and scholarships. they are scared away from expensive colleges because they see it cost $45,000. for me, it was free. thankfully, i was not deterred from applying. that is not true for everywhere. you have no idea what the difference really will be until you apply.

>> [inaudible] >> we represent hundreds of thousands of low-income students and parents. what can we do to encourage institutions to share more information about graduation success so that consumers can make mortis -- make better decisions? >> thank you. that is a great point. colleges right now are required to provide pell grant graduation rates. it goes mostly to lower and moderate income students. it is not a reporting

requirement. we do not get that information from every college and university. if you call them and ask them, they're supposed to tell you. there has been some work at another think tank that suggested that maybe they do not do that. maybe no one even knows that as a requirement. as an organization like that, saying to your students, you should be asking for that information. that is a great role for a consumer or the general public to play when there are disclosures that are required. >> we will take one more. the gentleman in the back. >> you're talking about the search for consumers. i work with colleges every day that are looking for best practices. what is the u.s. government

doing for the administrators of these colleges? >> that is a great question. institutions -- if there are differences in institutions, we get a bunch of kids that were open access. you have to assume their completion rate well below. you look across open access institutions and there is a difference. colleges can do something to improve the quality of their students coming in. what we are doing, in every competition that we have had, most of those we have attached something called a priority college completion and data tracking. you get extra points if you are focused on college completion. the grant may have been about building institutional capacity, bill that capacity for

students to complete college. isn't that what they're supposed to be doing? when you ask colleges and universities about their customers, there are lots of different constituencies. the student is not always the primary. we take the perspective of, we are providing a lot of subsidies for students to attend colleges. because the public purpose of higher education is so great, it is incumbent upon colleges to think about things they could be doing. we're trying to explore that in every way that we can. >> thank you for joining us today. [applause] i want to take the liberty to introduce our lead author on the issue today. many folks know julie.

she is my colleague here. she has a doctorate in higher education policy from boston college. she is our lead on consumer information mark. and was excited to take on this project. [applause] >> thank you so much. i am really excited to do the work on student voices. it is a little bit outside of what i had been working on. we started this work from a simple idea, right? students are the biggest stakeholders in higher education and they're so often not included in the policy discussions.

this goes pretty well with post- high school education. our work -- higher education should be more student centers. it seems funny, but there are a lot of different constituencies. we want to encourage them to take a good look at the student body. how has the american student body changed over time? what can we do to make our colleges served the students better? it says -- it seems silly to think about creating a more student center to higher education system without including student and the conversation. we talk about defining the problem, we felt there was a

problem. it has to be defined because there are days student groups who are working every day on higher education policy issues. the occupy wall street movement is helping us think about the problem. you have these students out there at the occupy wall street protest who are demonstrating the fact that a large group of students are ready to speak out on higher education issues and the issues that matter most to them. as tuition rises, we know students are taking on more debt to finance their education. they are graduating into a really slow job market. they are frustrated with their situation. they are either unemployed or underemployed. if you look at the tumbler blog, there is a lot of students writing about their student loan

debts. i wanted to read to you from one of them. i graduated from one of the country's top universities with my master's and $150,000 in debts. i wanted to work and non-profit and help the world a better place. i now work in business, and giving advice to billion dollar companies. i do this because i have a two- year-old daughter who needs to be provided for. a nonprofit salary it will not cut it. within two weeks of her birth, i started saving for college education because i never wanted her to have the burden of student loans. i want her to be able to follow her dreams. i will still wonder when people tell their she can be anything she wants to be, it is a lie. you can only do what you want in life if you have money and none of the debt. students are expressing quite a bit of frustration with their situation. the idea that the whole american dream is a lie is a

powerful statement. a lot of the students and former students protesting at the occupy movements across the country are asking for student loan forgiveness but they of got a little bit of this in the white house. the president announced a plan that would lessen payment on student loans for students who are involved in the payment program. you can consolidate a direct student loan with a non direct student loan. those of us who work in higher education recognized the problem of rising tuition and the steady decrease in financial aid, these require a series of solutions. student loan forgiveness is going to be part of it, obviously. there are other things that we need to do. we need to think about ways to cut college costs. strategic uses of online course where -- courseware.

the question we felt to find the student voice problem, do students on college conversation had a stronger voice? we think the answer is yes. that is a great take away from this paper. our report examines the types of student voices out there. and some of the key barriers that students face in being made really effective participant in the conversations. students have a number of avenues available to them. i will name a few. student government is a big way that students voiced their opinions on campus. it is a way that they can voice their concerns to the college administration. on the other hand, it can -- it

is another club that doles out money to other student organizations and this kind of ignored by the administration. it kind of depends on the structure of the student government. student newspapers can also hold the administration's feet to the fire. university policy issues are bringing to light some of the challenges that people face. on the other hand, students and journalists have to have access to and knowledge of the decision making process on campus. we also have statewide and national student organizations .ike ussa, these are larger organizations that work across multiple campuses. they have a lot of potential to support student voice on campus.

they have a professional staff that provides some continuity as students are graduating. there are grass-roots student movements. the protests in the university of california system is an example of this. it did not come out of any institutionalize groups on campus, but a group that rallied around a particular cause. it can cut both ways in terms of the effectiveness. there are also these institutionalized student voices. they do not really come to mind when you think about activist student movement, but colleges do have ways of trying to elicit opinions from students and get their feedback. the only problem is it is entirely up to the university how well they incorporate that student voice into changes on the campus.

each of these avenues has some potential to help students voiced their opinions. there are some barriers to their effectiveness. here are some of the most common barriers. there are practical barriers. these can be campus regulations, rules around organizing. we were talking about this before the event. campuses oftentimes have all rules on how many students can gather in a place at a particular time, what kind of comments you have to get to gather. police presence on campus can be a huge barrier. we saw that at the uc-davis recent incident of pepper spray used on students. that can have a real effect on distant voice. a lack of unity within one campus on the policies solutions. occupy wall st. gives as a

little bit -- there is a broad agreement on the fact that is a problem. less agreement on what the solutions to the problem might be buried -- might be. there is also a failure to develop strong student leadership. there are strong student leaders who are arriving at campuses all the time, that we need to make sure they're coming from all aspects of student life. low-income and minority students who often are the most affected by high tuition, low financial aid. we need to be developing leaders at those groups. -- out of those groups. another barrier that students do not have access to the people in positions of power within the university, including administrators. a couple of final barriers, as

more and more nontraditional students enrolled at nontraditional universities, i do not really like those terms. it is becoming the new normal. we need to find a voice for them. the students who are involved in online programs to do not have any contact with the campus oftentimes have less of a voice than the traditional student. one of the major barriers to student voice in higher education is a lack of transparency within the university. it makes it really difficult for students to be fully engaged in higher education policy debate when they do not know the language that is being used. they were not there when the decisions were being made.

member only notified of them. but the diversity of the university's out there and a variety of student avenues for student voice, there are a lot of different policies solutions that we should recommend there are a couple of common elements. strong student voices need leaders that come from all kinds of backgrounds. strong student voices need a place at the table and higher education policy discussions. that includes greater transparency around college and a government decision making. policies that affect colleges. access to the people in positions of power. there is a role to be played by the federal and state government, and philanthropic organizations that can do a better job of communicating directly with student groups. even student group themselves. this report is meant to be a

first step in supporting a strong restaurant voice in higher education. we hope that we can delve more deeply into some of these areas in subsequent research. [applause] >> can i ask the panelists to come up and join in julie? i will do a quick introduction starting with the furthest to my right. dan herb is a campus organizer at the university of maryland college park. to his left, the vice-president of the united states student association.

>> i want to talk -- maybe one of the campaigns that you have been involved in recently. >> good morning, everyone. i am vice president of the united states student association. we have been around since 1947. we believe that education is a right and not a privilege. we are a national organization. i cannot stress that enough. student run, student led. we have the president, the vice- president and full-time staff.

the staff are recent graduates of colleges and universities from across the country. all of our students are still in school. they have been fighting to tear down barriers for a really long time. we are based here in d.c. and we also work with the students associations. we have six states that are direct members of ussa. we have been working on a lot of the work around pell grants. the trio program is a pipeline from high school to colleges and community colleges. we want to make sure we're still registering folks to vote.

those are three different issues that we chose. we know the super committee is making some very crucial changes to the pell grant. students across the country, including minnesota, we did a postcard campaign this weekend. 18% of millennial have twitter. we thought that would be a smart way to get people's attention. we did facebook, we did a call a-in. we did a postcard campaign and where we got over 45,000 postcards and will deliver them office inmurray's

washington state. it was a very successful campaign. a lot of students need the pell grant. we are doing a lot of education over what those changes might be. >> i am the campus organizer at the university of maryland college park. it is a federation of state based student directed and didn't find. -- student funded. groups working on a whole range of social issues. the idea was that students would pool their resources to hire a professional staff of organizers and activist. they're able to lobby full time at state capitals and washington, d.c., on behalf of students.

when i was a student at the university of california santa barbara, i was involved with a chapter there. i did a lot of work in the spring of 2010 on the pell grant program. they are a state based grant. the governor schwarzenegger put pell grants on the table. this made a lot of students nervous. the governor put them on the table as an option, we organized a campaign to help save the grant. we got personal stories from students on campus. finding students who were personally affected by what would happen if your grant was cut.

taking those stories and compiling them. we have 10 chapters in california. showing them to legislators to let them know that this is extremely important for students to stay in school in california. the kohl victory behind it was that governor schwarzenegger completely reversed his position. he completely changes position ever on the issue. that was really empower in for me as a student. being able to train others to get on how to create this grassroots movement. i am marking in maryland on similar issues. >> it sounds like you are using some pretty sophisticated methods of getting attention. howdy think we could help other

-- however they think we could help others didn't get involved in those kinds of campaigns? >> been come to a meeting, get involved. i have close to 40 student interns at the moment working on a wide range of campaigns. climate change legislation, poverty issues, if you have an opinion and you want to get involved, look for these institutions. students have a lot of opinions on the issues. it is very evident that there is a lot of energy around this. it is on organizations like us to amalgamate not comment to make it a solid a voice. find a solution that we can advocate for. set up lobby dates and go to legislators. it is bringing them all

together. >> do you want to tell us a little bit -- you are an expert. i was hoping you could tell us about what is going on with the occupy and you see -- uc movement. >> ibm and historian of student activism. i also run a website that tracks what is going on in the contemporary world. the rise of occupy wall street has been a coming together of a few different trends. one of which is the student movement that has arisen since the fall of 2008. starting in the middle of 2009, there was a large scale new student movement coming up in response to cutbacks in state

funding to public higher education and increased tuition combined with cuts in enrollment, increase in class size. that movement, which called itself and occupy movement, has been growing for a while. and has sort of marched with a larger occupy wall street movement and the last couple of months. is awe have seen theire tremendous amount of repression of started organizing, up more than 300 students in the uc and cal state student university system have been arrested in the last 2.5 years, including 66 student at berkeley who were peacefully occupying a building.

they were woken up in the middle of the night about 12 hours before they announced their occupation was gone to end. they were just arrested, taken 40 miles away, and kept in holding for a day so they could not rally against their treatment. we have seen what happened, not only at davis a few days ago, but in berkeley the week before that. that kind of police forced against student activist have become routine, particularly in california. what we are seeing now, with the current amount of attention that the uc davis incident is getting, we are seeing a much bigger public spotlight on questions of student activism. >> we make a bit of a reference

to the idea that universities do not always encourage the student voice. universities should be encouraging the student voice. it is good for higher education policy and it is good for the individual student development. what do you think the approach of the university administration has been to student activism? what do you think it should be? >> i have a really positive experience with administrators. they definitely try to set up and fostered student activism on campus. college park has over 200 active student groups on campus. they are all student government recognized. the administration has been helping them create systems

where they can foster their voice. could it be more effective? sure. the important thing are that students are working with the administration on these issues. if they have complaints, there are things we can change about the system. santa barbara was similar. i was actually good friends with the dean of student there. they were very accessible and santa barbara. obviously, different schools will be different with different administration. my experience is positive overall. >> i have a little bit of a different experience. i graduated from the university of california santa crewuz. in my first year of college, i went to a student open house government meeting which got me involved can an internship with the president of the student government on campus. she opened up an internship for

me. i had no idea what i was getting myself into. from then on, i ran for vice president of the campus. my senior -- my third year, i ran for president of the campus and i won my senior term. i was able to be a liaison between administration and the students. the four years i was in school, tuition went up 50%. we traveled up and down the state. we went to santa barbara. to protest and stand against the tuition increases. i know that the benefit of fostering relationships would administration and student

affairs. student affairs is also the first on the table to get caught. -- to get cut. students on campus had nobody to relate to. in that role, we had a really good time educating students on campus and getting students involved in election work statewide and nationwide. i have had a different experience working with police officers, organizing the protest. what can be included -- the

regent board represents over 200,000 students. we have one voice on that board of directors. we have been trying to do work for them over the next -- last couple of years and gets more students on the board of directors. it has not been successful. that another way we can start to encourage that. ussa is dead voice we're trying to use to make sure that changes happening -- is the voice were trying to use to make sure that changes happening. we believe that we should be stakeholders' on the forefront of all of these decisions. >> if you look at it historically, what you find is earlyhe late 1960's and 1970's were a real watershed moment. the biggest reason for that, both directly and indirectly, was the response to student

protests. in many cases, extremely disruptive student protests. a lot of the student uprisings of the mid to late 1960's for responses to restrictive and infantilizing university policies. we think of the 1960's as being about the civil rights movements and the anti-shoreham movement. -- anti-war movement. what universities and policy makers found was that bringing students and for an active government role did a huge amount to transform the nature of student protest. what we saw in the late 1960's was a rise of independent government control over student fees. you saw the creation of student

regions -- regents. you saw a rise in independent state and systemwide student organizations. student involvement in university committee. all this stuff designed to make students not merely consumers, but stakeholders in the diversity. give them an active voice in the running of the university. what we have seen the subsequent to that is a gradual retreat from those principles, a gradual withdrawal way. what tends to happen is that students tend to be the most likely to protest in an aggressive and disruptive way when they feel like they have no other venue to be heard. even in the case of uc-davis, the chancellor of basic -- of davis announced there is going to be a task force to examine

police and policy. she is giving no indication that the students will choose their own representatives of the task force. or they will have any decision making power. there is no indication that this didn't really have any direct say or wilt -- thus didn't have any direct say it in the shaping of university policy. if students had a direct voice, the nature of what we are beginning to see on campuses would shift. >> that is interesting i think as -- that is interesting. >> there are a lot of reasons why csu has been really important. the administration has been so recalcitrant and that has been a major factor. >> i have to ask you this

question. i was at a dinner a few nights ago were there were some people who are active in student activism in the 1960's. they had this longing for the good old days. students are not the same today as they used to be. i was a student recently and i felt pretty good about my role. i wondered, is this just nostalgia? or is there a difference between the the weight students participate today? >> students today are much more likely to be older. they're much more likely to have kids. they're much more likely to be graduating with a huge amount of debt. that leaves them with a lot less freedom to engage in activism. they have a much harder time.

the rise of commuter colleges changes the nature of the campus environment. that is one piece of it. another piece is it is very easy to neglect the amount of student organizing that is going on today. one of the things that is obvious to me, but is often forgotten, look at the american university of 1968. how many campuses had a black student unions? how many students but how many campuses had when -- how many campuses had women centers? now every campus has those. those are active organizations who are performing all sorts of student support work. they are getting counseling, giving support. there also organized, engaged

with the administration. that kind of involvement is flying beneath the radar. another thing is the 26 commandments. giving students, young people, the right to vote, transformed the nation -- the nature of student activism. previously, students were literally were disenfranchised. they had no way to directly engage in the political process. after the 26 amendment, you see the rise of student lobbies, national student organizations, ussa. again, when a thousand students show up for a lobby day -- it

does not get the kind of media attention. it is a question that i hear a lot less than i did a year ago. it is a question rests on a fundamental misunderstanding. >> you mentioned the difficulty of organizing nontraditional students. i am wondering if either of your organizations have wrestled with this. >> we are definitely thinking about the issue. on our board of directors, we have a process in which different communities and different identities are represented. the issue is being brought up and discussed.

it was they have a conversation for us to carry. it is death not being talked about. right now, we'll have to deal with that right now. and >> ussa has been doing a lot more work with community college students. >> absolutely. we have recruited -- our legislative conference happens in march. we bring over 200 students to washington gone -- washington, d.c., and we train them how to lobby. sometimes, students who are seniors in high school. we have a really big press conference in front of the capital. we had been educating.

it is harder because it is a two-year program or a three-year program. we want to be proactive about policies. >> great. >> i had a similar experience with a nontraditional students. as far as their internship program goes, commuter students -- is a lot more difficult to planned meetings at 7:00 at night. the biggest way to combat that would be to be overly flexible. i know this is a general problem as far as traditional stance -- students. the government runs from 9:00 to 5:00. if you want students to show up

to a lot the day, it is difficult to amalgamate physical people. their job is to go to school and get an education. it makes it difficult for traditional students to do that. for non-traditional students, it is even more difficult. just barely flexible and have meetings on weekends and have meetings when they are available. have those discussions about when that can happen. the organizing in community colleges that vastly different. some schools do not have campus communities. the university of maryland has a large on campus residential life. people feel like it is their house, where they live. with community colleges, it is totally different. people come to school, they have class when they can because they are usually working.

if you want to organize a demonstration, when can you find the time that can work for everybody's schedule? it becomes a nightmare. it disenfranchises them. that is one of the big issues. have meetings on sundays at 4:00, like i did yesterday. that is ok. >> i want to keep time for questions from the audience. let me ask you one more question. what do you see is the biggest problem in higher education right now? how do you think listening to students can give us a better solution? we will go down the line. >> the biggest problem in higher education? from my perspective, it would be the lack of student participation. there is a lot of power that students do have. the biggest issue is that

students do not realize how much power they have. working on things like shared governance, not having reactions to problems. we can talk about access and affordability, but that starts with a student participating in the discussion in the first place. making that a voice more institutionalized and having that work as best as it could be the problem i would suggest first. >> i would say it is cost. we have been talking about -- they are working on campus or they have family problems that town. that is all deferring stand accessibility and time towards

the issue of the cost of tuition. i think it is entirely too expensive. my annual salary is the cost of my lungs. it twines with students input. wisconsin has an amazing statute. 36095. students have sole input. no other state has that statute, which i think it is interesting. it encourages students to be involved in the process and to be at the forefront of the conversation around higher education. cost is the biggest issue.

stop taking away our financial aid. i think higher education were just three or lower, it would solve a lot of our problems. -- free or lower, it would solve a lot of problems. students are disenfranchised. the cost of education is important to consider when we talk about keeping students in case. when they keep losing these different streams of support services, students start to see these losses and they do not want to stay engaged. it is like their voice is not being heard. >> as they lose out on monday,

they have to work more, which takes more time away. >> the ongoing privatization of public higher education is one of the great stories of the 21st century. it has been really neglected by the national media. if you are an out-of-state student at uc-berkeley and you are living on campus, the cost of attendance at berkeley is now higher than the cost of attendance at harvard. it is more expensive to go to berkeley as an out-of-state student than to go to harvard. not only has that transformation happened, but in the last 2.5 years, the proportion of out-of- state students in the incoming student pool at berkeley has tripled to 30%. admissions decisions are

increasingly being driven by the revenue stream. what you have now is at a school like berkeley, a third of the incoming class, from a financial perspective, berkeley is a private university. and not a cheap private university. the way in which that -- and the reverberations around those policy changes, we talk about the increase in cost of higher education far more than we do the radical extent to which state funding has been slashed. the magnitude of that is something that the vast majority of america is completely unaware of. >> thank you so much. let's take some questions from the audience.

somebody will be coming around with a microphone. if you could give us your name and organization. >> i am a graduate student as ell as a staff member at gw's career center. a lot of times, students are afraid of breaking those relationships we have with potential employers. can you talk a little bit about the conversations you have had with them? >> at the occupy wall street last week, there was a massive citywide student demonstration. the most tweeted chant was, "f

internships." the way that internships not only cut student purchasing power, but also warp the nature of do is able to go into not- for-profit jobs, entry-level jobs. if you want to be a public interest lawyer, you have to be rich. the only way to get into the pipeline is to work for free. that model is increasingly spreading throughout the workforce. the effect that it is having on class mobility is really profound. >> i want to tell the story of one of my co-workers. she graduated from william and mary. she had a really hard time

deciding if she wanted to come work for us because of her student debt. she could not take an unpaid internships. she was not able to afford it. i had a conversation with a student about unpaid internships. it was taking away entry-level jobs for people who already graduated. the most important thing for students is to really look at -- what jobs will be available after the internships. what are they getting out of the experience? is that what you want to be doing with your summer? do in your background research. students to have to make those trade-offs, it is an unfortunate experience because they cannot pursue things like public interest lawyers.

her dad is the same as your salary. that is true -- her debt is the same as her salary. the same is true for me, too. i believe is that from now on. it has lowered my purchasing power. >> that is a really interesting thing to come out of occupy wall street. students are expressing a frustration with student loans. the recession and joblessness has brought lied to the issue of on paid employment. -- has brought light to the issue about unpaid employment. can we get another question? >> my name is clarice and diana

student at howard university. i know one of them -- and i am a student at howard university. i know one of the issues is for- profit colleges and how they are predatory on low income minority students. a lot of these students have the highest loan default rates. a lot of these students do not know what they are getting into. i want to know what the initiatives have been started to raise the student voice in these for-profit colleges and to reach out to these students to get them to stand up for their rights. >> that is an interesting question. that is one of the things that we write about in the paper. can you guys speak to your experiences? >> we do not have for-profit

colleges in ussa. we have been sharing and doing some work would documentation. those students to graduate have been brought dreading with triple what it might get -- my debt is. there is a lot of testimonies and things that have been done in the social media to shed light on the issue. whether or not they are able to have financial aid is an under the rug constituency and a base. we have not been doing too much organizing. we have been sharing a lot of the testimonies of the students. it is a certain stigma