regarding bias. there was a ucla professor who did a book called "left turn" that attempts to make a scientific judgment about the issue of bias. i am suspicious of those, but i have to say he does a pretty good job of it. if you do not agree, you might want to read the book and find out what his arguments are. he thinks we often get the facts right, but the media -- that media news ellis get paid? right, but the message is interpreted in some anyways. -- the media news get the facts right, but the message is interpreted in so many ways. he ends up saying that, if the media -- and the media are -- i have been in this business for 45 years.

i would say that 80% of the business is liberal. well, more liberal than not. i met someone who said that the behind-the-scenes people are probably 70% liberal. one of the things he concludes -- then i will shut up and let you guys respond -- if the media had been balanced in the 2008 election, john mccain would be president today. among his calculations are that what is reported has consequences. it has consequences. it becomes the interpretation of reality for the people of this country, more so than the commentary. i am in the commentary business and we go crazy, too. but what is presented as factual news has enormous consequences. maybe this time, starting with you ryan and then going straight on across -- or if you want to

argue with each other, that is fine, too. >> i would agree with you. the observations about day off handed remark from met ronnie taken so bad that of context and -- from mitt romney taken so bad and out of context -- much of the meat and substance, the details of the economic proposals are not being covered or very much in passing by the media. i think there is a huge disservice to our public who i believe -- and i would give the public in the more credit -- understands that there are serious issues facing this country and want to see serious and thoughtful bold proposals. i am sympathetic to the frustration that is sometimes felt by the media.

they do not feel like the candidates or representatives are very accessible. it is because they're gun shy. there are burned. one offhand remark may be taken out of context and show up on twitter and blow up the universe. it is hard. i do not know if i have the right answer on how to fix it. i think there may be some great opportunities to provide more backstreet and more context using multiple media outlets. one of the great things i have noticed elis coverage with fox and wb is that he will direct people to the website for links to the entire speech. they can get that information a little more unfiltered. >> whenever i am asked about

media, i tell the story. in the state of georgia in 2000, there were 32 republicans to endorse the president. for endorsed al gore. but of the people who receive a daily newspaper on their doorstep every day, more than half picked up a newspaper that endorsed al gore because the big newspapers tended to be from cities that had bigger circulations and that kind of thing. i think that is a been that goes not through just newspapers, but vein that goes not through just newspapers, but other media. it can be kind of limiting to live in new york and l.a. for news consumers who feel that the

media is biased or that movie and tv are biased. think about the world that it is coming from and where you are seeing it. >> in many ways, is a matter perception. it is a reflection of a society that is ecologically split -- that is ideologically split. the president said that we are not red states and listed, but we are. if you travel to different parts of the state of colorado, you find different in garments and different ways of looking at the same thing -- different environments and different ways of looking at the same thing. when you work for a station that is fox news -- i worked for fox 31 denver. we're not really affiliated with the network. there is a blurring of those lines. that is fine. when people come up to us and

say we love watching fox, you just say thank you. when democrats come up to you and say, we do not watch your station, you say, well, really, we are not affiliated with that network. [laughter] obama was here for a town hall back in 2009 with the health care debate. this was out in grand junction. there was a rope going into the high school. all left all the people who supported the president with their signs and there were yelling. on the right were all the conservative people who had anti-health care and anti-obama signs. they were yelling at each other across the street. it was a great symbol. but for us to drive through the street with a jeep that's as fox 31, it was great. they were banging on our window and you feel like you will get beat up here and you get cheered from folks on the other side. it is an awkward thing for a journalist or anyone who covers

this, to do so in an objective, non-person, non-biased way. -- not as partisan, non-biased way. -- non-partisan, non-biased way. i get e-mails from people who say if it is typical fox news b.s. when they see our coverage and they think that we are "fair and balanced," meaning that we are skewed to the left. you try not to do that. you tried to cover both sides of the story. and sometimes it depends on the story. if we're telling the romney story, what he said and taking it out of context, we tried to at least say, look, we're not the ones taking this out of context. the obama people will take this out of context and that is why this is problematic.

and it led -- and it lends itself to that character that he is a rich guy. it is fair to complain that we're not really doing our job. on the flip side, romney and the super packed up and obama quote out of context. he was quoting john mccain. if we are going to take something like that that everybody is chattering about on twitter and is sort of rising to the surface and that is what people a ticking away from the speech, we do owe it to our audience to tell as complete a picture as possible in every case, regardless of whether we are focusing on the republican race or the president. >> i think this is interesting. the general proposition is that the media's too liberal. if that is the perception that

somebody has, it probably indicates that they think the media is just to the left of them. it may mean that they are on the a ist hand side and medium reporting something they don't like. i listen to radio stations that have commentators on them and it does not look like they are liberal media to me. i know there is media on both sides. but when i look at the press that bill clinton got or barack obama got, it does not look to me like the press is fawning over them. barack obama is basically, i believe, he stands accused in the media having destroyed the american economy. i think that is absurd. there are business cycles. theave always a jazexaggerated

president's role however we are in a business cycle. i guess i will start by rejecting the proposition that we have a liberal media. although i will say that maybe this is what mr. ambrose was referring to when he said that a large percentage of people in the media are liberal. i think the numbers are fairly strong that college-educated people tend to be more liberal than people who are not educated in college. >> unless they are educated here. [laughter] >> rick santorum takes from that the people should not go to college. i think that would be a mistake. i think that college education will be necessary to even more so in the future.

i guess i will just go ahead and say that, whether you see the media as being level or not, it probably has to do more with where your on the political spectrum than where the media is. although i know it has been repeated so many times that it now has a ring of truth to people here in the audience. but because something is repeated a huge number of times, it does not necessarily mean that it is true. >> this is a scientific study. let me say quickly that we started out with a partisan press in this country. one of the things that began to change it was the associated

press. when you had a cooperative effort, it was necessary to quit taking political sides. if you wanted all these papers to get the right answer. there are other reasons for that, too, such as mass distribution. and the gift of advertising. what has happened more recently is that papers have gone more and more to the interpretive side of things, which some of us feel has taken us back to the partisan press days and one of the things i mentioned earlier, but i would like to address -- and we will go to the audience. this is my last question. whichodore white's book had this profound impact on the

profession -- now we're discussing politics -- instead of addressing so much the positions they're taking -- i agree that those groups have a politiciansllow the tal around, too -- you have all of this analysis. but why did they said? what was the ulterior motive? it seems to me that this is huge. you have so much of this now. i would like you to respond to that. do you find an overdose of interpretation, an overdose of what is the strategy, and not enough on what are the issues in this election, whether the stance is being taken?

what about ronnie's tax proposal? what do you think of his -- what about romney's tax proposal? what you think of his income? >> i completely agree with this comment. i think that the issues should be reported a lot more and the horse race should be reported a lot less. i watch the sunday news programs and they're supposed to be too boring for most people to watch. and to me, and they come to be all but two will win and how did romney did or how did gingrich do and how will he do on super tuesday. it really feels like soap opera information. there is almost no discussion about how they differ on issues and how those issues would affect the country.

i completely agree with that. i guess what it is is that you have to say to the american people or the media should say to the american people is that you have to eat your vegetables before you get your dessert. you may want to talk about the horse race and who is going to win and the soap opera aspects, but you also have to include some basic information that would be useful to the american people in making these decisions. during my political career, when discussion comes up over whether this it or it is that, the answer is almost always it is both. should you use your constituents' views or your own judgment and your own information when you are running the legislature? the answer is that it is both. should you put the sensational stuff on the front page, the murder or the sex scandal, and put the tax policy at the back of the paper or not at all?

you should do both. and for the media, they have to make a living. that is true. but we have a first amendment which gives extraordinary protection to the media and they have some responsibility just besides making a profit, which is to educate the american people. i like the comment there to be boring. i think there needs to be a little bit more substance. >> on tv, i would love to see more substance. but if i offer any more, i will just get fired. [laughter] that is the reality of the situation. we look at all of these things that come up, whether romney is laying out a 15-point economic plan or if her mccain has this nine-nine-nine plan -- we did a

story on the herman cain plan not knowing that he would not stick it out. we should have focused more on romney. that was a wasted time. all politics is a vegetable to tv news. but this is lima beans sometimes. [laughter] that is hard to sell an audience on. but you are right. we should remember that those are important things and that is what people need to make up their minds and to be well- informed. >> i am so glad you brought up the founding of the ap and the early days of biased journalism -- the early days of non-biased journalism. they got together and said that you have this level newspaper and i have is conservative newspaper and really have as one reporter and we need to tell what to write.

the most number of arrivals on that story and this 9-9-9 or making fun of somebody or a quote out of context, if it gets people to look at the pampers add or the capitol one ad, you're not just consuming the media, but all these messages from someone who has an interest in consuming these messages. i do think we may go back, not entirely, but trend back towards partisan news gathering and partisan commentary. why are they telling me this? is it because it is good for me or is it because they wanted to

turn the pages and look at the ads? >> one of the concerns i see is that trend. we are seeing especially it in the online space and lot more news organizations that are not funded by advertising revenue. they are funded by an ideological agenda. you have the huffington post and political better getting the vast majority of their funding not from advertising, but from a left-leaning interest that are providing the investment dollars. leaning, is that your example? >> is an example. there are also those that are funded from a conservative perspective. for a lot of conservatives today, to be very candid, whether it is a drudge or breitbart, a lot of the funding

for that was not done by ad revenue, but by investors who wanted more of an ideological perspective. that can be problematic. but at the same time, we have to know where the biases are coming from. i think it is problematic from the perspective of a consumer where the only source we're getting our news from is breitbart or drudge vs. huffington post. at the more traditional news media plays an incredibly important role. keeping that fire wall between the business side of the media and the news and the coverage side. but if we are to recognize that we are talking about the right of free press, the right of free speech -- every right has to have a corresponding duty and that duty is living up to the obligations of a fair and

impartial and providing in context the media for the public to be able to make their own conclusions. i would like to see as their way from the notion of having all the sunday talk shows or even the 10:00 news be so full of commentary and analysis. but the commentary an all-out -- an analysis happen by people talking around the water cooler the following day. get the news out and let people make their own judgment. >> when people watch tv ads, i do not think they read the bottofine print at the bottom oe ad. people do not look at their news when they take new zinn and think about who is funding this website or who owns this tv station or this newspaper. what is the publishers' interest? i do nothing to many people think about that. there is the blurring of the lines. that makes it harder for traditional media sometimes to break through. sometimes, we have so many

voices out there, what breaks through is who is talking allow august. you see that reflected on tv and the cable news ward. the most profitable network is fox news. msnbc has become increasingly profitable by becoming a leftwing counterbalanced to that. by focusing -- and you see this in terms of the stories the fox news is concerned with things that msnbc has never even mentioned. it is profitable. it is profitable to talk to one audience and not worry about the other and build a strong audience. that is part of the problem. it is all media and it is all mainstream media, but there is definitely a blurring of those ones that make it harder for those of us trying to keep that flag planted to do objective,

straight-down-the-middle stuff. >> i have already had one hand raised. please wait until they put the microphone over. you got him? go ahead, please. >> i have a unique take. i spent 35 years inside a newsroom, even though i was reporting weather. i got to watch the news and i got to watch something different back in the 1970's vs. today. back in the 1970's and 1980's, when i was in the business, it was cbs, cbs, nbc, and a little bit of pbs. now we have all the other idiots. i have read left turns of the have been in there myself. the majority of reporters are on the liberal side. sorry, can, but they really are.

to answer the question over whether they show their bias -- they do not think they show their bias. we would sit and watch all of the other tv stations and see what they were reporting on. today, what is going on is that the major networks are watching what they're other major networks are reporting on, not what facts and -- not with fox and msnbc and some of the other ones are. that is why you and of seeing the same things a lot of times on abc, cbs, and nbc that you see so different on fox. they do not think, as bernie goldberg would say, they do not sit there and specifically said left wing spin on this, but they do because that is who they are. the people at box do what they

do because that is who they are. but i do not think either one of them spend as much time as they should looking at what the other side is doing. unless you're watching both, as a viewer, you don't get to see both sides of the story. i think that is issue #one that i would like you to address. i will make this other one a lot quicker. one of the things that happened back in the 1960's and the 1970's when you watch the news is that one of the most popular parts of the newscast was commentary. today, there is no commentary in the news. there is a lot of, well, we want to try to reported as much as possible, but why not have something, like, if we report on herman cain's 9-9-9 plan, let's ask somebody who talks about what they think is good about that or somebody that they don't, versus just -- or somebody who thinks the planned sox for that matter, but at

least -- the plan sucks for that matter, but at least has an opinion. >> when i was younger, again, nbc, cbs, abc, walter, cried and stuff like that -- everybody watched those shows, whether your on the left or the right. now people do not watch the same news. the people who watch fox news, for instance, i think that fast and furious is the big story. people on msnbc think it is something else. it increases the polarization of the country. i think the country is much more polarized than it used to be. what i have seen is that people who get elected to office these days because there are elected in partisan primaries in six districts, they do not think that the of the site is wrong.

they think that the other side is evil. it is hard to work with people you think are evil. in fact, we see the congress and state legislators do not work together. since we're talking about what the media could do, i think that action could be something that the media could do. zero natural in making the united states more polarized -- all in the its role in making united states more polarized in order to make more dollars. i have been invited as well as ryan, to some extent, john made an effort to balance the panel. i think it is a serious problem and the media should not just say, it is good because we can make more money. they should show some social responsibility and reduce the partisanship. >> polarization may not be the

objective? -- might not be the objective of the news media. >> both are seen as making money. if you come from an ideological foundation, where your funding comes from and why are you telling happened yesterday. is there a reason? >> you do not believe that most reporters are most newspapers in this country would absolutely quit and create a storm and go out and write a story from an advertiser's point of view? i cannot imagine doing that. no one i have ever met would ever do that. >> i do not think that is what she was saying. >> but we are very much asked to write with people read about. so they want stories that are more popular, what gets more

clicks on a website, what gets for it the most, what gets talked about the most. >> is the public always done? you know the best selling newspaper in this country is "the new york times." >> for eight years, i had ryan's job in new mexico. every election cycle, a big story that came out was low voter turnout. so, kristin, your colleagues in santa fe contacted me and said what are you doing to increase turnout? of course, we were doing just what ryan does, which is fine debt to our supporters were and getting turnout among them. no, they said, just increasing turnout. i believe that the people who do not turn out are the people who do not care enough to have paid attention to what is going on.

so i will not lift a finger to get one of them to the press. so i am saying that you can lead a horse to water and not make him drink argument is absolutely right. you are in a business. so my question is, particularly to kristin and eli, dns dummy out there in the media that has done a good -- do you know someone else there in the media that has a good job rather than just going through the motions for those who will pay attention. who is really grabbing them and holding their attention? if the answer is no one, then that is fine. but i would like to know an example that we could hold up for some praise and see if we can improve the public interest in getting information.

>> this may be controversial or like -- locally, "the devore post" does the best job of making politics emphasized and putting it in a place that you're looking for. not everybody can seek out political coverage for public affairs coverage. i am not just saying that because "the rocky mountain news" went away. anyone committed to doing it -- i will beat my own chest and say that our station does the best job of this on a daily basis and putting the stories out there. you'll like it to every story. but you try to be consistent. you try to inform the public. you try to show what is going on. what is being debated, was actually happening so that people, if they're interested, they can find it. maybe it is a low bar. but anybody engaging in these issues come anybody who is writing or blogging are at least

putting these stories out there fowhere people can find them. that is an important step. i think anybody who's doing this work is contributing to the conversation. on a given day when you sit there and used director quarter feed or a blog, there are a lot of different stories out there. for a post that only has five people covering it, you will not cover everything. if you are engaged in this community, there are enough places to go to find coverage and i think it is up to citizens' to not just vote with their remote, but to be engaged with news reporters at the newspaper and everybody and say, hey, why are you not covering this? if there is something we are missing, let us know.

>> we could go further with this panel and i wish we could, but i want to to thank them. [applause] >> next, a look at how the meat is incorporating campaign spin in their carriage. then president obama's remarks on jobs and the economy. after that, a discussion on how the media is covering the economy and politics. >> beginning march 26, the u.s. supreme court will hear three days of or arguments challenging the health care law. one case cited is the 1997 case, county sheriff jay kranz and richard mac vs. the united states. a case about congressional authority and the rights of states. c-span radio supreme court historical or argument will

broadcast that case. >> this weekend, there are two ways to watch the tucson festival books on book tv. on c-span 2, saturday, starting at 1:30 p.m. eastern. sunday, panels continue, starting at 1:00 p.m. eastern with the environment, the great depression that to 30 p.m., the american west at 4:00 p.m., and studying the brain at 5:00 p.m. and throughout the weekend, look for coverage streaming live on booktv.org. the tucson festival of books, live this weekend on c-span 2

booktv.org. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> an all-day seminar looking at how the media is covering the 2012 presidential campaign. panelists include michael brown, a conservative blogger, a conservative pollster, and this is about 45 minutes. >> i do not know if anybody else shared with me the observation that, when one of the previous panelists said we need conversations, not catch phrases, that sounded like a catch phrase to me. but in order to be evenhanded, i would say that, when i was told by bill orlano'reilly, that i wn

the no spin his own, it put me on my guard. -- in theend zonthe no spin zont me on my guard. spin has become important in politics and journalism and not to our betterment. does anybody have a hustle to put on you? that is what we want to explore in the next panel. professor chris wheeler and joined our faculty this year. i consider him a high draft pick for your professional sports team. he did educational work in colorado springs for a number of years.

he has a degree in political communications. his putting that were creating a debate team which we have never had before, which is already achieving competitive success in its debut year. we also have professor chris leland. [applause] >> i had a student walkout a class the other day and meet me in the hall. the first thing she said to me -- it looks like she had a question. i thought it would be about an exam or a quiz. and she said, don't you feel guilty? i said, what you mean? i realized she was referring to the illustration that i had ended class with. in another part of my life, i am a political speech writer. working for the national governors' association, there are opportunities to help newly seeded governors be able to get their staff ready for the state of the state, a major legislative address. it was always fun because it was not just about the speech itself

appeared a lot of times, it was about the strategy of delivering that speech. what she was referring to was the fact that i had talked that day about the strategy we had any time the state of the state was given. we would place intern's with key media personnel and key legislators because we want to hear immediately after the speech what they were talking about. they had about 15 minutes to listen and then they had to bus back to a conference room to prepare the appropriate address that the governor would give at a press conference in about 30 minutes. what she was saying i thought was really insightful. don't you feel guilty for manipulating the information that we're getting? don't you feel guilty for playing the system? the concept that john just introduced in terms of the spin doctors and the idea of spin gets to a lot of this. water the perspectives that we are given as a public? -- what are the perspectives that we are given as a public?

would you be willing to talk about your take on this concept of the spin as you introduce yourselves as well. >> my name is michael brown. i am the former secretary of homeland security. i am the director of fema. listening to the professor's comments, the thing that always amazed me is that -- has anyone ever heard of the sap -- the statement of administration position. whenever you see people testifying before congress, their testimony goes through this rigorous process in the department itself and then to the office of management and budget and then back to the legislative affairs office and finally back to your desk. and here's what you can say. that is the spin that people put on things within the government itself. i had a great experience one time in a hearing where there is

a break taken. everybody had left the room with the exception of a couple of senators. after they left, they said, mr. brown, do you play poker? i said, no, i don't. why do you ask? because you don't look like you believe a word what you're saying. [laughter] they were right. but it was the sap that i had to use. >> my name is joshua sharp. i have a blog here in town. i have been a sometime guest host, producer and contributor on the radio started seven years ago. i had the chance a couple of times in the last cycle of 2008 and 2010 to run for the state legislature. even though i was running in

denver has a republican, which should have qualified before handicaps bought -- [laughter] 2008 got a little bit of press attention. it is always interesting to have first hand experience on the other side. one of the things you have to do and what michael referred to in terms of spin is understand that, when you are being quoted, you will get maybe a sentence in that report, maybe two sentences if they are feeling generous. and they will pick the one that makes you look how they want the story to look. it is not always against the republican. if, for instance, they want a particular republican to get the nomination, they may not hurt them. but typically, you find yourself on the defensive. the only way to deal with that is to do exactly what michael was dointalking about. you say what you want to say and you just repeated. you can repeated a couple of

different ways, but yet to make sure that the only thing that they will get to print that comes out of your mouth is the one thing that you want to see in print that came out of your mouth. the from the candidate's point of view, from the thing that is being reported on, that can be business or a candidate or a government latency -- that is why you so often get these anodyne statements. that is why everybody hates bill belichick. as a candidate, you have to be aware of that. whenever your interview, you have to be aware or make sure that what gets said that at least you get the one thing you want said said. >> i am a pollster here in

colorado for a very long time. i am a native of the state. and i am probably most frequently a commentator on channel 9 and came away -- and koa. for those of you who are either to be volunteering the debate , i cannot imagine a better preparation to be able to see through them than the debate i remember and i will still watch academic debates, including college. it tends to cut through the spin because of the amount of evidence you have to use and because, by and large, your quickly -- you are quickly challenged by the opposing team. what i had to deal with a lot is

-- i react to story. by and large, on channel 9, i am not content creators and i do not create a lot of content, like covering events. i take content that is out there and try to add value to it, local interpretation, and what is the colorado connection to it. consequently, stories are given to me and they're driven by the washington orientation from the talking heads. it is a media spin. such as ronnie is too rich. santorum is to -- such as romney is too rich. santorum is too religious. and the republicans are killing themselves. i typically go against the tide and said, but -- i sound like an accountant -- and that is when what i am sort of noted for and have a reputation for trying to be objective and try to give the

opposite position while still understanding that there is a consensus view out there. but, frankly, if you are not careful when you are doing what i do, which is commenting on whatever the daily news's, you can be very quickly picked up and swept along with the powerful tide the comes out of washington. personally, i like the fact that cnn and fox are out there because i look at them both in the morning when i get up. a look at "the wall street journal" and "the washington post." and then i look at some of the navigator blogs. when i was young, i felt that there was only one: needed to look at, mine. -- one poll i needed to look at, mine.

but i believe that the only way to survive today is to be a very, very aggressive consumer of news from a pretty wide perspective. >> i retired from "the denver post" incredibly to me 10 years ago in january occurred i cannot believe it has been that long. i still write an occasional column for the post provided some occasional stuff for channel 9, if it is too early for floyd. [laughter] i do not want you to laugh at this, but i do teach media ethics at the university of denver. i have done that for about five years. i think that one of the worst things that journalists do when reporting politics -- and that is what i did for a quarter of a century or more -- is try to outsmart the smart guys, the

consultants, to show that they're not affected by spin, to analyze things in terms of what people are trying to achieve when they do what they do rather than simply reporting what they have done and then analyzing more than their motives, which is where you get in trouble. there is the veracity of what they're saying. and if i were in to say why it is the main reason in that media gets in trouble is that attempt to attribute motives to people. bloomberg news, which for a while had a seminar -- there would send around the country their various reporters, including internationally -- don't say the boyish john

edwards. try to say something factual. maybe he does not have to shave every day. [laughter] i am not sure you could get away with that. mr. edwards, do you shave every day? no. but that is the extent to which they would not get into trying to characterize them. something happened last fall -- don't say that point say the mob. because it is not on in australia. it is spring in october. i think it is important for journalists to talk to people, not just to each other. i have a phrase i used to like to use about the washington press corps. they became the traveling washington insider reporting pack.

they would talk only to each other and not to the people who were being approached by the candidates. that was a mistake. that is my spin on spin. >> and it is. it is so much of our opinion on things. i ran across this in preparation for a class and i want to get your reaction. this is actually james carville. he says there is a natural conflict between reporters and campaign strategists print from the day they walked into journalism school, news is defined to them as something different. they're looking for something new and different to report. campaign strategists are looking for focus and consistency. so how do we get them to do it? if you want school children to eat spinach, you can answer them hamburger. if you give them a choice, they will not eat spinach bid you can put some parmesan cheese on the

spinach. you can even add mushrooms and hot bacon drippings. but they want cheeseburgers and ice cream. it is an ongoing struggle. the media habits are not helpful. .hey're like high fat foods they are not to bid on the garden vegetables of the campaign. -- they are not too big on the garden vegetables of the campaign. do you agree with that? >> yes. the media gets the story of the conflict, the story that so and so is attacking so and so and for this reason. or they picked on this particular issue on this reason, rather than report on the issue. media these days are way too driven by competition with blogs, with instantaneous -- i

used to think people did not care who got a story first. they want them to get it right. now i am not so sure. that encourages the media to skim the surface of a story and report the most obvious thing rather than the most in-depth kind of reporting that is the spinach that people do not really relish, but they need it to keep their iron levels high. [laughter] >> you almost talked about how to keep that diet balance. how does the public keep that balance? >> i am not sure of the date of that quote, but he was making references to the 1919 -- to the 1992 era.

which to the media is ancient history. i was doing some comparison this morning between the major sources of news using a people, which has been run consistently since 2000. and i ran a comparison between 2004 and 2012, the latest poll that came out. it is so unbelievably different as for where we get our news. we do not tend to get from network anymore. we get it from cable. but even cable has leveled out. fox tends to dominate the cable market. although cnn is close and itmsnc has improved.

talk radio still has about 15%. talk radio was really being born in the 1990's. today, it is so dense out there and so prolific that, when i --e up in the morning sometimes i help on ballot issues -- what i am worried about is the incredible array of news sources that i have to manage. in a campaign in 2012, you will spend -- historically, we spent 70% of our money on tv advertising. in the campaign this year, you would spend more than a few thousand, probably a few hundreds of thousands of dollars on social media. so we would be thinking about the website and making sure that it has video up every day and multiple videos. are we on top of the facebook

and how do we have our twitters out there? are we making sure that the candidates are making mistakes at events? it will be on line and go viral and about two seconds. the massive media in terms of what cargo was thinking about, it is just the management point of view. today, you wake up in the morning and you think about how to control this incredible onslaught of exposure that you will have, your candidate, or your cause. there are some opportunities, but there are tremendous challenges. particularly at the national level, you will see a story being driven particularly on the presidential level, which, unless you're able to analyze it correctly and resisted, you are

overwhelmed by it and that becomes the story. election night in michigan, it was -- one of my things i do that channel 9 -- i mentioned that -- you think these channels want to be first. absolutely. they want me first. they want me to announce who will win because that drives our entire news that evening. so i spend a lot of time thinking about that. i was watching in michigan. there was absolutely no doubt that they could have announced michigan at 7:30 p.m. at night when 65% of the boats were in and they have a 35-revote spread. but the decision desk had not decided. either they were incredibly cautious or they preferred having a story saying that it was a horse race when it was no longer a worse race. do you ever shatter tv and say,

oh, god, that is the stupidest thing i have ever heard? i shouted at my tv that night. [laughter] >> susie, just the other day, made a comment about my shouting at the streaming in the computer. i had to turn it off and leave the room. you feed the same thing over and over because you know that is all you'll get, that little buzz. it is interesting what fred was talking about. i had a chance during the road show that was the republican debate to go up to the sioux city i would -- sioux city, iowa debate. it was the first, had been in a room for one of those. most of the reporters were not in the debate hall. maybe like the n.c.a.a. tournament, but the time needed

to the championship level, the first four rows are these desk with reporters. it is not like that. they're all in another room someplace. no one is in the debate called accept a photographer or the network that is broadcasting the debate. so i ended up in this room with 50 of the reporters and it is work. you go from that room and talk to somebody other than a flak or another reporter. the title of this, as john mentioned, is the spin room. that is nothing more than the candidates flak standing around and answering questions like what did he mean by this? what do you think the effect of him having said this was? they are not stupid. well, some of them are.

but these are professionals who have been in the business for a long time and know perfectly well that when a attacks b, what will be reported is that a attacks b for this reason. in terms of the caution, john had also referred to colorado as potentially the florida two thousand. in which case, will come to dade county because this is where all the votes are. this area is really where the overwhelming number of the votes are. you will see that pack mentality. if something like that, god forbid, happens and it comes down to whether or not this precinct in denver had their votes counted properly, god help us all. they are fully run elections.

but because of the media circus, i am absolutely persuaded that the reluctance to call michigan is a direct result to what happened in the florida panhandle in 2000 when there were so eager to get that story out that it ended at discouraging maybe 10,000 voters from casting their ballots that day. i think there's a sense that you do not want to be the one who the paper trail leads back to you having call somebody an election because you could not keep your trap shut for five minutes. >> thank you. >> let me flip this from a different perspective. floyd said you have to be an aggressive consumer of information news. i'm always telling my listeners that i want them to become discerning concerns of news and information. from the content critter of my

show, it has now become -- content creator of russia, it has now become -- i have television monitors in all in front of me at the same time. so as i'm doing my program and show prep, i'm trying to do a mixture of things. and during the show, i'm doing a mixture of conversations. people are tweeting me, we're having a conversation and debate on facebook. and i'm monitoring the twitter line and everything else to see what the hot topics are. because i want to be able to jump -- change on the fly. because don't want the spinach all the time. it may come as a shock to the politicos in the room. but guess what? politics does not consume everyone's life 24-7. they get to a point where they really don't give a rat's behind about politics. and i'll give you an example. last night, i did almost two

hours on this whole issue of contraception and birth control. and tried to get people to think about it not in terms of ideology but to think about it in terms of why is this even an issue? where did it start? how did we get to where we are? and we had a fairly good debate going along for two hours. in the last hour, a friend of mine from seattle had called. a couple of days ago. griping about -- and i'll use the term, the phrase here, it was comcast. and he was mad about comcast because he -- they couldn't fit their schedule to fit his schedule. they really didn't care about having him as a customer so they're never going to meet together. and ironically, yesterday, there was an article in "the wall street journal," would you wait for hours for a friend who was supposed to meet you for dinner? well, no, none of us would. and so i asked that question on the program last night. and said so why do we wait for hours for comcast or anybody else?

fwoom. that hit a nerve with people. they had spent an hour and a half to two hours talking about politics and contraception. can we just do something that really affects us for a while? because they don't see this other stuff affecting them. so i think that we have to become more discerning consumers of news. and understand that those people out there, whether you are a spin meister for a candidate or a ballot issue or whatever, james is right about that. they don't always care about what you're trying to feed then. so you need to be aware of what it is they want. and if you're a provider of -- a talk show host a. candidate or whatever it is, you need to provide that to them if you want to be successful. >> one last question that has to do with this topic and i want to get into some of the questions from the audience. the topics of earned media, paid media and social media. some of you have touched on are a part of this spinning. and i think floyd talked about it. and used some of the vame verbiage we've heard in the previous panels in about being

a million pieces of this news. do you see those different formats as having a particular spin, more of a spin, less of a spin? what's more credible for us as voters to look at? >> michael, we'll start with you and go back down the line. >> ig back to from the -- goy back to from the -- i go back to from the person's perspective as a consumer you have to consume all of it. you have to control how it comes into your life. so i have, for example, my twitter feed has different lists. so that if i'm interested in the left wing perspective, i've got that list i look at. if i want the right wing perspective, i have that list. the same thing with facebook. i have like four facebook accounts. one that i try to keep personal, but the rest of them are -- it gives me feed jaek from all different areas. -- feedback from all different areas. so we have to learn if you try to get earned media, you have

to realize that like for me as a guy that you're trying to give earned media from, one, you got to catch my attention. and you've got to convince me that what you want me to tack about -- to talk about is going to be interesting to my consumers and the people who are interested in listening to what i had to say about stuff. it's a two-way street. you've got to walk that street constantly to make it effective. >> joshua. >> i think there's a collective credibility that comes with looking at all the different sources. rather than necessarily one. individual sources being more credible. obviously somebody is just out and out lying, they're not credible. but there's -- the whole notion of wisdom of crowds or what chuck was saying that all of our readers are smarter than we are. and i think that's -- that's true. collectively, people know a lot more than any one individual source does. what can become very difficult is breaking through that individual narrative or that -- rather that collective

narrative, some individual who is willing to think about an issue critically. and that can be very hard to do. and the only way you can do that is by having a variety of sources. michael himself is a victim of this right after katrina. and he knows perfectly well that's true. one of the best articles that nobody's ever read -- not nobody, but one of the best articles that people have only read, iniesta-pundit linked to it, a popular mechanics article of all things that said everything you know about katrina is wrong. and it went through about 10 or 15 bullet points of things that had been cemented in your mind in the first 10 to 15 hours after the event that were just completely wrong. or 75% wrong. and had a significant other part of that story. the only way you find that out is if you're going to an aggregator or somebody like somebody who microblogs like that. but if you had -- there's a great tool that i don't know if enough people really use. google reader or any of those readers where you can aggregate

feeds and get a bunch of different sources and see the headlines. and you can go through, not reading thousands of articles a day, you're reading a couple of dozen articles a day. but you're seeing the headlines and able it keep track of different perspectives on these stories. that's really the only way i think that you break through those kinds of -- that kind of collective narrative that sets in and hardens much more quickly than we like to admit. >> all three of them, that you listed, earned paid and social and social being very, very new. but becoming very potent, have been extremely influential. and i tend to look at credibility. is it having an impact in this presidential race thus far? you have seen the -- the base, commented on, having huge impact in the polls. and in that sense of momentum afterward. debate events, the interaction

between the candidates and by and large, both south carolina and florida were sort of dominated by those debates. and the -- romney doing well in arizona was interpreted. and potentially did have a positive impact. obviously, advertisement is. because without advertisement, no doubt mr. romney wouldn't be the frontrunner today. he has changed this race several times by extensive negative advertising and in particular when he was in trouble and behind florida for example. and michigan most recently where he turned that race around. so paid media has had a lot, earned media coming out of those debates. and social media. as you know, we just had a death yesterday of one of the social media experts, but i look at drudge every day. i look at the various people that are out there, including huffington. and the left in terms of what

they are putting up and what are they driving as the story of the day. i think all three. them have been incredibly powerful. i was responsible for a spin in colorado. which argued that i wasn't at fault. but i was partially responsible. and that is that my position coming into that race of romney here during the caucuses was that he was the frontrunner and should win. he had won before. we had one little dimpingy poll here, one of those -- deafeningy poll here, one of those robo bols that claimed he was the frontrunner, one person got more and a lot of other people were a lot closer than that poll indicated. and then that became the linchpin of the story. because of all that expectation. if we had had 10 polls here, prior to that, as there have been in michigan, i think we would have probably reported that first of all, it was getting very close. and we probably would have caught the fact -- and we roughly did through anecdote that rick santorum was surging

ahead. and that would have probably changed that storyline. but that became the huge story that broke at that election and sort of overwhelmed the rest of it. and rick san storm quite well for a week sore he -- a week or so. so that was my eye on the news that night. being -- and by 8:00 or so, i could see what was going on. in colorado. because the data was coming in. but up to that point, including on k.o.a., earlier interviews, i went with sort of the romney expected to win colorado. if not handily, win nonetheless. >> heard a couple of comments. >> earned media is the hardest to get. and for many ways, it's losing its authority now. reporters are harder to con -- convince that something is newsworthy and harder to maybe explain it to. and they don't really see the

value of trying to explain it to their raredship. paid media, oh, my god. it's way out of hand. i think the citizens united decision has -- well, we haven't seen the beginning of that yet. i'm going to leave the country in october. because i figure it just going to be hellish. yeah, right. and i think this is one area in which the earned media, the mainstream media, can do a better job of fact checking. that's one of the most valuable services that is performed by the regular media now is to -- but of course, when it's like a glass of water against a fire hydrant. you run one fact check story on the evening news. and there are 50 ads on the same newscast. social media obviously. i like to compare what's happening there to, well, bad

drivers. i think i was taught, actually taught this. you don't need to signal a turn until you are actually turning. because you might give people the impression if you signal too early that you're all of a sudden going to turn. well, you know, that's bad. that's not good. i want to know what's going to happen. i want you to tell me that you're going to turn. i don't want to be caught behind you in -- on a two-lane street and all of a sudden you turn on your turn signal when the light turns. no. that's not at all hospitalful to -- at all helpful to me. i want to know beforehand. people immediate more information than affirmation but they're looking for affirmation. >> i hate to interrupt you for a second but i -- a time crunch and one question. and a great group of people to ask questions about this idea of spin. so questions from the floor.

all right. go ahead and stand up and introduce yourself. >> hi. i'm erin shields. i'm a senior here at t.c.u. and i'm very nervous to ask a question because i've never asked before. so i wrote it down. anyway, so through these panels, i've continued to hear passing mention about education. and in our conversation this panel, on this panel about spin , i wanted to ask you about the media and society's spin on education. it seems to me that the media treats education, particularly public education, as sort of like sacred ground of angelic teachers and administrators that are themselves incapable of holding bias, let alone show that bias to their students.

and earlier -- in an earlier panel, i believe his name was ken, mentioned that the college educated tend to lean to the left. and i would argue that i have experienced in my on public education teachers all but laughing in my face for beliefs that i hold or exploring that tend to lean right. as well as friends that feel the need to hide in conservative -- their conservative views in schools like c.u. boulder. fearing their grades. all this to say i wanted to ask you what is educational -- what is -- or how is educational spin portrayed as ok or even appropriate? and what do you see as media spin on education? because i feel that it is largely ignored or praised. >> thank you.

who wants to take the first shot at it? >> well, i tend to agree that there's a lot of liberal spin to education. i tend to be a liberal. and i teach. so i try to keep it out of my teaching as much as possible. i try to be impartial. but i would offer the example of -- not -- left wing professors do sometimes get in trouble. and i would mention ward churchill. as an example. i would say -- thinking about k-12, which there is -- there is always been a strong fondness of the importance of education and we all sort of like our teachers and think it's an important profession. and have been supportive. and historically have backed tax increases and what have you. i would argue in the last decade that has really changed. and that by and large, we are getting both stories and

politics, that is much more conflicted at the k-12 level, much stronger understanding of the importance of choice, the importance of evaluation of teachers, of maybe getting children are doing as part of the compensation schedules and not just seniority related to teachers. just a host of things that i have, i think, personally, opened it up and so if you look at denver elections, for example, and as far as their schools go, you're in a whole definite place than you were 15 or 20 years ago. and douglas county which is a very good school district in general. they are debating vouchers. my sense if you look around the country of some of the larger school districts, we're getting much better debate. and sometimes gets to the content. because you were specifically speaking about the classroom environment. and sometimes gets to that.

but it especially gets to how those schools are being run. whether they're actually producing children that are being educated, whether they are costing and wouldn't they be better if there was at least 50% of the schools out there were praoist or choice schools? i think that's beginning to be a serious debate in this country. and that's new from my point of view. >> going back to what ken gordon said in the earlier panel that you were referring to where he said that people who have been to college tend to lean left. therefore, rick santorum says that people shouldn't go to college. that's a perfect example of spin right there. and we should -- should give ken props for anticipating our panel in doing such a good job. i want to take a little bit, rather than just looking at k-12 and look a little bit at higher ed. there is i think a growing new media and to some degree social

media theme of the notion of a higher ed bubble. that is, people paying too much for what they're getting out of higher ed. and not just in a dollars and sense terms of what they will be expected to earn over their lifetimes. but are they being asked to go into such debt and burden themselves during their low-earning years with student debt for something that may or may not ultimately economically benefit them as much as is being advertised. obviously, that's -- critical thinking skills are important. i don't want to sit here at a university and then be talking down the value of higher ed. >> thank you. [laughter] >> but i think it's a reasonable question to ask whether or not the money that's -- and this is something that you -- that you get if you go to the c.u. site, for instance. it's very easy to find where the money's coming from. if you try to figure out where the money's going to, good luck. and that -- that tends to be

where the money is being spent, how the money is being spent. especially at public universities. which often rely on tax dollars to a large degree. is, i think, an under-- certainly underexplored topic. >> i want to get misme's comments. -- michael's comments. >> i'll be quick because i can see john is about to have a heart attack. >> he is. [laughter] education has succumbed to political correctness. and the soft tyranny of language. investments. in education. investments in this and that. i want to scream when i hear the word "investments" used. let's call it what it is. spending. >> we thank the brown brothers, fred and mike. joshua and floyd, no relation -- a true no-spin zone. you've been in the presence of a true no spin zone. we thank the panel very much.

[applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> next, president's remarks on jobs and the economy. after that, a discussion on how the media's covering the economy and politics. then a forum on news media coverage of the 2012 campaign. >> congratulations to all this year's winners of c-span student cam video documentary competition. a record number of middle and high school students entered a video on the theme the constitution and you. showing which part of the constitution is important to them. go to studentm.a.c.org and we show the top 27 videos on c-span. and we'll talk with the westerns during "washington journal." -- with the winners during

"washington journal." >> i believe it is yet possible that we will come to admire this country not simply because we were born here. but because of the kind of great and good land that you and i want it to be and that together we have made it. that is my hope. that is my reason for seeking the presidency of the united states. >> as candidates campaign for president this year, we look back at 14 men who ran for the office and lost. go to our web site. cspan.org/contenders to see video of the contenders who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> the leadership of this nation has a clear and immediate challenge to go to work effectively and go to work immediately to restore proper respect for law and order in this land. and not just prior to election day, either. >> cspan.org/thecontenders. now, president obama talks about a new manufacturing initiative to help american companies become more

competitive. he spoke at a rolls-royce plant in prince george county, virginia, about creating new manufacturing hubs for taking ideas from the lab and moving them quickly to market. this visit comes on the heels of the labor department report that says 227,000 jobs were created in february. as the unemployment rate remains steady at 8.3%. this event is about half an hour.

[no audio] ♪ [cheers and applause] >> hello, virginia. thank you so much. thank you, everybody. wow, what an unbelievable crowd. everybody, please have a seat. if you have one. [laughter]

well, thank you, james, for that rousing introduction and let me hang out a little bit with your workers. we've got a few other folks i want to acknowledge. the governor of the great commonwealth of virginia, bob macdonald, is here. [applause] outstanding congressman, bobby scott, is in the house. [applause] we got your mayor, brian moore. [applause] and i want to very much say thank you to our outstanding secretary of commerce, secretary bryson, who was here and he's doing great work trying to create jobs and investment and opportunity all across the country. [applause] it is great to be back in petersburg. last time i was here was during

the campaign. i had my bus pull over so i could get a cheese burger. at long street's deli. [cheers] you guys have eaten there. some of you may think this violates michelle's "let's move" program. [laughter] but she gives me pass when it comes to a good burger. and fries. now, back then, in 2008, we were talking about how working americans were already having a tough go of it. folks were working harder and longer for less. it was getting tougher to afford health care or to send your kids to college. the economy was already shedding jobs. and in less than a decade, nearly one in three manufacturing jobs had

vanished. then the bottom fell out of the economy. and things got that much tougher. we were losing 700,000 to 800,000 jobs a month. the economy was hemorrhaging. and 3 1/2 years later, we're still recovering from the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes. and we've got a lot of work to do before everybody who wants a good job can find one. before middle class folks regain that sense of security that had been slipping away even before the recession hit. and before towns like petersburg get fully back on their feet. but here's the good news. over the past two years, our businesses have added nearly four million new jobs.

[applause] we just found out that last month, in february, we added 233,000 private sector jobs. [applause] more companies are bringing jobs back and investing in america. and manufacturing is adding jobs for the first time since the 1990's. [applause] we just had another good month last month in terms of adding manufacturing jobs. and this facility is part of the evidence of what's going on all across the country. this company is about to hire more than 200 new workers, 140 of them right here in petersburg, virginia.

[applause] so the economy is getting stronger. and when i come to places like this, and i see the work that's being done, it gives me confidence there are better days ahead. i know it because i would bet on american workers and american know-how any day of the week. the key now, our job now, is to keep this economic engine churning. we can't go back to the same policies that got us into this mess. we can't go back to an economy that was weakened by outsourcing and bad debt and phony financial profits. we've got to have an economy that's built to last. and that starts with american manufacturing. it starts with you.

[applause] for generations of americans, manufacturing has been the ticket into the middle class. every day, millions clocked in at foundries and on assembly lines. making things. and the stuff we made, steel, and cars, and jet engines, that was the stuff that made america what it is. it was understood around the world. the work was hard, but the jobs were good. they paid enough to own a home and raise kids and send them to college. gave you enough to retire on with dignity and respect. there were jobs that told us something more important than how much we were worth, they told us what we were worth. they told us that we were

building more than just products. they told us we were building communities and neighborhoods. we were building a country. it gave people pride. about what america was about. and that's why one of the first decisions i made as president was to stand by manufacturing. to stand by the american auto industry when it was on the brink of collapse. [applause] the heartbeat of american manufacturing was at stake. and so were more than a million jobs. and today, the american auto industry is coming back. and g.m. is number one in the world again. and ford is investing billions in american plants and factories. [applause] and together, over the past 2 1/2 years, the entire auto industry has added more than 200,000 jobs. and here is the thing.

they're not just building cars again. they're building better cars. for the first time in three decades, we raised fuel standards in this country. so that by the middle of the next decade, the cars that are built in america will average nearly 55 miles to the gallon.tl family about $8,000 at the pump overtime. that is real savings. that is real money. and it shows that, depending -- and it shows that depending on foreign oil does not have to be our future. it shows that when we harness their own ingenuity, our technology, we can control our future. america thrives when we build things better than the rest of the world. i want to make stuff here and

sell it over there. i want stuff made over there and selling it over here. [applause] that is exactly what you're doing here at the largest rolls- royce facility in the world. that is what you are doing by building the key components of newer, faster, more fuel- efficient jet engines. i just took a tour and i learned a bit about how a jet engine comes together. don't quiz me on it. [laughter] i am a little fuzzy on some of the details. i did press some buttons back there. [laughter] but a few weeks ago, i actually got to see the finished product. i went to boeing in washington state and i checked out a new dream liner. i even got to sit in the cockpit, which was pretty sweet appeared i did not press any buttons there though.

[laughter] because if it has started going, there would have been a problem. [laughter] so this airplane will keep america at the cutting edge of aerospace technology. american workers are manufacturing various components for it in ohio, oklahoma, south carolina, kansas, and right here in petersburg. the demand for their airplanes was so high last year that boeing had to hire 13,000 workers all across america just to keep up. and boeing is gaining more and more share all the time. so think about that. rolls royce is choosing to invest in america. you are creating jobs here, manufacturing components for jet engines for airplanes we will send all around the world. that is the kind of business cycle we want to see. not buying stuff that is made

someplace else and racking up a debt, but by inventing things and building things and selling them all around the world stamped with three proud words -- made in america. applause]nd made in america. think about how important this is. imagine if their plan of the future was built someplace else. imagine if we had given up on the auto industry. imagine if we had settled for a lesser future. but we didn't. we are americans. we are inventors. we are builders. we're thomas edison and the wright brothers and steven jobs. that is who we are. that is what we do. we invent stuff. we build it. and pretty soon the entire world

adapts. that is who we are. and as long as i am president, we will keep on doing it. we will make sure that the next generation of life-changing products are indented and manufactured here in the united states of america. [cheers and applause] that is why we lost an all- hands-on-deck effort for the brightest academic mines, the boldest business leaders, the most dedicated public servants from our science and technology agency's, all with one big bowl, a renaissance in american manufacturing. we called it the advanced manufacturing partnership -- did against manufacturing partnership. and today, we are building on it. i lay laying it -- i am

laying out my new plans for manufacturing innovation. this will be institutes of manufacturing excellence for most of our advanced engineering schools and our most innovative manufacturers collaborate on new ideas, new technology, new methods, new processes. and if this sounds familiar is because what you are -- because it is what you're about to do. it is a partnership between manufacturers, including this one, you va, virginia tech, virginia state university -- [cheers and applause] vsu is a little over represented, obviously. [laughter] the commonwealth and the federal government. so think of this as a place

where companies can share access to cutting edge capabilities. at the same time, students and workers are picking up new skills. they are training on state-of- the-art equipment. they are solving some of the most important challenges facing our manufacturers. you just got all this brain power and experience coming together in this hub. that makes the whole greater than the sum of its parts. it allows a robotic to learn from each other and figure out how we will do everything better. it will help get the next great idea from a paper or a computer to the lab to the factory to the global marketplace. and that is especially important for the one in three americans in manufacturing who work for small business that does not always have access to

resources like these. the big companies, boeing, intel, rolls royce, they have the resources, the capital to be able to create these platforms. but some of these smaller and medium-sized businesses, it is harder. this gives them access and allows them to take part in this new renaissance of american inventiveness. and we have to build these institutes all across the country -- all across the country. i want it everywhere. to do that, we need congress to act. hm. [laughter] [cheers and applause] [laughter] [laughter] it's true.

but, that does not mean we have to hold our breath. we will not wait. we will go at it on our own. later this year, we will choose the winner for the competition of a pilot institute for manufacturing innovation. with that public employes, we will keep pushing congress to do the right thing because this the kind of approach that can succeed. but we have to have this all across the country. i want everybody thinking about how we are making the best product, how we are harnessing the new ideas, and making sure they are located here in the united states. and sparking this network of innovation across the country, it will create jobs and it will keep america in the manufacturing game. of course, there's more we can do to seize this moment of opportunity, to create new jobs in manufacturing here in america. we have to do everything we can to encourage more companies to make the decision to invest in america and bring jobs back from

overseas. we're starting to see companies do that. they're starting to realize this is the place with the best workers, the best ideas, the best universities. this is the place to be. [applause] we have to give them a little more encouragement. right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. companies that choose to invest in america get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. does that make any sense? it makes no sense. everybody knows this. it is time to stop rewarding businesses that ship businesses overseas. reward businesses that create good jobs right here in the united states of america. that is how our tax code should work. at the same time, we have to do everything we can to make sure our kids get an education that

gives them every chance to succeed. i have been told that the last year's delegatory at petersburg evans, she saida that her gown was the best down that anybody could hang in their closet. i like that. let's make sure that students like her have teachers that bring a the best of them. let's make sure that they want to go to college that their families can afford for them to go to college. [applause] and let's make sure all of our workers have the skills that companies like this one are looking for. we have to have folks in gates' -- havelong learning -- i

folks engaged in lifelong learning. some folks here have been in the industry. deb and machinists. they have been in manufacturing for years, but they're constantly upgrading their skills and retraining. some of them have been laid off and have gone back to school before they came to this company. we have to make sure those opportunities for people in mid- career and onward can constantly go back to a community college and retool so they can make sure they're qualified for the jobs of tomorrow. at a time when so many americans are looking for work, no job openings should go unfilled just because people did not have an opportunity to get the training they needed. and that is why i have asked congress to join me in a national commitment to train two million americans with the skills that will lead directly

to a job right now. [cheers and applause] we need to create more partnerships like the one this plant has with john tyler community college. [applause] we should give more community colleges the resources they need. i want to be community career centers, places that teach people skills that companies are looking for right now, from data management to the type of high- tech manufacturing that is being done at this facility. so day-by-day, we are restoring the economy from crisis. but we cannot stop there. we have to make this economy ready for tomorrow. day-by-day, we are creating new jobs, but we cannot stop there. not until everybody is out there pounding the pavement, sending up their resumes, and has a

chance to land one of those jobs. every day, we are producing more oil and gas then we had in years. but we cannot stop there. i want our business is to lead the world in clean energy, too. we have the best colleges and universities in the world, but we cannot stop there. i want to make sure more of our students can afford to go to those colleges and universities. [applause] everybody knows we have the best workers on earth. but we cannot stop there. we have to make sure the middle class does not just survive these times. we want them to thrive. we want them to dream big dreams and feel confident about the future. i did not run for this office just to get back to where we were.

[applause] i ran for this office to get us to where we need to be. [cheers and applause] and i promise you we will get there. [cheers and applause] some of these challenges may take a year to some may take one term. some may take a second. but we will get there. because when we work together, we know what we are capable of. we have the tools. we have the know-how. we have the toughness to overcome any obstacle. and when we come together and combine our creativity and optimism and willingness to work hard and if we are harnessing our brainpower, and manpower, hp, i promise you we will thrive again. we will get to where we need to go and we will leave behind an economy that is built to last. we will make this another american century. thank you. god bless you. god bless the united states of america.

[cheers and applause] ♪

>> next a discussion on how the media is covering the economy and politics. the coverage on the 2012

campaign. after that, legal challenges around the country to redistricting. tomorrow on washington journal, a look at the latest unemployment figures. and american university law professor looks at how of the has been hijacked 1917 has been used by the government and what happened to those brought to trial under that law. washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> fired j. edgar hoover? i do not think the president could have gotten away with it. >> tim weiner details the fbi's 100-year hidden history and j. edgar hoover's fight against terrorists, spies, and subversive spirit >> hoover

stands alone like a statue encased in crime. as one of the most powerful men who served in washington in the 20th-century. 11 presidents, 48 years, from woodrow wilson to richard nixon, there is no one like him. and a great deal of what we know or we think we know about j. edgar hoover is myth, legend. >> tim weiner on enemies, a history of the fbi, sending night at 8:00 p.m. on c-span boss q&a. >> i believe that it is possible that we will come to admirer this country not simply because we were born here. but because this is the kind of great and good land that you and i wanted to be and that together we have made it. that is my goal. that is my reason for seeking the presidency of the united

states. >> as candidates campaign for president this year, we look back at 40 man who ran for office and lost. go to our website to see video of the contenders who had a lasting impact on american politics. >> the leadership of this nation has a clear and immediate challenge to roe -- to go to work effectively ending really to restore proper respect for law and order in this land and not just prior to election day either. >> now a look at media coverage of economic issues during the 2012 presidential campaign. colorado christian university centennial institute held a one- day conference in early march focusing on the media's role in politics. this portion of the conference includes the denver post politics editor as well as an economist and the head of a colorado fiscal policy institute. this is 45 minutes.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] our aim today is to provoke thought and discussion. the moderator of the next panel is another of our co-directors. he has authored books. he has covered the cable industry. he has been business editor of the denver post. he has most recently launched an organization and nonprofit called citizen media that is exploring new media, technologies, and approaches. we're very glad now to have the moderator of the next panel, our friend, stephen keating. >> we will start by having the

panelists introduced themselves. we will have a good discussion and then we will open to questions. if we are ready to go, we will start with truck plunkett -- with chuck plunkett and then we will go down the panel. as john mentioned, the title of the panel is economic -- is has economic illiteracy poisoned political journalism? we will discuss the media coverage of economics, particularly in the context of the 2012 presidential campaign. it is clear that economic issues are on the top of the mind of the candidates. we are ready? maybe we will start with buried instead of chalk. and do an introduction.

>> i am a professor of economics at the university of colorado, retired. what i would like to talk about today is an issue where i think that the media has gone astray. that is the issue of fairness. basically, president obama has put fairness at the center of his campaign and his argument is very straightforward. basically, his argument is that income distribution in this country has become more unequal. the wealthy are not paying their fair share taxes. we need to raise taxes on the upper income groups and redistribute that income to lower income groups and that will create job opportunities and upward mobility for the low income families. before we jump on this fairness bandwagon, there are several questions that need to be addressed. first of all, what has happened to income inequality in this country? i like to put this in a long- term perspective.

over the last century, the highest and equality in this country was in the first few decades of the 20th century. then from about 1920 to the end of the second world war, there was a significant shift toward a much more equal distribution of income. then it modeled along at that level. then there is some increase in inequality during the rapid growth of the 1980's and 1990's. then it has been about the same since then. over the long haul, our country has experienced a much more equal distribution of income among income classes. >> if we could leave that as the executive summary, we will come back to the rest of your remarks and will just do an introduction. wayne, if you will continue. >> sure. i am the editorial page editor of "the visit" in colorado springs where we have -- of "the doesn't" in colorado

springs. -- of "the gazette" in colorado springs. i will keep this really short. the question -- is the media economically illiterate? -- having been in this field since 1985, i would say that is a resounding yes. i have been large news -- i have been at large newspapers, small newspapers, " newsweek magazine" which is largely left- leaning, and even at "soldier of fortune" were we were very able to hire -- where we were not very able to higher right of culture reporters. this idea that we live in a world of an economic zero sum game, that everything must be

redistributive because of a lack of understanding that things are created that plays up with right wing issues, immigration for instance, all sorts of rustling issues, like how many cars does mitt romney boss' wife has. for now, i will pass on to my left. >> i am the director of the colorado policy institute. it is on law and policy. we are a nonpartisan research and analysis organization. i am thrilled to be here today. if i can have 15 seconds to sum up my perspective on this -- as long as we are more concerned about catch phrases than we are about conversation, we will continue to have a situation where economics and principles of economics do not rule the

day in politics or in our everyday life. >> i am the political editor @ "the denver post." we call ourselves the politics of desk. i have been the politics editor since july. before that, i worked in other parts of the country, in the south, where i am from, and in western pennsylvania where i work at the -- where i worked at the pittsburgh tribune for a year. i have been at the post since 2003. there has been a dramatic downsizing in the amount of reporters and editors and dedicated journalists that we have. yet i will take a different tack today. so far, there has been a fair amount of hair pulling and bemoaning of the state of the media. i think it is a fairly exciting time.

these newspapers were so wealthy that newsrooms could take on a pretty insula air. we're much more competitive now and we have to be much more nimble just to protect our jobs, too make sure -- to make sure that we are worth having around. and news media brings your voices in and brings tons of other voices into the conversation. we are to be smarter. we have to be more able to interact with the broader conversation. we need to have a conversation and that conversation is taking place in a way that is far more profound than when i got into the business 15 years ago. in my interaction with people who are consumed with the news -- now, we like to use a term at "the denver post." our audience is so much braver

than we are. you have so many different backgrounds and so many different expertise, the kinds of things that no one reporter could bring to the table. and it is nice to have that conversation and to have that interaction. >> thank you. since the focus is media coverage of economics as it affects politics, i would like to recall for you a moment at the gop presidential debate in november with newt gingrich making this comment. "historically, this is the richest country in the world because corporations succeed in creating both profits and jobs. it is sad that the news media does not report accurately how the economy works." and the moderator response -- "what is the media reporting inaccurate about the economy?" newt gingrich says, " i have yet to see a reporter asked a

person on wall street the important question who is going to pay for the park your on if there are no businesses?" there is a conflict between media and politics around the economy. >> i think the very essence -- the very existence of the fact that a group of people who have a particular opinion have defined the entire discussion about economics as it relates to what is going on right now is what i mean i conversation vs catch phrase. nuance is what economics and the interaction, a bunch of actors in the system, is all about. that seems born to people. i loved the comment earlier about lima beans. i am loving farmer. what i do every day is due analysis of what is happening

with tax policy, what is happening with investments. from a perspective, no doubt about it, what drives the economy? those are not the kinds of things that are being reported by news outlets tremendously. i can always find it. if you want to know what the romney economic policy looks like, google 8. there's a lot of analysis being done. whether it is showing up in mainstream media, who knows? the point being that we all like it to be quick and easy. not complicated and nuanced. we view the world from our own individual lands, whetherather n through the system lends. the problem is that the economy is not driven by one particular strength, whether that is business or consumers. it is not simply about how low taxes are, but also about how

well we are educating folks to be more productive. we have to go back to a point where we have a conversation about complexity and that new wants. in a war -- and nuance. in a world where we're driven to consume in 140 characters, as i think all people on economic issues. more so in this presidential season than ever before. we have the opportunity to urge people out of that small catch phrase world and into a broader world of nuance and complication. i do think it is out there. it is out there anyway that it has never been before. so we have to drive people to it. i think it is out there. i think googling and reaching out into new media, i think going beyond the tv news format

-- >> would you like to jump in? >> i think the question of bias -- are the people in the media asking the right questions? and are they willing to pursue the answers to those questions even though it may conflict with their particular perspective? as i say, if i could talk briefly about the fairness issue, this is an issue where i think the media has given obama a pass. they don't ask the right questions. whether this is illiteracy, whether it is by is, i cannot answer that. but let me tell you the questions that i think should be answered and are very important in this election cycle. as i said, one question is what is the effect of the federal income tax on income distribution?

the fact is the federal income- tax results and a much more equal distribution of income. if you look at pretax income, it is more unequally distributed. if you look at post-tax income, it is more equally distributed. why is that? look at what has happened to the top federal income-tax rate over this long term perspective. we started out at the beginning of the 20th century with a 7% top rate. it went to 90% after the second world war. it was then reduced to about 50%. then during the reagan years, there was a significant reduction in the top rates, from 50% to 28%. the changes since then have been very modest. the question is what affect has this had on income distribution? you may forget that, when reagan reduce the top rate, he broadened the base. as a result, the distribution of

the post-tax distribution of income was significantly more equal after the reagan tax cut than before. another question that seems to be at the top of the media, the top 1%. obama argues that they are not paying their fair share. we need to raise taxes on the top 1%. if you look at the very income received by the top 1% during the 1980's and the 1990's, it increased dramatically. it about doubled. but to look at the share of taxes paid by 1%, that also doubled. the top 1% is paying double their share of taxes. that is the same today as it was 30 years ago. >> i will let way reflect on the media doing a good job explaining some of the issues that carol and perry have

pointed out. >> let's address by is quickly pared 95%, easily, of any major mainstream news room, a few pulled them, they would be liberal democrats voting for barack obama in the upcoming election. you have that going on. but most of these journalists are very good people who want to be fair. they do strive productivity. they believe that they achieve it. they will do that all day long. i work with them. i have my whole life. there is a lot of economic illiteracy and a lot of pressure by the audience. the audience wants simple conflict. that is what sells newspapers. that is what gets you hits on your web site. is what raises your clout score. if we have a media that use everything through a lens as a zero sum game and the audience perceives it that way, you have

great complex building in all the time. mitt romney's wife cannot have multiple cadillacs. that means she's wealthy. that means that she is wealthy on the back of someone else. that wealth came from someone who is poor, who is hurting. that is a perfect, but for any audience. we have one of the most controversial stories. it is one of the society page stories about a little girl who was having her sweet 16 party. it involved limousines and fancy hotel, catering and all of this stuff. and the audience went berserk. we had just entered the best of the recession and our readers want mad. she was spending $25,000 on the party. how many poor people could this feed? how many kids could be sent to a better school with this money? and we had to explain in the

editorial pages, look, she's hiring caters who need work, money to pay rent to landlords who need right. and on down the list. we explained that this person's father is well to because he started a chain of restaurants to employ this many people. when you start looking at things that we, you do not have the simple conflict that a rich person got rich at the expense of a poor person. author james robison, i have only read a few sections of this book, not the whole thing -- he has a new book called "indivisible." he has a beautiful way of describing this. he said that steve jobs and is very many rich employees did not get wealthy by stealing i pads from poor people. -- stealing ipads from poor people. [laughter] >> in 2010, you said this -- i

believe it was in the context of the tea party movement and their focus on fiscal conservatism. "my thesis is that you need to supply the intellectual architecture that makes the liberty movement experience matter or the experiment matter. two years on, can you reflect a little bit on what the budget on if the tea party and the movement have done that? >> i would love to take that on. the caveat is that, two years ago, i was a member of the editorial board and i had to write opinions in those days. i do not now. or when i'm in public am doing my job. we do strive to try to be as objective as possible and we do hope that we are hitting that goal. steven, i remember that remark and i remember being in the room

with a bunch of very excited and energetic and passionate folks who were thinkers, who were interested in dealing with things like the deficit and government spending. during that time, it even seemed more bipartisan. there were folks in the editorial board who were united in one group -- former clinton people, former bush people, economists talking about what we will do with the nation's debt because the trajectory is frightening. and the comfortable life in america will be endangered if you do not figure out how to get our arms around that issue. it is something that i have tried to think about carefully and it is something that i have tried to focus on as a journalist. so to answer your question, i do not think the tea party has done a very good job of providing the intellectual architecture for

that discussion. because the discussion is not taking place, even among the conservatives, from what i see. what i see in the debate and the protracted nomination context is a rather bizarre switch to social issues and some other did this of discussions. it is not all the tea parties fault. it is in the backing, in the lack of conversation in shrinking the government or shrinking the government's debt in a more fiscally conscious way. this whole discussion of the 1% vs. the 99%, there are only talking points and not getting a substantive discussion. when pointed out, it really is true that we often think that, if someone has a lot of money, that they have stolen it from somebody else.

in a democracy that depends on a free-market system, it would seem like that is an odd assumption to make. but it is a story line that it's repeated a lot. i should -- that is repeated a lot. i should probably shut up for a while. >> let's go to somebody who is not a agenda setter -- who is an agenda setter on the economy. that is president obama. the president delivered a state of the union address that was deeply saturated with the message of income inequality, a populist idea that the white house folks will resonate on the campaign trail, calling it "the defining issue of our time." obama made the case that americans now face the choice where a shrinking amount of people do really well and a society where every individual gets a fair shot. before you react to that, want to read you another piece that struck me at the time. i just cannot believe that there

had not been more reporting gone on or that i had missed it. this is a story right after the health care reform bill was signed. the headline is "in health care bill, obama attacks wealth inequality." and he writes a part "the pre- tax income of the wealthy has soared since the late 1970's while their tax rates have fallen more than the rate for the middle class and poor. nearly every major aspect in the house bill pushes in the other direction. this explains why mr. obama is willing to spend some of political capital on the issue even though it does not appear to be his top priority as a presidential candidate. behind the health care reforms effect on the mental health system, it is his effort to end what historians have called the age of reagan." do you think that is an accurate read on why the health care reform was at the top of the president's agenda? >> what he calls fairness is

policies that would significantly increase the tax burden on the upper income groups. the evidence that i talked about earlier, there is a copy of the paper available out there, basically, what has happened since the reagan tax reforms is that the share of income received by the upper income groups in the 1980's and 1990's doubled, but their tax burden double. we are about where we were before the reagan tax increase. as far as the obama policies, there is a fatal flaw in his tax proposal. his assumption is that you can significantly increase tax rates on the upper-income groups without affecting incentives. the so-called by federal, if you have an income between $1,000,000.1999999 dollars, -- $1 million a and $2 million, the

beaufort is 100%. -- the buffer is 100%. it is not just raising taxes on the very wealthy. take a look at the 1970's. obama says he wants to return our tax policies to the clinton years. in fact, these tax proposals would return us to the carter years in terms of the high tax base that would be imposed. you remember the carter years. less work, less earnings, less investment, less economic activity, less economic growth. the sad part of that story is that much of the burden not falls on the wealthy, but on the poor in the form of unemployment, lower-income. we do not want another decade of stagnation. >> carol, is that true? >> that we do not want another decade of stagnation.

i think that is true. were we have a difference of opinion is what gets us there. i find this to be very fascinating conversation because it has turned into that anyone who argues that we need to take a serious look at changing our tax structure is attacking the rich. i would fundamentally argue that is not the case at all. there are many people who suggest that we need to have additional public investment. when you look at real economic growth and real productivity enhancements in this country, they are often driven by investments in transportation infrastructures, investments in education, investment in things that actually drive productivity. often, those things are public investment, things that the private sector cannot do on its own because it is an economic system that requires common contribution.

i find it fascinating that we do not have a conversation about the value of what we buy together. the role that transportation plays in our economy, the role that education play is not just among the few that can afford it, but among everybody. i am not about attacking the rich. i am not about destroying the economy. i am not about undermining the market system. neither is the president and neither are most people who are trying to have this conversation. it needs to be a conversation about the relative strengths and values of public investment and the ability of individuals to maximize their own profits. and that is the conversation we need to have and that is the conversation i hope we can have. >> what with the media have to do to put the facts of the matter before the american people so that barry and carol

and others can debate the most significant policy choices? >> for the media to do that, they have to get into some pretty boring storytelling. unfortunate, they will not do that. fortunately, we live that time where the meeting is divided into a million little chunks and everybody has a little bit of control. i think that is very well for society. what obama is doing to the american people is the same thing that the media's doing to the american people, which is indulging this common misperception that wealth is cash. redistribution of that cash is the only way to achieve any sort of fairness. we will not produce anything. cash's produced by a government met and we must distribute it more fairly. as long as that is the mindset of the american public, that is what politicians will exploit and that is what the media will

exploit. whether intentionally or by rote. as far as health care goes, that is just part of the whole thing, part of the same thing. that is obama and anything who supports this health care redistribution, assuming that we can just take the existing stock of health care, which is doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, medicine, and distribute it to unlimited numbers of people and everybody will have plenty. nobody talks about the need for more health care, or to incentivize more people to become doctors and nurses, to build clinics, to start private practices and hospitals. that is how you distribute health care. but we do not talk that way because we are collectively in a redistributionist mindset. >> political coverage of the "metro daily "in denver, what is

the conversation in the newsroom on how you will cover economic issues as it affects the presidential campaign? >> one of the things we have been talking about quite a bit -- and i think it was brought up in the last panel -- is that we owe it to our readers to get away from only focusing on the politicians and to look at folks who have not made up their minds yet on who they will vote for, who are not in an ideological trend, but were trying to make up their minds to do is important to them and get their voices in the paper. as far as covering economic-type issues, it is a great question. again, i come back to -- a lot of today has been a hair polling or fire and brimstone mood. but this is the time to get information about a candidate and getting information about

his platform which is getting more difficult with a few clicks on line, you can get as much of mitt romney's tax plan is to care to read or as much of newt gingrich's plan and those ideas. it is difficult when you talk about the media in a broad brush perspective. at "the denver post" level, our reporters are focused on big government come on city hall. we have a reporter in b.c. who is in charge of keeping up with the congressional delegations appeared and the massive federal government in the central western states in various ways. we do not often have the luxury to cover presidential politics in the way that you're asking of

us. when barack obama comes to town, as he has done quite a bit late, because we are a swing state, we try very hard on our team to find out what his message will be, what the speech will be about and what the audience is being pitched to -- whether it is high school students from an impoverished part of the city or college students were dealing with a debt and a down economy where they're taking all loans so they can get a job and then it is hard to get a job when they get out of school. we try to do the horse race. we tried to cover it in such a way where, if you didn't get to go to the event, you still feel like you're there with our video offerings and are blogs and our tradintrading. -- and our tweeting. we try to say this is what the

president was saying, these of the politics, and this is whether or not he accomplished it. here's what he is really against. here are student loans explain in a way that you can understand. august jump inhe here and ask the panelists some questions. >> i am connelly smith. i got into the oil business because, years ago, i had this the idea that getting oil -- that getting value from the ground was something that did not offend anybody else. it was not at some the else's expense. it was a naively to do things.

-- i have been i leave -- it was nine either way to do things. there was a sagebrush -- it was a naive way to do things. what i like about the tea party movement is that they are a messy movement. they do not have an idealism that they can stay with. when you look at occupy wall street, i get the impression that, whatever else to say, the terror -- that they are basically saying the same thing, which means that it is not a true movement. it is a force fed propaganda. so you look at things in different ways. >> will there be a question for

the panelists? [laughter] >> in 1990, i debated with exxonmobil, flat tax versus the income tax system that we have. and i took the position that we were better off with the income tax system we have rather than a flat tax because all of the evil potential that was in the flat tax. the problem that has come today is something entirely different. the truth of the matter today is that the tax base today is only 30% of its members. only 30% of us are not met players. how did dress that we are about to erode our tax base in this country? >> that is a deep question. i will give the panel to state minute for a peace. >> in 1986, when reagan enacted

the reduction of 50% tib 28%, that would include a windfall for the state of colorado. they said we are interested in a flat tax. can you come up with a revenue- neutral flat tax for colorado? so we came up with 4.25% paired we met with the republican leadership. they said, >> and john said know. he took the high road. we do not need another tax increase in colorado. we were proven right. the affect of that 5% with color latta did capture some of the windfall. economics is boring -- colorado did capture some of the windfall. economics is boring. you need to understand what

happened. we created one of the best business taxes in the country and one of the highest rates of economic growth in the 1990's and a lot of that was the result of a more efficient tax system. and more equitable. that shifted the tax burden to the upper income group because we brought it the base and adopted a more generous standard. >> how do we do this in a way that is not more dismal? >> hell if i know. [laughter] >> in a perfect world, the media could tell some really great stories about rich people and the phenomenal things they do. we have a guy coming in down there in southern colorado. he put -- spent $50 million to

do this. if we could tell the story of this guy coming in and how many jobs he is going to create for people and if we could tell the stories of immigrants here illegally who are producing 20 times what they consume, then we can change the way things are in this country. >> i would love to hear those stories and the stories of the value of the investments -- what it means to have a robust public education that allows them to be more productive. i would love to hear those stories because i think all of this is in the middle. there is neither a wright nor a left that is right. -- right nor a left that is right. we have a system that is not individually driven. we need these stories to figure

out how it is that we all work for the best of all of us, not for the detriment of one group or another. >> we love to tell good stories. we endeavor to do that day in and day out. some days we get it out -- wright and some days the right boring stories. -- write boring stories. why is it that certain people who used to be considered on lenore's or creators of wealth, why did they find themselves in the hot seat? that is a great question. certain organizations in the media will handle it in different ways. we understand on some basic level that wealth is supposed to create wealth. we do not have an idea when we approach stories that if you are a millionaire use some county

did somebody else out of their money. >> another question. >> i'm a student here. my question goes to something that you said, carol. that we should invest more into public works. i am studying economics. government itself cannot produce anything, that is not its role. why should we invest in public works so that we can grow our economy? >> i think there is a point, as you go back -- when i sit on the panel with a ph.d. economist, i am always a little nervous to talk about my understanding and

the design of the system. but there comes a time even in the market structure, the design of a market economy, where there are efficiencies achieved not by individual producers by -- but by a collective production. transportation, education, national defense -- these are some of the places we have found historically that proves to be the case. those are the kinds of investments we are not making right now. i think the debate is what are those choices? what do we invest in together as opposed to being individual pursuits? but you cannot deny that even the designer of our market system says there are places where the market fails. and we need to have a response. that is the role for government. i think the political discussion is how big is that? what are those areas? that is the conversation i want

to have, not the conversation that happens in government are bad or that rich people are bad. that is where our political conversation is driving us. i did not think that gets us to the most important question of how we balance these things? how do we make it so that transportation is not the responsibility of the individual business? because it is a collective and shared values that we all benefit from and productivity therefore results. >> one more question in the front. >> we will do two questions if they are quick. >> i am also a student here and i heard occupy wall street mentioned a couple of times. i have a friend who is an investigative reporter who has talked to me about that. everything i have seen as far as the media goes towards them is not portrayed about how i talked

to him about that. the media, whether in wall street or the local one here, everything i see is not representative -- it seems it is not an intelligent representation of what the real people -- it is like everybody is jumping on the bandwagon. my -- in my mind, the media is portraying a different spin. i do not think the media is giving an accurate portrayal. i am skeptical, i guess. >> i think both the left and right to object to the media coverage of occupy wall street. >> we had our own version in occupy denver. it was a pretty vigorous one for a time.

there are two factions left. people who are not in the movement who are still sleeping on the sidewalk and those who are still organized thinking -- and regularly come forward and to organize protests to read i have been in the occupied them for camp and we have had several reporters spend huge amounts of time there during the peak. if you talk to 17 different people, you have 27 different positions. and not all of them quite add it up or went in a certain direction that you could easily characterize. it was very difficult. some people wanted to restore native lands to indians and some people wanted to deal with the environment. some people wanted to screw the rich man and redistribute the wealth or what have you. as a newspaper with only so many column inches available, we

spent a lot of ink and money on the protest. it is difficult to some of that up -- sum all of that up. i urge people to realize that this discussion gets overly simplified sometimes when you mention the idea of the media. there are those who, and those who report. we tried to report what the folks were doing, the police, the city officials. it is up to other people on the opinions sector of the media universe to talk about what it all means. because it was so amorphous, it easily lend itself to commentaries on both sides. this is an attack against the rich, or an attack against the poor. that's my 2 cents. >> thank you offer occupying this stage for the conference. the next panel will be up shortly. [applause]

>> now a discussion on the role the press on this presidential election. the centennial institute at colorado christian university recently held a seminar looking at how the media is covering and affecting the 2012 campaign. panelists include the colorado state republican chairman, the colorado state leader and political reporters. the moderator is a columnist jay ambrose. this is about 55 minutes. [applause] >> i would like to start my remarks by saying i really like to fire people. so you better watch out. i am saying that as a joke but it leads into something i really want to talk about.

i do not handle these things well. it leads into something i really want to be able to talk about today. i want our panel to discuss. thank you so much. but that remark was made, of course, by mitt romney in the context, a very clear and explicit and mistakable context and in the same sentence of being able to get rid of his insurance company -- his health insurance company that is serving you and you did not like. so what was the big deal? maybe some spoken words. but those remarks to got extraordinary publicity. sometimes, it was not until your deep into the story that you found out the context. i have an article right here with me in "the new york review of books" which is one of the country's most intellectual journals that is distributed and it does that give any of the context at all. just take this as an example of what a clot romney is. at the same time, what was the coverage got with his tax proposals?

if you were elected and try to put them into effect and they actually went into effect, they have enormous consequences for this country. either good or bad, i am not making a judgment here which, but that wasn't the really important. how many of you know what that tax package include in any detail at all and how many of you have heard "i really like being able to fire people"? when i was a reporter many years ago, at the knickerbocker news in new york, one of the three defunct newspapers i worked for and i plead innocent -- [laughter] there was a man who was a city editor and he was the editorial page editor. he liked to walk out of the news room occasionally and instruct us what we really ought to be up to.

one of the things you would say is that he had per to lowly noticed -- that he had noticed -- one of the things he would say is that he had noticed that you try to get people to understand the issue well enough to help them make a judgment -- not to make the final judgment -- but to help them make a judgment on whether this is a good thing or bad thing. it is not to sway people. it is to help them understand. ok. so i turn on cable news and get information about -- and i am talking about all three of them -- do i get much information about the issues? in what i get mostly?

-- you know what i get mostly? who will win in who will not. we all will find out, folks. we will find out. it is just a guess right now anyway. it is just a guess. what is this? or when you're talking about issues, you get sound bites. this is true of some newspapers, too. it is especially true of newspapers. there was a great journalist who wrote these wonderful books in the 1960's and 1970's about strategy and the strategy of politics. ever since he did this -- he was an exceptional reporter -- but so many reporters thought it their duty to do the same thing, to tell us about strategy. number one, they have no time to do it. he was writing books. he had the time to step back and look at it. i doubt very seriously that most of them had this knowledge and i am not putting down the reporters.

but he was an extra guy who knew tons and tons of stuff. -- he was an extraordinary guy who knew tons and tons of stuff. what they ought to be doing is talking to us about these issues. i hear "i do not want to be a stenographer." be a stenographer. tell me what they said. the panel will go into this in a lot more depth. i will let them introduce themselves. and i want our folks from politics to start out. introduce yourselves. tell a little bit about yourselves. and then begin to address this issue. then i will ask if you questions and then we will go to the audience. so you folks be thinking of some really tough questions. ok, go ahead. >> good morning. it is a pleasure to be with you. i am the state chairman for the

colorado republican party. before taking over this capacity in april of last year, i served as legal counsel for the state and -- the state republican party for six years and was active in while local county party serving as chairman of the denver county republican party. i appreciate the opportunity to talk about this panel. i was joking in little bit with the line that they put the media in the middle so the folks from the left and the right can be up on it. i thought that was probably appropriate to a degree. and distended from the conservative perspective, often the media does become a punching bag. i think there's a reason that there is frustration sometimes, both from the right and from the left with respect to the way news gets coverage -- gets covered today. some of it is the attention span of the audience. but i think that the media needs to take responsibility with respect to helping educate and inform.

the concept of the for the state and the role of the press, especially in the public square and in the context of politics and elections and democracy, it goes back long, long time. in fact, the whole notion of being able to identify the process before the state begins with edmund burke. in addressing his fellow members in parliament in 1787, the first time that the house of commons allowed reporters to come in and cover their debate, edmund burke noticed that there was the bishops, the nobility, and the comments, by which edmund burke was a member. he said there was a for the state "in the reporters' gallery yonder, more important by far than all of them."

i think understood that, if we're to have an educated and informed populace, if we want to be able to really embrace those notions of freedom of speech and freedom of expression, we need to have a press that lives up to those obligations as a fourth estate. there are a lot of press codes and journalistic ethics codes, literally hundreds of them out there. but they do center on the importance of impartiality, of fairness, of accuracy, and making sure that the story gets out. so i am thinking about what we would like to see and what the public deserves in the upcoming election. it really centers on the notion that it is not the role of the media to pronounce judgment, but, instead, to report and allow us to decide, as the phrases sometimes use over at fox. to get the story right, not always be so worried about getting it first, but get the story right and get that story in context. and don't forget about the big stars and the importance that the media has in educating the population on the weighty issues

that we face, both in the upcoming campaign as well as in the not too distant future. i look forward to your questions. >> my name is ken gordon. i ran for the legislature in 1992. that year, was the only person elected in either party in the state could did not accept campaign contributions from political action committees. i felt that financing campaigns from people who are trying to buy influence in the legislature was wrong, not democratic. so i did this thing and i walked door to door in a district held by the republicans. i am a democrat. but will people would take a position and i got a lot of votes from unaffiliated republican voters and took a seat that had been held by my party in quite some time.

and the legislature, was the minority leader in the house and became the majority leader in the senate. i served with senator andrews. when i got to the legislature, it occurred to me that it was even worse than i thought, the effect of special money and interest and the lack of participation by ordinary people. there were very conscientious about answer a phone calls from lobbyists or people who contribute lots of money and a conscientious about returning phone calls from voters. i even saw that the committee hearings when ordinary voters sometimes were not given a chance to testify. the committee chair would say we are -- is 5:00 and we're leaving. i don't care if their people in the audience who drove here from

the western slope. we are done for the day. i say this right now. i have watched this quite a bit in 1992 when i first ran. the amount of money spent in campaigns increases at the earth three times the rate of inflation. people become cynical or decide not to vote at all increases as the amount of money increases. the american people, to get to our topic for the day, are surprisingly ignorant about almost everything involving their government. i'm sure that john had this experience as well. they would see me at the grocery store and say, oh, are you back from washington? [laughter] they did not know the difference between a state legislature and the united states congress. they could not name their state legislator. when i was first elected minority leader in the house, i

was very proud of that, being elected by the other democrats and asked to be their leader. i took the entrance and staff and office to lunch. we went to a restaurant in the mall and there were about six of us. i said, before we get to the restaurant, i want everyone to arrest 25 people whether state rep is. when we got to the restaurant, we had talked to about maybe 120 people, something around 11 people were able to name a state rep. it was less than 10%. we got names of people who were obviously not in the state legislature. this is not just an amusing anecdote. this is the failure of democracy. this means that the people who are supposed to be running the country -- and a good citizen at the top of the pyramid in our government structure, higher than elected officials -- that they're not supervising the people that work for them.

therefore, by default, the people that work for them or for the people who are paying attention, who are the lobbyists and the special-interest groups. i just picked up "the denver post this morning -- "the denver post" this morning. i saw that the stores actually seemed to be relevant to the issues that they provided information. nevertheless, there is this tendency in the news media to go with the sensational. if it bleeds, it leads. ignorance of the american people, the lack of consciousness in their role in the system, can be blamed at least a part on the media and the media could do more to improve that.

i am pleased to be here on the panel today. i look forward to your questions. >> i am a reporter for the associated press in denver for state government. i have covered state government in other states. i have been in different parts of the country. this is one of my favorite topic to talk about. ap is a wire service so we are a news cooperative that serves thousands of newspapers and reduce stations and tv stations. it began in the mid-19th century. i just want to start with an avid doubt -- with an anecdote. house think -- i was thinking about this meeting. i was in the gym. there were dozens of people. they're brushing their teeth and combing their hair. and there was a story about the presidential race and the

republican presidential race. and there was is just in bieber engaged -- is justin bieber engaged? and everybody turned. its is an old conversation about what people should be interested in and how they should educate themselves before they go to the polls where what they are interested in is sometimes not where they should be. so i'm reallyhapp happy to be h. >> i spoke with a political reporter at fox 31 in denver. we have to stations under one roof. so we wear different hats. in terms of covering politics all local tv, it is not something that is done regularly on a daily basis by too many of our competitors.

there is reason for that. while i personally think that most journalists believe about the hallmarks of journalism and the idea of the fourth estate, it is a business. news is a business just like anything else. we have to make money. newspapers, radio stations, tv stations have to make money as well. so while the hallmarks of journalism, fairness and accuracy, being a stenographer, the things have not changed over the years despite changes in technology. the advent of cable and social network coming -- the advent of cable and social networking, etc. it is broadcasting in the broadest sense. i sit in meetings most days and i pitch stories about bills down at the state capital and i get a lot of our rules for people court tv producers who are trying -- i get a lot of eye rolls for people -- from producers who are trying to provide programming for people who have just been watching "american idol" for an hour.

that is something that i fight every day, to try and put a little bit of something a political courage or policy coverage -- not just the horse raid said -- not just the horse race and the way things might impact people so that we can in some way contribute to have a more informed and better educated population. a more simply engaged -- civically engaged population. i think that is important. just to the touch briefly on a couple of things that make things challenging, these days, politics and money.

money is tough in terms of stations that like to fact czech tv ads. now we have tv ads coming from -- fact check tv ads. no have tv ads coming from everywhere. they're not just as from campaigns. while it makes it harder for a campaign to control its own message, it is harder for the news media because we just get buried. there is a much messaging of there. and in the term -- and in terms of the way campaigns are run these days, take mitt romney for example, but pretty much every candidate, including the president, there is a reluctance to really engage reporters now. they will stand there on stage and they will give a speech and we can choose to be stenographers and write it down. there'se's not a -- but not much engagement. there's not much opportunity to ask questions. and when that happens, i think you get a press that romney held in a football stadium that was mostly empty.

this is when he talked about the trees being the right side and that his wife had two cadillacs. they hear the same speeches and the same platitudes for a while. it is easier for the media to focus on what is different. this was on a football stadium and it did not look very good in terms of the pictures because there was a 75,000-seat football stadium and there were one dozen people sitting on the floor. -- and there were 1000 people sitting on the floor. these are things that tend to bubble up to the surface these days because, when the candidates do not want to engage and run campaigns on television through super packs, it marginalizes what journalists can do. we have to fight harder to cover actual people, real people, as my boss would say. forget the politicians in the story. it's a real people in there. -- get some real people in

there. the more we are sort of disconnected and have less access to the process, think it is important for us to really put pressure on elected officials and candidates by at least accurately reporting the concerns and what is really important to the regular folks who are in our community. >> i read recently had pbs news -- i have not had a lot of respect for what they do come even though i do not like the government -- they have a motto that says there to be boring -- they have a lot of it says dare to be boring. let me bring the question regarding bias. there was a ucla professor who did a book called "left turn" that attempts to make a scientific judgment about the issue of bias.

i am suspicious of those, but i have to say he does a pretty good job of it. if you do not agree, you might want to read the book and find out what his arguments are. he thinks we often get the facts right, but the media -- that media news ellis get paid? right, but the message is interpreted in some anyways. -- the media news get the facts right, but the message is interpreted in so many ways. he ends up saying that, if the media -- and the media are -- i have been in this business for 45 years. i would say that 80% of the business is liberal. well, more liberal than not. i met someone who said that the behind-the-scenes people are probably 70% liberal.

one of the things he concludes -- then i will shut up and let you guys respond -- if the media had been balanced in the 2008 election, john mccain would be president today. among his calculations are that what is reported has consequences. it has consequences. it becomes the interpretation of reality for the people of this country, more so than the commentary. i am in the commentary business and we go crazy, too. but what is presented as factual news has enormous consequences. maybe this time, starting with you ryan and then going straight on across -- or if you want to argue with each other, that is fine, too. >> i would agree with you. the observations about day off

handed remark from met ronnie -- about the off handed remark from y taken so bad that of context and -- from mitt romney taken so bad and out of context -- much of the meat and substance, the details of the economic proposals are not being covered or very much in passing by the media. i think there is a huge disservice to our public who i believe -- and i would give the public in the more credit -- understands that there are serious issues facing this country and want to see serious and thoughtful bold proposals. i am sympathetic to the frustration that is sometimes felt by the media. they do not feel like the candidates or representatives are very accessible. it is because they're gun shy. there are burned. one offhand remark may be taken out of context and show up on twitter and blow up the universe.

it is hard. i do not know if i have the right answer on how to fix it. i think there may be some great opportunities to provide more backstreet and more context using multiple media outlets. one of the great things i have noticed elis coverage with fox and wb is that he will direct people to the website for links to the entire speech. they can get that information a little more unfiltered. >> whenever i am asked about media, i tell the story. in the state of georgia in 2000, there were 32 republicans to endorse the president.

28 endorsed george bush. for endorsed al gore. -- four endorse al gore. but of the people who receive a daily newspaper on their doorstep every day, more than half picked up a newspaper that endorsed al gore because the big newspapers tended to be from cities that had bigger circulations and that kind of thing. i think that is a been that goes not through just newspapers, but the -- is the vein that goes not through just newspapers, but other media. it can be kind of limiting to live in new york and l.a. for news consumers who feel that the media is biased or that movie and tv are biased. think about the world that it is coming from and where you are seeing it.

>> in many ways, is a matter perception. it is a reflection of a society that is ecologically split -- that is ideologically split. the president said that we are not red states and listed, but we are. if you travel to different parts of the state of colorado, you find different in garments and different ways of looking at the same thing -- different environments and different ways of looking at the same thing. when you work for a station that is fox news -- i worked for fox 31 denver. we're not really affiliated with the network. there is a blurring of those lines. that is fine. when people come up to us and say we love watching fox, you just say thank you. when democrats come up to you and say, we do not watch your station, you say, well, really, we are not affiliated with that network. [laughter]

obama was here for a town hall back in 2009 with the health care debate. this was out in grand junction. there was a rope going into the high school. all left all the people who supported the president with their signs and there were yelling. on the right were all the conservative people who had anti-health care and anti-obama signs. they were yelling at each other across the street. it was a great symbol. but for us to drive through the street with a jeep that's as fox 31, it was great. they were banging on our window and you feel like you will get beat up here and you get cheered from folks on the other side. it is an awkward thing for a journalist or anyone who covers this, to do so in an objective,

non-person, non-biased way. -- not as partisan, non-biased way. -- non-partisan, non-biased way. i get e-mails from people who say if it is typical fox news b.s. when they see our coverage and they think that we are "fair and balanced," meaning that we are skewed to the left. you try not to do that. you tried to cover both sides of the story. and sometimes it depends on the story. if we're telling the romney story, what he said and taking it out of context, we tried to at least say, look, we're not the ones taking this out of context. the obama people will take this out of context and that is why this is problematic. and it led -- and it lends itself to that character that he is a rich guy. it is fair to complain that we're not really doing our job. on the flip side, romney and the super packed up and obama quote out of context.

he was quoting john mccain. when he said if we talk about the economy, we lose. if we are going to take something like that that everybody is chattering about on twitter and is sort of rising to the surface and that is what people a ticking away from the speech, we do owe it to our audience to tell as complete a picture as possible in every case, regardless of whether we are focusing on the republican race or the president. >> i think this is interesting. the general proposition is that the media's too liberal. if that is the perception that somebody has, it probably indicates that they think the media is just to the left of them.

it may mean that they are on the right hand side and media is reporting something they don't like. i listen to radio stations that have commentators on them and it does not look like they are liberal media to me. i know there is media on both sides. but when i look at the press that bill clinton got or barack obama got, it does not look to me like the press is fawning over them. barack obama is basically, i believe, he stands accused in the media having destroyed the american economy. i think that is absurd. there are business cycles. we have always exaggerated the president's role however we are in a business cycle. i guess i will start by rejecting the proposition that we have a liberal media.

although i will say that maybe this is what mr. ambrose was referring to when he said that a large percentage of people in the media are liberal. i think the numbers are fairly strong that college-educated people tend to be more liberal than people who are not educated in college. >> unless they are educated here. [laughter] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> rick santorum takes from that the people should not go to college. i think that would be a mistake. i think that college education will be necessary to even more so in the future. i guess i will just go ahead and say that, whether you see the media as being level or not, it probably has to do more with where your on the political spectrum than where the media is.

although i know it has been repeated so many times that it now has a ring of truth to people here in the audience. but because something is repeated a huge number of times, it does not necessarily mean that it is true. >> this is a scientific study. let me say quickly that we started out with a partisan press in this country. one of the things that began to change it was the associated press. when you had a cooperative effort, it was necessary to quit taking political sides. if you wanted all these papers

to get the right answer. there are other reasons for that, too, such as mass distribution. and the gift of advertising. what has happened more recently is that papers have gone more and more to the interpretive side of things, which some of us feel has taken us back to the partisan press days and one of the things i mentioned earlier, but i would like to address -- and we will go to the audience. this is my last question. is theodore white's book which had this profound impact on the profession -- now we're discussing politics -- instead of addressing so much the positions they're taking -- i agree that those groups have a few -- i follow politicians around, too -- you have all of this analysis.

but why did they said? -- say it? what was the ulterior motive? it seems to me that this is huge. you have so much of this now. i would like you to respond to that. do you find an overdose of interpretation, an overdose of what is the strategy, and not enough on what are the issues in this election, whether the stance is being taken? what about ronnie's tax -- romney's tax proposal? what do you think of his -- what

about romney's tax proposal? what you think of his income? >> i completely agree with this comment. i think that the issues should be reported a lot more and the horse race should be reported a lot less. i watch the sunday news programs and they're supposed to be too boring for most people to watch. and to me, and they come to be all but two will win and how did romney did or how did gingrich do and how will he do on super tuesday. it really feels like soap opera information. there is almost no discussion about how they differ on issues and how those issues would affect the country. i completely agree with that. i guess what it is is that you have to say to the american

people or the media should say to the american people is that you have to eat your vegetables before you get your dessert. you may want to talk about the horse race and who is going to win and the soap opera aspects, but you also have to include some basic information that would be useful to the american people in making these decisions. during my political career, when discussion comes up over whether this it or it is that, the answer is almost always it is both. should you use your constituents' views or your own judgment and your own information when you are running the legislature? the answer is that it is both. should you put the sensational stuff on the front page, the murder or the sex scandal, and put the tax policy at the back of the paper or not at all? you should do both. and for the media, they have to make a living.

that is true. but we have a first amendment which gives extraordinary protection to the media and they have some responsibility just besides making a profit, which is to educate the american people. i like the comment there to be boring. i think there needs to be a little bit more substance. >> on tv, i would love to see more substance. but if i offer any more, i will just get fired. [laughter] that is the reality of the situation. we look at all of these things that come up, whether romney is laying out a 15-point economic plan or if her mccain has this nine-nine-nine plan -- we did a story on the herman cain plan not knowing that he would not stick it out. we should have focused more on romney.

that was a wasted time. all politics is a vegetable to tv news. but this is lima beans sometimes. [laughter] that is hard to sell an audience on. but you are right. we should remember that those are important things and that is what people need to make up their minds and to be well- informed. >> i am so glad you brought up the founding of the ap and the early days of biased journalism -- the early days of non-biased journalism. they got together and said that you have this level newspaper and i have is conservative newspaper and really have as one reporter and we need to tell them what to write. the most number of arrivals on that story and this 9-9-9 or making fun of somebody or a quote out of context, if it gets people to look at the pampers add or the capitol one ad, you're not just consuming the media, but all these messages from someone who has an interest in consuming these messages.

i do think we may go back, not entirely, but trend back towards partisan news gathering and partisan commentary. why are they telling me this? is it because it is good for me or is it because they wanted to turn the pages and look at the ads? >> one of the concerns i see is that trend.

we are seeing especially it in the online space and lot more news organizations that are not funded by advertising revenue. they are funded by an ideological agenda. you have the huffington post and political better getting the vast majority of their funding not from advertising, but from a left-leaning interest that are providing the investment dollars. >> we're left-leaning, is that your example? >> is an example. there are also those that are funded from a conservative perspective. for a lot of conservatives today, to be very candid, whether it is a drudge or breitbart, a lot of the funding for that was not done by ad revenue, but by investors who wanted more of an ideological perspective. that can be problematic. but at the same time, we have to

know where the biases are coming from. i think it is problematic from the perspective of a consumer where the only source we're getting our news from is breitbart or drudge vs. huffington post. at the more traditional news media plays an incredibly important role. keeping that fire wall between the business side of the media and the news and the coverage side. but if we are to recognize that we are talking about the right of free press, the right of free speech -- every right has to have a corresponding duty and that duty is living up to the obligations of a fair and impartial and providing in context the media for the public to be able to make their own conclusions. i would like to see as their way from the notion of having all the sunday talk shows or even the 10:00 news be so full of commentary and analysis.

but the commentary an all-out -- an analysis happen by people talking around the water cooler the following day. get the news out and let people make their own judgment. >> when people watch tv ads, i do not think they read the fine print at the bottom of the ad. people do not look at their news when they take new zinn and think about who is funding this website or who owns this tv station or this newspaper. what is the publishers' interest? i do nothing to many people -- i do not think too many people think about that. there is the blurring of the lines. that makes it harder for traditional media sometimes to break through. sometimes, we have so many voices out there, what breaks through is who is talking allow august. -- the loudest. you see that reflected on tv and

the cable news ward. the most profitable network is fox news. msnbc has become increasingly profitable by becoming a leftwing counterbalanced to that. by focusing -- and you see this in terms of the stories the cover -- fox news is concerned with things that msnbc has never even mentioned. it is profitable. it is profitable to talk to one audience and not worry about the other and build a strong audience. that is part of the problem. it is all media and it is all mainstream media, but there is definitely a blurring of those ones that make it harder for those of us trying to keep that flag planted to do objective, straight-down-the-middle stuff. >> i have already had one hand raised.

please wait until they put the microphone over. you got him? go ahead, please. >> i have a unique take. i spent 35 years inside a newsroom, even though i was reporting weather. i got to watch the news and i got to watch something different back in the 1970's vs. today. back in the 1970's and 1980's, when i was in the business, it was cbs, cbs, nbc, and a little bit of pbs. now we have all the other idiots. i have read left turns of the have been in there myself. the majority of reporters are on the liberal side. sorry, can, but they really are. -- ken, but they really are. to answer the question over whether they show their bias -- they do not think they show their bias. we would sit and watch all of the other tv stations and see

what they were reporting on. today, what is going on is that the major networks are watching what they're other major networks are reporting on, not what facts and -- not with fox and msnbc and some of the other ones are. that is why you and of seeing the same things a lot of times on abc, cbs, and nbc that you see so different on fox. they do not think, as bernie goldberg would say, they do not sit there and specifically said let's put our left wing spin on this, but they do because that is who they are. the people at box do what they do because that is who they are. but i do not think either one of them spend as much time as they should looking at what the other

side is doing. unless you're watching both, as a viewer, you don't get to see both sides of the story. i think that is issue #one that i would like you to address. i will make this other one a lot quicker. one of the things that happened back in the 1960's and the 1970's when you watch the news is that one of the most popular parts of the newscast was commentary. today, there is no commentary in the news. there is a lot of, well, we want to try to reported as much as possible, but why not have something, like, if we report on herman cain's 9-9-9 plan, let's ask somebody who talks about what they think is good about that or somebody that they don't, versus just -- or somebody who thinks the planned sox for that matter, but at least -- the plan sucks for that matter, but at least has an opinion.

>> when i was younger, again, nbc, cbs, abc, walter, cried and stuff like that -- everybody watched those shows, whether your on the left or the right. now people do not watch the same news. the people who watch fox news, for instance, i think that fast and furious is the big story. people on msnbc think it is something else. it increases the polarization of the country. i think the country is much more polarized than it used to be. what i have seen is that people who get elected to office these days because there are elected in partisan primaries in six districts, they do not think that the of the site is wrong. they think that the other side is evil. it is hard to work with people you think are evil. in fact, we see the congress and state legislators do not work together.

since we're talking about what the media could do, i think that action could be something that the media could do. zero natural in making the united states more polarized -- all in the its role in making united states more polarized in order to make more dollars. i have been invited as well as ryan, to some extent, john made an effort to balance the panel. i think it is a serious problem and the media should not just say, it is good because we can make more money. they should show some social responsibility and reduce the partisanship. >> polarization may not be the objective? -- might not be the objective of the news media.

>> both are seen as making money. if you come from an ideological foundation, where your funding comes from and why are you telling happened yesterday. is there a reason? >> you do not believe that most reporters are most newspapers in this country would absolutely quit and create a storm and go out and write a story from an advertiser's point of view? i cannot imagine doing that. no one i have ever met would ever do that. >> i do not think that is what she was saying. >> the reason why they want the stories that are more popular, what gets boarded the boat or talked about the most -- the reason they care about that --

ayalon >> if the public always come up? do you know the best-selling newspaper in this country is "the new york times?" >> when i for eight years had a right and's job in new what -- mexico, where the big story that came out was low voter turnout. we had colleagues in santa fe who contacted me and said what are you doing? of course we were doing what ryan does in finding out who are supporters were in getting turnout among them. they said we need an increase in turnout. i said i believed that the people who do not turn out are people who do not care enough to pay attention to what is going on. i am saying that you can lead a horse to water but not make him

drink is absolutely right. you are in the entertainment business. my question is do you know somebody out there in the media -- some institution -- that is doing a particularly good job of attracting -- attaching public interest to these important issues we are talking about instead of just going through the motions of offering it to whoever will pay attention? if the answer is no one, that is fine. i would like to know example we could all but for some praise. let's see if we can improve the public interest in getting information. >> this may be controversial, but i think the "denver post

close-" as the best job of anybody of emphasizing politics. if you are looking for it, you can find it. the rocky mountain news went away. there are only so many outlets left. i think anyone committed to doing it -- i will beat my own chest and put the stories out there. you will not get to every story, but i think you try to be consistent, you try to inform the public, you try to show what is going on policy wise -- what is being debated, what actually happens. i think we can all do a better job. anybody who is out there engaging on these issues at it, anybody writing as long as the political reporters at the post are are at least putting these stories out there were people can find them. i think that is a pretty

important first step. anybody who is doing this work is contributing to the constant predict contributing to the conversation. -- contributing to the conversation. there are a lot of different stories out there. there are people looking at things. you are not going to cover everything. i think if you are engaged in this community, there are places to go to find. it is up to citizens to not only vote with their remotes, but be engaged with news reporters, the newspaper, with everybody and say, hey, why are you not covering this? let us know. >> we could go further with this panel, and i wish we could.

of like to thank our guest and our moderator. [applause] >> next, legal challenges around the country to redistricting. after that, a forum on redistricting efforts and how demographics are affected. later, a house hearing on abuses in the food stamp program. on "newsmakers close-" the chairman up -- newsmakers" senator carl levin talks about policies towards iran, u.s. policy regarding syria and afghanistan, and the defense budget. makes," sunday at 10:00 a.m. at 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> atthere were a couple of incidents is that he was aware

of with a german submarine approaching bad fishing boats and saying we will take your catch and your fresh food. while waiting for them to come alongside, my players are going to lob hand grenades down the open hatches. the other members of the crew are going to machine-gun the germans on deck. >> nicholas ronalds on hemingway the spy, sunday night at a plot 30. part of american history peavey this weekend on c-span3. >> congratulations to all this year's winners of thec c-span studentcam video competition. watch all of the winning videos at our website, studentcam.org. we will talk to the winters during "washington journal."

34 states around the country are currently in litigation about their congressional redistricting plans. the u.s. supreme court also faces a redistricting cases this term. stanford law school held a conference looking at what is ahead for redistricting in the coming decade. the congress began with a pair of law school professors giving an overview about election law and the shape of redistricting sites ahead. this is one hour 15 minutes. >> i first met nat persily

when he was a student. he organized probably the fairest voting rights symposium at sanford. -- the first voting rights symposium at sanford. i wrote about it. in the article, the term redistricting -- redistricting combines lofty goals, the passion, self preservation, and increasing reliance on technology. to pull and haul rather in delicately at the end. it also involves somebody getting screwed. [laughter]

we are now in the middle of the next cycle but many of you know what of my favorite. -- [unintelligible] that which we are, we are. part of our topic today will be why are we here? we are going to set up the rest of the day by identifying and briefly talking about an interactive conversation about the laws that govern redistricting. there are, i think, nine potential constraints. there are three overarching categories. federal constitution constraints on how we get redistricting done. there are federal statutory constraints about how redistricting can be done. and there are state law constraints.

we are going to talk about them to give you a sense of where some of the major questions are going to be. the federal constitutional constraints gives one person one vote. it involves the question under the legal protection clause that no excessive political discrimination, no purposeful discrimination against minority voters. in a kind of goldilocks wait, note redistricting part racial considerations. the federal statutory constraints seldom get talked about, but the requirements were first issued in 1842 that federal congressional elections take place in the district. question two of the voting rights act is in addition upper

-- also forbids the use of plants that result in minority voters not given the opportunity to participate. in section 5 of the voting also provides that a plant cannot reduce minority voting states relative to the pre-existing plan. then there are state law constraints. ones. are substantive and onc in some states there are requirements about districts being compact. there are county provisions that require that redistricting try to meet certain -- keep certain political subdivisions in line. there are procedural rules about how redistricting should be accomplished. with that broad overview, we are

now going to go through these nine different kinds of constraints. we will talk about where we might see some important movement in this coming decade and what some of the issues are. >we will start off with one person, one vote. one of the nice things about the constitution and for those of you who spend a lot of time looking at the text of the constitution -- you can look at the text of the constitution for ever and not find the words "one-person one-vote." the supreme court has held it means one person one vote. article roman one, section ii of the constitution says that members of the house of representatives will be chosen by the people. the supreme court has held that "by the people" means one person

one vote. the supreme court has held that the equal protection clause requires the use of one-person, one-vote. where are we now on one-person one-vote and "where do you think it is a rigid potentially changing? >> during my first year not only -- be careful what you wish for. [laughter] like many people in this room, i have been looking at the redistricting process. what of the great things about this deal is just when you think you are getting clarity, all you get is more chaos and ambiguity. the supreme court looks like it is about to entertain a case dealing with congressional districts. we had previously thought that basically you have to draw a district to be perfectly equal.

if you look at where most states have sort of behavior, you dropped districts. the census is not that accurate. the most you can say is that has been a constraint on partisan gerrymandering. that was basically the math, but in west virginia, they happen a plus or minus deviation of 0.5%. it looks like the supreme court might sort of reconsider the population equality there. it is interesting because there is a push in the other direction when it comes to stay districts. we had a case out of georgia. there was a democratic gerrymander that had overpopulated the republican areas and underpopulated the democratic areas.

the district court of their said normally people think that ar allowed with the state legislative districts you do not have to have absolute popularity .quality brigi you are allowed to deviate. but you cannot deviate for these -- over populated by one party of supporters. then it looked like you were going to have a more precise role of population equality when it comes to the legislative districts. a lot of states have been tried to push that the va should. they are much lower than they have been desperately. one of the things about the one- person, one-vote rule is if this sort of a misnomer. while the court says europe to

have equality, it is not clear equality of what. while we all at the congressional level and legislative level use accurate -- aggregate population data, the court has one case where they say you could use total registered voter population and break a districts according to that. that has cost two issues. one has to do with the prisoner population. new york, delaware, and maryland have passed laws requiring prisoners to have a population address. in new york, it has an effect. most of the prisons are upstate. most of the population is in new york city. it has an impact now there are challenges to those laws in the courts.

the court system is supposed to give us the data. the prisoner issue is a live one for this cycle. the other one is not really live, but it is on the radar. it has to do with citizens. sort of a frivolous case that was litigated in texas saying you should not draw districts based on total population, it should be on the basis of equal numbers of citizens. we do not have the short form of the senses. it does not ask you if you are a citizen or not. that poses a little bit of a problem. because we have paid attention to citizenship in other contexts, there is the looming question out there as to how the interaction between the

denominator. the strait of -- state of louisiana try to push for an original action in the supreme court saying abortion was unconstitutional -- saying a portion was unconstitutional. the cleveland area where the supreme court giveth and taketh away. we will see what happens. why do i not introduced the next one. >> let me say one thing before you do that. in his autobiography, chief justice warren said that he considered brown vs. board of education the most important opinion that he wrote because it

would ensure the public's interest and not special interests would be in charge of elections. it is one of those predictions right up there with the dewey v. truman. [laughter] i think he thought that one person one vote would be a real constraint on partisan hijacking of the political process. "the constitutional claims with respect to race -- the history here is sort of interesting. one of the criticisms of the shah vs. reno case is it would be open season on redistricting cycles. we would have unending claims. that did not happen in part because people did not say things in 2009 which they did say in the 1990's.

folks figured out ways to try to not make it look like race with the predominant factor in the district. the supreme court backed off." from the ledge at the end of the 1990 -- of the 1990's. looking at this cycle -- it seems like intentional racial discrimination claims are coming up and being more prevalent. >> in think that is right. i do not think there will be a lot of those claims. part of the reason for that is the supreme court in 2001, the end of the review of north carolina's post 1990

redistricting. north carolina began its redistricting when the sentence came out. pope against blue, the pope confirms the dismissal. it then went up to the supreme court again. it went back to the supreme court a third time. finally in april of 2001, the census numbers from the 2011 census were being handed to the states. the supreme court finally signed off on the 1990 redistricting. the result of that is most of the legislative districts that are being drawn for african- americans are district or their already. they are simply being preserved. therefore, you can always explain those districts as preservation of existing districts.

a. there'll be very few claims involving majority black districts except where the population is decreasing so much you have to struggle to comply with one-person, one-vote to keep the district in place. because of the political realignment, they are not generally being gerrymandered. purposeful discrimination against latino populations rather than a chance to draw districts where there really are not enough latino voters to effectively create a district. i think you are absolutely right that almost all of the intentional racial discrimination claims this time around are going to be claims by minority voters challenging existing districts or proposed districts rather than by non- minority voters saying race place to park -- too much of a

part of a role to in the process. >> i should plug at the website that the students and i have done where we have done maps for the whole u.s. it is not that hard to draw minority-majority districts much of the time. a lot of the disfigurement in those early days was there were so many different considerations at once by incumbents in consideration, parties in consideration. not only because of incumbency but because of other factors that a lot of the past the district's that worked desperately necessary are not as necessary in a lot of these areas. in a sense, some you cannot draw

because of the relative decline of the black population. it is not keeping up the pace with particular latinos. you just cannot draw these majorities in the district. liggett brown's district in florida. -- look at brown's district in florida. the district just south of us goes from the upper west side of manhattan all the way down through greenwich village, jobs over the brooklyn bridge, goes into parts of brooklyn, goes on until it ends in coney island. funny shapes happen all over the place for many different reasons. i have drawn districts where --

when i drew the plant for georgia, i drew a nice square district in northern georgia. something that justice o'connor would really love. i had a mountain range of right and -- right in the middle. shapes can be deceiving. particularly in texas, but elsewhere the could be potential discrimination. >> this is the thing about partisan gerrymandering. the last time the supreme court looked at the issue in debt was the 2000 redistricting in pennsylvania where the republicans were in control the state was losing three seats. they managed to pare all democrats and try to get some additional seats for the republicans.

they did not quite succeed in getting as many as they hoped for. the supreme court split into three groups. four of the justices led by justice scalia said it may violate the constitution and, therefore, there may be an argument. four of the justices thought at that claims of political gerrymandering were not sufficient. the remedy for political gerrymandering is to "hear the pungency of the people's represent his." at it is unlikely that the people's's representatives are capable of doing it this way. those four justices would not let the question of political gerrymandering.

four other justices thought that political gerrymandering was a well-developed and there is a a standard for resolving them, but they did not know what it might be. in the middle, is justice kennedy. he said at one has the feelings of lines or crossed here. he did not want to hold that political gerrymandering should never be a suspicion will. of the other hand, he said we have not yet seen a standard that would allow courts to step in and decide political gerrymandering. but he did not want to rule out the possibility that there might be some that someone would come up with in the future. that means that people still file political gerrymandering

cases in the hopes they can come up with a standard that justice kennedy will find sufficient to intervene and then to have been violated in a particular case. >> look in the first amendment. maybe that is where you can find some restraints on a partisan agenda merit -- partisan gerrymandering. sort of reminds me of a bad loot -- some bad law school exam answers or students say if only i can find a part of the constitution. go look in the first amendment and see if you can solve this problem. >> people have tried to come up with quantitative measures.

they have tried to do some first amendment things. what really happened, i think, they used other trial books to get there. the supreme court essentially said although we have held in the past that population deviations of less than 10% are not a violation of one person one vote, the court struck down a 9.9% population deviation of the grounds that the only thing that explained that was incumbent protection on partisanship. those are legitimate reasons for deviating. i think it can be explained in part by the supreme court using the voting rights act are a tool to limit the amount of partisan gerrymandering.

what happened was the supreme court sought districts that were oddly shaped, not far primarily of racially well but reasons, but because the democrats who were in control of the process at the time drew those districts with the intent to also move a number of non-voters into the district of white democratic incumbents to serve as a kind of meal extender -- a hamburger helper because you do not have enough meat in your district. there are constraints on political gerrymandering. what has the supreme court done this time around? i think that is pretty much it on the constitutional constraints. you cannot take racism into account too much. you cannot take racism into

account at all. you have to comply with one- person, one-vote in some particular form. let's go to the statutory ones now. requirement for congressional elections that elections be conducted on single-member districts. that is a statutory requirement. it is one of the things as separates the united states from most other advanced democracies, which elect their national legislatures using proportional districts. i take there is a 0% chance of that changing again anyway. the one major effect is it requires and puts a lot of pressure on courts to drop plans if legislatures can. you might and indeed you might succeed. in 1966, alabama was a primary

district. if you cannot devise a plan that it complies with the constitution, all of the congressional districts will be elected at large. because of this statute, courts do not do that. courts will enjoin in an existing plan. they will draw a plan themselves or congressional districts. that is probably the major importance of that. >> section 5 of the voting rights act -- less talk about it while it is still around. [laughter] >> it will be renewed. >> there are now five constitutional challenges to section five, four or five of them going to the court. section five applies to some parts of the country and not others based on the various criteria, such as whether in

1964 these jurisdictions had literacy test or some kind of testing device and had voter turnout below 50%. it was engineered to try to target discrimination against minorities from 1964 until 1972. parts of california are covered, but most of the areas that are covered are in the south. there are some cases going to the court, once called the "mud case." it came through four years ago. the court showed its concern as to the constitutionality.

arizona is challenging it now. u.s. cities in north carolina. shelby county, alabama and. coming up in florida and texas. the constitutionality of a section five. we'll see what the court -- if the court is willing to take that on. that will be one of their major decisions. they will take it on. they are one of the ones to use a scalpel or cleaver to whittle down section five. that cast a shadow -- show a little bit on the redistricting process the supreme court is going to roll section 5 unconstitutional. even the most reset texas case, the arrearage -- reiterated their concern about the constitutionality of section 5. we have a new standard for section 5 of the voting rights act was passed in 2006. the voting rights act reauthorization amendment of

2006 said that the department of justice, which is charged with reviewing voting laws, must make sure they do not have any discriminatory purpose and that they do not have any discriminatory effect, which is the do not diminish the ability of minorities to elect their preferred candidate of choice. the question facing the d.c. district court in the texas case, the justice department in their pre clarence denial of the law in south carolina says what type of redistricting plans are making minorities worse off and reducing the ability of minority groups to elect their candidate of choice? those words were overturned in an earlier supreme court case

that said jurisdiction were allowed to trade off the district that would elect the minority-preferred can that or may have some influence over the election. by moving towards the ability to elect, they tried to put back what the existed the supreme court decision. there is a lot of disagreement among partisans as to what the standard means. doj has not interpose an objection for a denial of a redistricting plan except in two very small cases. one in louisiana and another in mississippi. the participating in the texas redistricting litigation going on in d.c.

i would get a sense of how they interpret this provision from that. there are several states that have opted not to go the doj route. they are litigating the section 5 voting rights cases in district court. besides those three examples -- south carolina and those two detecting cases -- there is also a case in north carolina, which is challenging the constitutionality of section 5 were a justice did not give clearance for a move to a nonpartisan elections there. i think those three objections, or four objections, north carolina and texas are the only indications as to what the new section 5 of means. in a lot of these cases, they

make the argument that there is a discriminatory purpose of that is underlined in the redistricting controversy. >> obviously a big question of constitutionality of section 5 will get back to the supreme court sometimes a the next term at the very latest. in the meantime, it is clear that section 5 has been working. there has been very little retrogression. where there was retrogression, doj objected.e the this is one of the planes i think it's difficult to get a true handle on -- how do you know that a statute designed to deter or prevent something is working? people say it is not adjusting

very much. that is why the voting rights act is not needed. it may well be that the presence of the law is the thing that deters or prevents behavior. moreover, it has become so and institutionalized in a lot of places that at takes a georgia off the hook up having to have a at the conversation. they will never pre clear as if we do it this way. it would be the wrong thing to do. provides a lot of political cover to jurisdictions to simply do what they think it's the right thing. i agree that when section 5 as back to the supreme court -- it is not going to be up or down at the whole thing unconstitutional. it is not likely that the

supreme court wants the issue -- "the supreme court shuts down crown jewel of reconstruction." i think what you tend to see is a narrow reconstructions of the act. -- of the act to override the supreme court's's decision in bossier parish. you get that back and forth. i am not sure there really is a feeling of the supreme court that the voting rights act is unnecessary. the people losing purpose-based challenges -- to take those up as the constitutional objection

is a very bad tactics because of the at ideal would be a totally blameless jurisdiction saying "we do not understand why you are doing this. they tried to do that in a bill, but it was a premature. shelby county, alabama, has had several objections to what subdivisions have done. texas, was the supreme court had evidence of purposeful racial discrimination. look over there, there is somebody blameless up there. it will be interesting to see where that goes. >> i think in many ways the voting rights act may be the greatest beneficiary of the citizens united decision. the blow back from citizens united may make the court a little bit more likely to look

at the voting rights act and the short term. -- in the short term. they will find somebody to say that the doj objection was wrong. you can do that in any number of ways. do you want me to where two sections two? there was some action of the last decade in section 2, to the zero major cases. -- two major cases. in general, the standard under section two was that if you are a large and compact minority community and you are in an area with histories of

discrimination at present, conditions of racially polarized voting that you are going to be entitled to a majority-minority district. when we said majority, we went majority -- over 50%. unfortunately, they did not say 50% of what. voting age population. if the circuit, like the circuit, 11 circuit did not care about the citizenship issue. it is causing some interesting challenges since we do not have the same citizenship data. you do not have census boards. year after use survey data. it leaves open two issues. the first is that one about the denominator. the other is about minority coalition districts. can you group together african-

americans in these particular areas, for example? the decision as a cryptic sentence and that the says maybe not. the district court of the decision in texas thought that you could do that. they might not have really understood what section two said. if they wanted to be clear, they could have been. .hey were not in that case bu >> they did not focus on coalition of what. the claim was a collision between black and white voters would be an effective voting majority in the district. in the texas case, it was a coalition between blacks and latino voters they did not focus quite as much on that as they might have in trying to figure out whether a minority coalition

districts are something people can bring a claim on. that is something in areas where there are cohesive minority communities made up of one more racial aspect, people have been planning -- bringing claims since the 1980's as opposed to the strickland claim which was a post-2000 claim. >> justice kennedy renamed the claims -- renamed the district. they are now crossover districts. then you have minority coalition districts. they confuse themselves. i see where they are coming from. this is the rare section two

victory at the supreme court or the supreme court says of that the dilution of the latino vote in south texas, shaving off the district which was on the verge of electing a bettino cabot of choice -- you cannot compensate for that by drawing a district that extends from the mexican border all the way too often, which is a very diverse district culturally. the latino population there did not have an entitlement to the district under section two. the way i read it, justice kennedy still believes in -- is trying to move -- merge it into his concerns over section two of the voting rights act. part of the interesting inquiry the comes out of that is not just geographically impact minorities that have claims under section two, but how

culturally similar you have to be? >> i think the section two cases in addition to geographical issues is going to be how we think about racial bloc voting. justice kennedy is very much an individual as opposed -- an individual. there is the idea that you have a quite a vibrant politically organized mexican-american community on the verge of electing a congressman and they were told you do not get anything and, here, where will redraw the districts or else. i am not sure that justice kennedy would happen called district 22. this goes back to one of the things they are allowed to do --

allow courts to strike down -- that is calling it by an outright racist. the constitution requires that you hold some person acted with discriminatory purpose. let's the butcher texas with a bunch of racist and say this district is not fair. how do you measure racial bloc voting? what counts as significant racial bloc voting? as we move into a world with partisan affiliation and ethnic identity much more closely linked in some important ways -- in this sow, is it racial discrimination or political discrimination comes up again. the state of texas often claims in these cases that they are not

screwing over latinos. they are prickly happy to have latino republicans. how can you say this is racial discrimination? it is an important issue, but i think the supreme court will confronted. they have confronted several times already. do you have to wrestle level of causation? i think that is a set of issues that could affect the court this time around. >> i will say one thing a route -- about bartlett. position, kennedy's be as the victim suggesting that 25% white crossover voting might be enough party section two cause. most people thought that was a low enough level of white crossover voting that it was viable as we are frequently going to get 25% crossover in

certain areas. a lot of it in my experience -- look at states as a whole. there will be places where you can have a 40% minority district which will perform for the committee and other places where you need to get well over 50% in order for it to be a performing district. >> the interesting thing about what courts look at with signal across over boating -- if i were to tell you what can get one 75- 25, no one would say a significant number of voters voted for the losing candidate. we talk about 60-40. 61 percent of the vote? that is easily what we think of as a landslide. having 25% of the white voters

voting for the minority candidate of choice is a lot of people. but is not a lot relative to what we normally think of as significant attraction of votes. "state law. these get very interesting i think. >> and now they are about to get fascinating. >> you have a similar provisions in different states which mean completely different things depending on the supreme court's of those states and how they determine things like compactness or political subdivision. i drew a plan for maryland after they struck down the state of the plan because it did not show due regard for political subdivisions. much more rigid pronouncements about outlines are made. i was just counting -- missouri,

pennsylvania, and idaho all have courts at that struck down the plants on political subdivision grounds in the last month. then you have some of these other criteria. arizona has a requirement that some of the districts be competitive. they were in litigation for six years at the end of 2000. others have certain community of interest criteria. throw at all of that at the wall and see what sticks. there has been some success in the state courts. quite a lot of the state courts themselves are elected in partisan elections. they are perhaps more closely tied to the political process. that is one of the things we -- that is worth mentioning.

the major effect that one person one vote has is the moment the census numbers drop, it becomes unconstitutional. i think one thing that has been resolved is the supreme court has held that if state courts and federal courts both the cases and in front of them, the federal court is supposed to wait until the state courts have adjudicated the state claims before they step in and adjudicate the federal claims. i would predict that, especially when you come to a lot of local elections, people going into state courts and rallying in federal courts. >> i am trying to think what is happening around the country. 34 states are in litigation over redistricting. >> a that is low.

>> i was working for the federal court 10 years ago in new york. there were proceedings in the state court. they took the plan we drew. they did a little clique here and there. you often will have simultaneous proceedings in federal court, but with the abstention doctrines as we are talking about, a lot of what happens is you have people think they are going to get a favorable forum. >> the last group of constraints are not so much what the district are supposed to look like, but how you are supposed to get there. here i think one of the major shift from 1964 and today is the

number of states that have gone to or are thinking about going to some form of redistricting other than having the politicians draw their own districts. for many years, we have been saying that it is every two years as people go into the voting booth and select their record the images. every 10 years, the residents is back -- went into the back room to select their voters. they have changed to independent redistricting positions. the variation is how the commissions are set up, how they are selected, what happens to the plants. some of the commissions have been quite successful and others have not. what if it had been a purely

political process? >> there are different kinds of criticisms. that is what is happening in arizona. arizona has been in litigation for six years. they found themselves in the small store of political controversy. i am to put on my political scientist at for two minutes. i want to give a sense of what i see in this redistricting cycle. could a race, party, and region -- we talked about the particular legal claims. redistricting can be a window on

demographic change in the united states that takes place every 10 years. this is the time where we are changing political geography. the meteoric rise of the latino population and the controversies in texas and elsewhere -- people tend to think about anything in classic areas like texas and california, maybe farda, but it is really throughout, not just the south, but northern cities as well. where i lived in harlem that has been seen as a majority black area is now predominantly latino. that is a similar claim -- a theme -- the african-american population has not been keeping up the pace so that it becomes a

little more challenging to draw some of these districts. also, not a necessary -- not unnecessary because there are certain african-american incumbents for crossover voters. the relevance of the obama election i think is in the background of a lot of discussions about these issues, even though it does not come up in court. i will be interested to see if it does leave the supreme court to think about section five volume one way or another. the presidential election might be one of the most irrelevant pieces of information. i think that there is some sort of cap to the way a lot of people think about the voting rights act based on that. as a bridge between race and party, it was often thought in the 1990's that the voting rights act and restrictions on minority vote dilution was a

hindrance to democratic party gerrymandering. i think now in this cycle we have seen the voting rights act been a constraint on republicans maximizing beyond what they got in the 2010 election. you see that in texas and louisiana, an area very interesting given the geographic changes after katrina. one african-american district in new orleans is one that if you're really being a partisan gerrymander is what you might want to draw out. that district is safe. with respect to party, republicans have more seats than any time in 1928. they also have total control of the redistricting process. twice as many as they did in the 2000 round of a lot of the battleground states. a lot of that has met this highwater mark of republican dominance has been transferred into them trying to protect their incumbents from much of

the country where as in 2000, the republicans were trying to extend out -- at extend their boundaries. there are certainly trying to do that in texas. they're trying to preserve the gains of the 2010 race. i think in talking about commissions, it is clear, i think, given the criticisms of both california and arizona and the republicans believe commissions are not in their interest. it was not always that way. it was not always thought that non partisan redistricting would have that kind of effect, but it seems clear to me that they do a lot of that is because they control the legislative avenues. finally, the shift of

congressional seats from the north, east, and midwest has a huge effect on congressional redistricting. as we have been describing issues that are coming up this time, demographic shifts, louisiana losing a congressional district as a result of katrina, all of the interesting things occurring in texas -- as mentioned before, the arizona chaos. florida, which we of not even talked about.

[inaudible conversations] >> the committee will come to order. the oversight committee exist to secure fundamental principles. first americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent and second, americans deserve an efficient effective government that works for them. our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers this taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government. we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs which deliver the facts of the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy.

i will now recognize myself for an opening statement and pursuant to the mission statement would ask that the video be played, since it reflects the watchdog in question. >> food stamp fraud is costing americans millions in taxpayer money. >> in new york and miami detroit in here in san diego. >> in the past five years alone the usda permanently disqualified 4600 retailers, 24 phoenix area stores permanently disqualified. >> san diego retailers ripping off the federal government. >> 23 of those retailers in the palm beach and many we found have been banned from accepting food stamps and approved to accept them. investigators pored over the records. we learn 1500 stores across the country on both of them. >> the usda says 99% of the time it is illegal trafficking. >> a retailer will overcharge a customer and pocket the

difference. >> they want to trade their benefits for cash or band merchandise like alcohol. the store keeps $50 the cardholder gets 50, all taxpayer money. >> what this is is ultimately costing the taxpayer's. >> according to usda records $330 million in 2008. >> america deserves better. just yesterday one of our witnesses penned an op-ed that depicted an improvement in the s.n.a.p. program proudly stating how much better it was. it is not for us today to question whether not the program has improved. the question is in a day in which in a moment's notice in a few keystrokes i can look at a storefront anywhere in america and find out who, what and where owns that, or in this case the

scripps howard do if you public record searches available the department of agriculture and find out what they were doing wrong to promote this. we need to do better. the hearing today is about children. the hearing today is about families. ultimately the food stamp program is about providing nutrition to people in need. 42 million people rely on the food stamp program. a few misuse the program. our hearing today is not about the individuals who out of desperation for drugs, alcohol or spending money, misuse food stamps. it's about america's responsibility. this administration in this congress's responsibility to make sure that the money or the benefit of the money gets to the people who are supposed to get it. it is not to buy alcohol, cigarettes or drugs.

a relatively few storefronts around america represent a considerable amount of fraud. understand that a small amount of stores does not mean there is a small amount of fraud. people who want to use or misuse i should say, the resources provided to them by the taxpayer and the way of food stamps seek out stores and to cheat. it's not an accident that you find out somewhere in the neighborhood and entity will trade you $100 in food stamps for $50 in cash. that score is bad enough but let's understand, somewhere is a family that relied on food that instead got nothing. these companies and these individuals behind these companies need to be punished on a consistent basis if in fact they are suspended.

it needs for a -- to be for period of time with the understanding of whether or not they are ever going to be able to sell again. if they are permanently excluded, then in fact permanent means to remain permanent. more importantly in this day and age in the ability to research, if you only have 100 people to track this huge amount of potential waste, one can make the other 99 more effective. the scandal we are looking at today is important because we know that 100 people working for the secretary in fact found people who were stealing from the taxpayers, stealing from families who need that food and need that benefit. one of those 100 assigns to do what whistleblowers have done for us in fact could have prevented many of these stores from being back in business. it's that simple.

we will hear today here today as we often do, if we only had more resources. this committee has no more resources to provide. in fact, you're going to have to do more for less. that is more oversight, more accountability with less money available for that and more need by people on the food stamp program. ultimately, we are going to hear testimony by both sides saying we are doing a better job and we are going to hear people saying you are not doing well enough. both can be true. of america expects both to be true. continuous improvement but in fact never satisfied until we have done enough and with that i recognize the ranking member for his opening statement. >> thank you mr. chairman and i welcome the chance to oversight the snap program which is one of the most vital missions of any

government program and that is to prevent abject hunger and in homes all across america. i'm so glad that you set this hearing among other things is about children. mr. chairman thank you for agreeing to invite the minorities and jennifer hatcher of the food cooperative institute. our hearing is about storeowners. i thought it was appropriate to invite them. ms. hatcher's organization represents 26,000 supermarkets and food stores across the country that implement the program on a daily basis. i want to thank you for allowing our minority leaders to appear on the first panel with everyone else. he did not have to do that but you did and we are indeed grateful. let me start by emphasizing a very critical point. nearly half of the beneficiaries of the stamp program are poor, hungry children.

snap serves 46 million americans with incomes at or below 130% of the poverty level. according to usda 47% are under 18 years old. snap serves millions of people who are elderly or have disabilities. snap is never been more critical than it is today. 2008 financial crisis drove more americans into poverty than any other time since we started drafting this data. the collapse of wall street and the evisceration of trillions of dollars in household savings poured millions of americans to turn to this critical safety net and it has been there for them. while the need for the s.n.a.p. program is at an all-time high, fraud within the program is at an all-time low.

snap is one of the most efficiently run federal programs with one of the lowest fraud rates of any government program. fraud has declined from approximately 4 cents of every dollar in 1993 to only one sent of every dollar extended today. i agree that is not good enough. the majority appears to be facing today's hearing on a recent press story about a certain store owner that has been disqualified from the program and allegedly -- in some way. all those this would be true we have not seen evidence to support allegations that there is a pervasive weakness in the program or the magnitude of fraud in the program may be much greater than initially reported. reported. in fact today, we will hear just the opposite. this press account has

significant problems. the usda has acted quickly to address the bad actors and the s.n.a.p. program continues to be an extremely well-run program. given the strong track record i'm concerned that the trooper's of this hearing may be to discredit the entire program in order to justify draconian cuts. last year every republican member of this committee voted to confer the s.n.a.p. program into a block grant program. to/this funding by $127 billion over the next 10 years. a massive reduction of almost 20%. again i go back to what you said a little bit earlier mr. chairman. this is about children. this proposal was part of a plan proposed by budget committee chairman paul ryan and adopted by the house republicans last april. according to the senate on budget policies, this proposal will force up to 8 million men,

women and children to be cut from the program or severely reduce the amount of food they can buy. where these children supposed to go if they are hungry? i believe there is a compassion deficit here in washington. obviously a dollar squandered in this program is a dollar that does not go to poor families. that desperately need food but efforts imposed for draconian cuts in this program will cause even greater harm to the very people who need the most help. while i strongly support efforts to make the program more effective, and i strongly support the fact that we must rule out fraud i will do everything in my power to oppose efforts to use these isolated examples to discredit the entire program and i look forward to a productive discussion today on ways to improve one of the most successful federal programs to prevent poverty and hunger

throughout the xena and with that mr. chairman i yield back. >> i think of the gentleman. members will have seven days to submit opening statements for the record. we now recognize our first panel. mr. kevin concannon is the undersecretary for food and consumer services with usda. prior to the service at the department of agriculture he served as director of three different state government departments of health and human services in maine, oregon and iowa. phyllis fong is the u.s. they -- va inspector inspector general and assert the department for 10 years. she is also currently serving as the first chairperson of the council of inspector general's on integrity, efficiency and in fact in that role you may be aware that this committee would like to pass on to that council council greater authority including potentially subpoena authority. that remains one of our

long-term goals if we can convince the senate of the importance of investigating. >> ms. jennifer hatcher is senior vice president of government and public affairs for the food marketing institute. prior to joining fmi she served as chairperson for chairman spencer bachus as his chief of staff. lastly, ms. faulkner is inspector general of the commonwealth of pennsylvania. prior to becoming inspector general ms. faulkner was a law partner at the philadelphia office of ballard llp. she is has had a lengthy career, not that lengthy, you are too young, and public service as an assistant u.s. attorneyattorney, deputy attorney general of pennsylvania, and philadelphia public defender. that is a lot to pack in a short time. if if you would all rise

pursuant to our committee rules all witnesses are to be sworn. please raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? let the record reflect all witnesses answered in the affirmative. this committee historically tends to have a soft gavel as i informed the witnesses ahead of time. we have a vote on a district last working day. i know my people. they will not return so in order to not have you wait an hour were relatively small period afterwards if we have not concluded by the time of the vote, we will end at that point. as a result that will hold everyone on your side very close to the five minutes. i will hold my own people close to the five minutes, not just for questions but for your answers. may have all the members on the

daisday is, will you include time in your five minutes for both questions in a reasonable period for witnesses to answer and with that mr. secretary you are recognized for five minutes. >> thank you very much for the opportunity to join you and let me thank inspector general fong who was an oversight agent at usda. the mission of the supplemental nutrition assistance program or s.n.a.p. is to help low income people get the food they need while they get back on their feet. it's never been more important in the lives of americans than now. so strong administration on oversight including payments, proper use of benefits are just as critical. the focus of today's hearing is about usda's oversight and management of the retailers that are authorized to redeem s.n.a.p. benefits across the united states. particular emphasis needs to be given to recent news stories as the result of several months of investigative journalism by a team of reporters at scripps howard news service that focused on retailers that have

previously been disqualified from s.n.a.p. for trafficking. trafficking is the sale or purchase of s.n.a.p. benefits for cash, and illegal activity punishable by disqualification, fines and criminal prosecution. while we recognize the importance of the issues raised by scripts i want to set the record straight about several facts. as with other leads we receive from the public we took the information scripps brought to our attention very seriously. we immediately began our own investigation into the stores that were referred to as. the issues may not be as widespread as reported by scripts. many of the cases they raised but not proven to have integrity problems. of the 36 owner scripts referred to sns as suspicious our investigation found over three-quarters had no connection to the disqualified owner or were not authorized as a s.n.a.p. store. the remaining quarter have been either disqualified, charged or withdrawn from s.n.a.p..

one is under criminal investigation by the oig. that said, we still believe broader action is needed and we increased measures including more robust review of applicants public records and shorter time period authorizations for stores and locations with previous disqualifications. prior to these reports fms has been upgrading its electronic transaction datamining technology to better detect suspicious redemption and we are preparing to post information regarding the owners of permanently disqualified stores to gsa's excluded party to protect other federal agencies. we are developing rules that will increase penalties for trafficking stores. combating fraud has long been a usda priority. over the last 15 years on the

charge rotating appear you will see one of those charts reflect various initiatives we have taken over the years. we are not yet satisfied that usda continues to work closely with their partners to fight trafficking. in fiscal year 2011 11 at theness reviewed over 15,000 stores, conducted nearly 5000 undercover investigations and sanction or punished 2000 retailers. while usda has direct responsibility for overseeing s.n.a.p. retailers are integrity work includes every aspect of s.n.a.p. administration. by overseeing and working closely with our partners including state and local governments usda strives to ensure that scarce taxpayer resources are managed with integrity and accountability. first over the past decade we have made major improvements in s.n.a.p. payments accuracy. over 90% of s.n.a.p. clients are indeed eligible and accuracy in 2010 reached 96%, a historic

high. 2010 errors were less than they would have been under the 2000 year rate. second, usda oversees the provide guidance to find and hold accountable recipients who commit fraud. usda recently issued new policies acquired by even the intent to sell benefits, for example by offering a s.n.a.p. product on the social media site like craigslist, can lead to disqualification. last year i wrote to all of the nation nations governors individually asking them to make s.n.a.p. integrity of priority. we have engage the retailer community in this effort. i personally met with state commissioners around the country to elicit their support including a greater focus on recipient trafficking and increase increased partnership with law enforcement. to conclude, fraud is neither new nor static while the vast majority of retailers and clients follow the rules. a few bad actors will exploit s.n.a.p. at this program is too

important and too great to tolerate fraud. as an cybersecurity, we must be vigilant and continuously update the systems to find new fraud schemes. the usda will continue to crack down on violators. we welcome our partners constructive engagement in this effort. thank you very much. >> thank you. ms. fong. >> thank you mr. chairman ranking membercomments and members of the committee. i want to express my appreciation to you mr. chairman and too many of the distinguished members of this committee for your support of the federal ip community. you up in a worthy record of bipartisan support for contributions and you'd demonstrate it time and again through legislation, hearings and speeches your interest in our work. so on behalf of the entire community i want to thank all of you for your support. today you have invited me to test debate about usda ig work

to protect the integrity of the s.n.a.p. program. to put this in context, the ig office and usda is responsible for providing oversight to all usda programs which currently number over 300. of course snape is the largest program in our portfolio with over $70 billion it has drawn much of our attention over the past few years. in the last two years alone we have devoted almost half of our investigative resources to addressing s.n.a.p. fraud. measurable results. we currently have over 900 -- cases open in over 600 both retailers and semi. my written statement provides examples of our most significant cases involving disqualified retailers. but i want to emphasize more than the cases that we do that the core problem in this program are not new. namely, there will always be

people willing to commit fraud and to traffic s.n.a.p. benefits. even though the specific schemes themselves may take different forms, we as an ig office have been working on these issues with fns, or partners and in state and local agencies for many years to address these issues and i can assure you that we have cases right now going on in every region of the country and our agents are continually adjusting their work to deal with new schemes as they arise. while it's important to investigate, prosecute and bring to justice wrongdoers, these actions alone will not fix the problem. it is critical that we also focus our efforts on looking at how retailers bypass the system that we have put into place to control access. and to try and figure out what can be done to improve the program for the future. and to this end, we have issued several audits over the past few

years with recommendations for corrective actions. we have been working with fns and their partners that usda to addressed the issue. in particular we recommend that retailer applicants need to have clean backgrounds, no history of criminal or illegal activity and there needs to be a way to do that. we also believe that usda should make better use of suspension and department appropriately to ensure that disqualified retailers did not participate in government programs in the future. so to conclude, we strongly believe that retailer integrity is a critical component of ensuring a successful s.n.a.p. program that delivers nutritious food to people who needed. in our experience on scrupulous retailers are the heart of most of trafficking schemes we have seen, so we look forward to continuing our work with fns, our state and local partners to address fraud when it occurs and

improve the integrity of this very important program. thank you for your interest and we look forward to addressing our questions. >> thank you. ms. hatcher. >> good morning chairman and members of the committee. on behalf of the families served by the 25,000 stores operated by our members i want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today. my name is jennifer hatcher and i'm senior vice president for public affairs. for the past 13 years the transition from paper food stamps to electronic benefits transfer and now the new program name s.n.a.p. i have worked on these issues. s.n.a.p. is a positive example of a public/private partnership that works and that reduces fraud for all stakeholders in the program. supermarket retailers are proud of our partnership to deliver safe, healthy and affordable food to customers in need of assistance.

unfortunately, the number of customers they need is higher today than it has ever been. in large part due to the conversion to electronic delivery of benefits rather than paper food stamps, significant portion of the fraud has been removed from the system. many supermarkets remember vividly situations where paper food stamps are being sold by criminals in front of the store. paper stamps provided anonymity for the perpetrators of these illegal transactions. ebt ties any fraudulent activity to a per tick where transaction, customer and store location. this is the criminal -- takes the criminal element out of our store parking lot. electronically has provided agencies with a better mechanism to compare transition activity and look for duplication across state lines particularly with state to share a common border. some states have employed mathematicians to electronically identify fraudulent patterns of

sale. ebt has also improved its mission being cut down the potential for human clerical error. s.n.a.p. ebt transactions are protected by a user's personal identification number, pin, so they are much more secure than a paper or even a credit card. our members take responsibility for the delivery of these benefits to various places. be b of be having an authorized author a s.n.a.p. retailer is part of their identity and part of verification the community which is important for them to protect. after reviewing the scripps report in the associated list of disqualified retailers we found no as in my members on the list and agreed that those should be removed. fighting fraud before it happens is critical and i thought i would share some of the steps of supermarket member takes to prevent fraudulent activity in their stores. first and most important is training. fmi member companies conduct

on-site and off-site training for both their associates and their managers and the rules and regulations that govern s.n.a.p. transactions. there's a 76 page manual on the web site that we consult on a daily basis. for all of the rules and regulations governing the program. there's also a 25 page guide for retailers and a 17 minute training video in multiple languages that can be utilized for these purposes. several of our members have also set up their own internal audit to ensure they are in compliance in each of their transactions is in compliance. the vast majority of our members utilize the computer system that allows them to program the upc code eligible and ineligible food items and then locks the point-of-sale purchase system should someone attempt to purchase an ineligible item with s.n.a.p. benefits. fmi also publishes to our members on a regular basis the

names and contact information of the usda fns regional offices and stated ministers for s.n.a.p. ebt. post our members make their fraud hotline number available to their associates and managers through each of these training materials. there is one more issue that i feel i need to raise in the context of this hearing and that is the extreme concentration of benefits issuance in the first month and a number of cases. their number of issues that spreading the issuance of s.n.a.p. benefits across the entirety of the month instead of just on the first day could help accomplish and we think a reduction in fraud may be an additional positive result of this change. thank you for inviting fmi to share our thoughts on identifying and reducing fraud and the s.n.a.p. program. industry is committed to ensuring a pleasant and efficient shopping experience for all our customers and we welcome the opportunity to work with the committee and the department to move towards

additional efficiencies in the s.n.a.p. program. thank you. >> thank you. ms. faulkner. good morning chairman ice and honorable members of the committee on oversight and reform. reform. is like to thank you for the opportunity to address this committee on the office of -- to deter and combat fraud and the supplemental assistance program or as we have refer to it as now. let me say the pencil the new governor tom corcoran believes it's important for pennsylvania to to provide health and human services such as s.n.a.p. to deserving citizens individuals who engage in fraud take away those limited resources from the neediest of pennsylvania. it's the mission of my office to uncover fraud laced in the use within s.n.a.p. to hold those individuals who have committed fraud within the program accountable for their actions and to recover overpaid tax dollars. the office of inspector general conducts its mission to combat s.n.a.p. fraud by operating

several fraud investigative programs within its bureau of fraud or attention. these programs are field investigations, fraud investigations and s.n.a.p. trafficking programs. these programs are operating in coronation with the pennsylvania department of health and welfare which we refer to as dt w. which administers the s.n.a.p. program. the office of inspector general is combating fraud begins with the application for s.n.a.p. benefits. through her feel investigation programs. when dpw refers an application or reapplication for s.n.a.p. in the pits and suspects fraud or received inconsistent or incomplete information it prefers the application to my office, the office of inspector general. it provides dpw with its findings. based on these findings epw denies or proves benefits at a reduced amount. this process exists for active recipients of s.n.a.p. benefits

when epw becomes aware of circumstances and the recipients ongoing case. this proactive approach to combating s.n.a.p. fraud in investigating ongoing cases to ensure that only those entitled to benefits are actually receiving them is a critical function of my office. as a best business practice we have greater efficiencies in denying or reducing men correctly authorize benefits versus attempting to collect overpayment benefits. in fiscal year 2010, 2011 the oig conducted approximately 22,308 field investigations where s.n.a.p. benefits were involved. that cost the taxpayer supported based on the oig investigations were either denied, closed or reduced, was a little over $19 million. not all fraud however can be prevented by the oig field investigation program. when dpw becomes aware of such

circumstances which affect its recipients to pass the benefits it will calculate an overpayment of s.n.a.p. benefits them or for that overpayment to my office the oig for investigation. the oig in its fraud investigation program conducts investigation on overpaid s.n.a.p. out of it and determines if the overpayment was due to willful intent to defraud the program. investigations where the oig is able to substantiate their fraud occurred either criminally prosecuted or adjudicated there an administrative hearing. court findings of it tension all findings include orders to fully repay restitution to the commonwealth or carry the program disqualification for the defendant. the oig follows federal regulations and the progressive disqualification penalties for intentional violations with a first violation carrying a 12 month disqualification period. in the fiscal year 2010/2011 for s.n.a.p. overpayment claims the oig conducted approximately 3335

investigations which involves s.n.a.p. involve s.n.a.p. benefits. the oig filed 613 criminal complaints for a total restitution of a little over $1.4 million. the oig disqualified 820 and the result of criminal charges which resulted in a little over $1.6 million in cost savings from preventing further program participation. the oig filed 180 administrative hearings with a total restitution amount of $322,000.463. the oig disqualified 172 defendants as a result of civil proceedings which resulted in approximately $496,000 in cost savings from preventing further participation which includes figures from s.n.a.p. trafficking programs. in addition to efforts to combat s.n.a.p. fraud at the application stage we will -- the oig focuses on fraud occurring through recipients who sell or

change s.n.a.p. benefits to negotiate them into cash services, credit or anything other than food. the practice of s.n.a.p. trafficking is actively pursued and has been done so for many years in pennsylvania. to maintain the integrity of s.n.a.p. and by ensuring the credibility of the vendors and recipients. the oig operates a small but dedicated unit to operate at s.n.a.p. trafficking program and works integrally with the usda and the nutrition service. the usda and the inspector general local district attorneys who identify store owners engaging in s.n.a.p. trafficking. this active participation between the usda and oig is the chief reason why pennsylvania has success in targeting s.n.a.p. trafficking. the usda is responsible for disqualifying individual store owners and filing criminal charges against them. as you know it takes the active participation of the recipient

of s.n.a.p. benefits for s.n.a.p. trafficking to occur. the oig's responsibility in partnership with the usda is to actively pursue trafficking and hold them accounting old for their actions including criminal prosecution obtaining the payment of illegal transacted benefits and disqualification from the program. >> thank you. i will now recognize myself for five minutes. ms. faulkner a lot of what you're talking about of course are people who receive the benefit and abuse it. that presents -- represents a large part of the states role, is to make sure, we still use the food stamps but the stat program funds get to the ultimate recipient, which is usually family members. is that correct? now, in your enforcement, the fact that these are basically credit cards that are digitally monitored and that you can track, that has dramatically

made your job more accurate, hasn't it been the old days of paper? i'm sorry, your microphone? >> yes, it has. >> well, that begs the question i think well, ms. hatcher i have been at the grocery store when i've seen the exclusion of unauthorized material where it every grocery store i have gone to has the software where they simply say yes that's fine, you have just credited $35 you still owe a $6.50 for the cigarettes or whatever. that's great. to 100% of your members have that and if not, why not? >> 100% of our members that have electronic point-of-sale would have some of the ability to download that and we are increasing that number. i would have to get back with you on the exact percentage of stores but it's over 90%. >> that's excellent.

mr. concannon every grocery store i go to these days is electronic. not every liquor store i go to his electronic. one of the basic questions is if you cannot reduce fraud to an acceptable level to make your ig happy if you will, is it that important at every liquor store and i used the term liquor store very specifically because some times people want to call them convenience stores but we all know as the ratio gets close to your minimum food to cigarettes and alcohol, your fraud level goes up, no question at all and well understood. is that one of the areas in which the tests must be higher in the tolerance for any slippage must be lower? >> i appreciate the question mr. chair, and to the point you make, stores by federal requirement must provide a certain number of foods in the food group and is what we refer

to as the depth of stock requirements. i'm very interested and i know secretary vilsack is as welcome in increasing the application on stores that have more food than those minimums that currently needed. for stores that they're really their religious is in selling tobacco or selling alcohol. you can't buy that with your s.n.a.p. card but it's encouraging people to come into those locations. >> i appreciate that. in your op-ed which i would ask unanimous consent be placed in the record. without objection. in your statement, quite frankly give a fairly rosy picture in the case of your comments on scripps howard. was a little bit like the ranking member thanking us for the hearing and then saying we want to starve the children implication and everything republicans do in the budget. scripps howard exposed at least in some cases fraud that you were not aware of. is that correct? >> yes they did in a very small number of cases i want to

correct the record because scripps mistakenly made the notion -- >> i appreciate and you said that in your op-ed in their opening statement. >> my time is limited and you are invited here because we are concerned and we really don't want to have our whistleblower bashed even if there was 1% accuracy and there appears to be far more than 1% accuracy. here is the question i have for you and it's the only question i'm going to make today and i think ms. fong will particularly appreciate it. the rest of government uses permanent exclusion and department fairly aggressively. it's not an easy task but it guarantees that those who have cheated the american people as vendors are not just removed for a period of time from your program but in fact are removed from eligibility governmentwide.

why do you not use a broadly and will you begin using department or do you believe you don't have the authority to? >> there are many compelling reasons why we do not currently use it. we are able to take stores. we have taken stores out this very weak for simply trafficking or misleading us in their application, falsification. we don't have to hold hearings. we give stores 10 days to respond to us and we take them out. if we use department we have to go through a hole the hold extended hearing process. when we take the stores out, most of the stores we are talking about her small stores. they rarely interact with other parts of government. they don't have pharmacies. they are not stores, government does not buy as a reference.. it's far more efficient for us to do this and i will say this. we have completed requirements the requirements with the general services administration to allow agencies, our agencies