"washington journal," live every morning at 7:00 eastern, on c- span. the national education association is having an annual meeting in washington d.c. with the speech from the national teacher of the year. she is a seventh grade english teacher >> we should focusn e results we want. it could create jobs. it can expand opportunity. it can guarantee our competitiveness. it can put america back on top. >> you can talk about goals all you want, but we have put up stop signs. we have put up stop lights, and none of it ever changes congress's behavior. >> from the time that i had lost

total control of the committee, we went out for two pitchers of beer and the came back and said the us a tax bill with 25% tell. he said you have to give it a mortgage interest deduction. i said what about 26%? >> you could make the ban just to homeowners much more aggressive. what we did was to convert the home mortgage deduction to a tax credit that are lower rate. exchanging the tax code, yesterday and today. current and former lawmakers at the bipartisan policy center on the battles won and lost. find it on line at the c-span video library. >> now, discussion on professional journalism and the impact social media on news reporting. stanford university hosted the

discussion with social media editors and journalists in silicon valley, including the creator of mobile news, the executive editor of yahoo! news, and a special media strategist for national public radio. this is 90 minutes. >> welcome to the symposium. i am the director of the journalism fellowship at stanford. i will be the moderator for today's symposium, how social media is revolutionizing the news. the lecture series is sponsored by the department of communications at stanford. it began in 1964, and it honors an independent editor and executive who was known for never giving in to entrenched viewpoints. he was a progressive sort, and i think he would

enthusiastically endorse the subject of today's symposium. i know he would be impressed by the quality of participants. he is a distinguished scientist and the founder of google news, which he created in the aftermath of 9/11 to keep us abreast of new developments. google news aggregates news for more than 500,000 sources, has 70 additions, and is published in 30 languages. he was born in bangalore eventually got a ph.d. in human- computer interaction from georgia tech. banco r&d eventually got a ph.d. in human-computer interaction from georgia tech. am pleased to say he is on the board of visitors of the knight fellowships. senior media strategist at npr. a huge audience relied on his messages for news and

intermission developing in the arab spring uprisings. he has helped npr and pbs stations collaborate and work with techies and public media fans to collaborate on projects. before coming to npr, he was director of a program that helped to bridge the digital divide. our third panelist is editor at oakland local, a publication that focuses on social justice issues. it includes diverse voices. she has worked as a consultant and trainer, and has consulted on the california water project. she is a former we got to senior director. -- e. eyes senior director. our next palace is the director of yahoo news.

a board of editors and social teams, with bureaus in new york, washington, and sunnyvale. newsso manages yahoo's partnership with abc news. before he came to yahoo in 2010, he was editor of newsweek.com and managing editor at new york times digital. i do not think i have to tell you that we are in the midst of a social media revolution. hundreds of millions of people use the social networking services of facebook, twitter, and google plus. and not just to share to cat photos. >> not that there is anything wrong with that. >> by this time tomorrow, with facebook's first day of trading, mark zuckerberg will officially be a gazillionaire. [laughter] the premise is that the services have had a major impact on the

collection, distillation, and distribution of news and information. the project for excellence in journalism, in its state of the news media, said that social media are important but not overwhelming, at least not yet. that is a quote from the report. no more than 10% of digital news consumers follow news recommendations from facebook or twitter very often, our survey finds, and almost all of those who do are still going directly to news websites as well. but there are many other indications that social media are radically altering the news landscape. word of the shooting of rep gabrielle giffords and the killing of osama bin laden, not to mention the death of donna summer today, spread fire early on twitter and facebook. reporters now routinely use foral mto find sources breaking news situations and complicated stories. when journalists use these

platforms, they create a conversation around a running story or topic of interest, whether it is to hone their own stores or to engage their audience, or both. i think we have to say that something revolutionary is happening. that is what will be export today. let's get to it. we will dispense with former presentations, and have a q&a discussion. you noticed the cameras. c-span plans to broadcast the symposium sometime over memorial day weekend. it will also be available on stanford itunes. when he moved to audience questions, please use the microphone here. i'll begin with some basics. allow ask each participant to address this in question -- what are social media? what are the significant platforms? what are their impact on your news operation? i will begin with you. >> thank you, tim.

there are many platforms out there. there'll be more coming out. what is more important, in my opinion, is the people who use these platforms, who either produce the news or carry the news or distribute the news or are in the news. how they interact, that is the big focus here. in the case of googlers, -- google news, we have tried to increase diversity in news by bring together thousands of articles covering a story and organizing that in a compact form. initially, the way that was implemented was completely based on observing the publishing actions of publishers and

stories they found interesting. over time, we started looking at social signals, the actions of people on the networks, the commentary, and so forth. by integrating the google plus, our social network, we started writing stories from that. google + allows you to comment on news stories in googlers. recommendations from friends are surfaced. we also have hang outs on their -- and there, which allow people to post a panel. to get your laptops for of you are and have a conversation about something that is extremely current. by lowering the bar and have these conversations happen in real time, we are in reaching the amount of, -- information

out there. >> on the other end of the panel, how would you address that? >> first, i fundamentally agree. it is not the platform, it is the audience. all media is social media. the only media that is not social is media that nobody consumes. social media platforms are different than social media. that is one of the things that we often get caught in. we think of a platform as defining interaction as opposed to the audience and the media defining the interaction. i am sure we will talk about this. we in the news media often think of the platform as a tool, as a mechanism to do our job. in a lot of ways, news media has been more comfortable in some ways with social media platforms because they have not

been disrupted yet. they have not changed the ways we need to do our job yet. they will. then will probably not like the nearly as much as we do today. but, i think that the focus on the platform is really less interesting than the focus on the interaction and the focus on the way that the values of the audience affects the consumption of media and overlap and layer and create something where the reason they are consuming media and we are interacting and distributed and sells becomes the story as much as -- and distribute it to themselves becomes the story. >> to some degree, when you are talking about interacting, the audience interacting, that is different from our traditional journalism perspective. >> to some degree, yes. but in some ways that is only because we can capture the

interaction. it may not be any different. the difference is that the contract it. we noted. also, the degree of signals we can capture and pay attention to is fundamentally different. i do -- i think that at some level we do have to think about, what is the media consumption pattern and narrative we are trying to enable? what is the narrative and the pattern that the audience is looking for? talking -- i was talking with somebody the other day about the epitaph of howard's end. -- hard zinn. there was a word in there, live a life not fragmented. that is one of the challenges, to figure out how the

fragmentation of the narrative becomes something more than what it has been. >> i will take a slightly different approach. part of what has happened today in the inevitable move towards mobile and portable devices. i have a very intense relationship with my fund. some people probably have the same relationship with a tablet or a kindle fire. we have to remember, part of what is happening is that so much more information is now crowd-source. photos. to think about the plane landing into the hudson, or a bombing. we are becoming always-on, always-network. the platforms that have been the most successful have really been the ones that have been the most accessible to people on mobile devices. we will see a lot more investment on those platforms to work on tablet on mobile devices. if you look at the android -- i

am fascinated that now i am going to npr app. it is a web browser that is set up as an app, pulling away from the web into these little silos of content that are really good for the provider. we have to think about social media as being something portable and personal. that is where we will see a real acceleration, especially if there is more wireless broadband. people can send more and more digital media. >> can you elaborate on what the implications of that are? we are crowds sourcing, but mobilely sourcing and consuming information? >> there are two implications. one, we can have greater immediacy. the other is that we have

greater risk of deception. there is a man who was an oakland -- in oakland. it was fascinating to see his account of everything happening with the police in the occupied demonstrations. on the other hand, if somebody tried to present an accurate, unbiased reporting, you could not take this information as fact. so that is an interesting position to be in. >> we will come back to this issue of veracity. what is your take on a this -- what a social media? >> to me, social media is any platform, service, tool, what ever, that network's people together and give them opportunities to engage each

other, collaborate, and create, to one extent or another. i would not consider traditional forms of media like tv or radio to be social in the sense that, with a broadcast, a person does not have their own satellite dish to immediately communicate back. to not only be a content producer. the closest thing we had to social media was the next day, when people got around the water cooler. that was the platform. there was nothing that gave the opportunity to have engagement in real-time. the trend social media has been around for five or six years. people love to make up new terms. before that, people used web 2.0 ayotte. before that, -- like web 2.0 a

lot. before that, we would talk about the read and write web. go back to the 1970's, when people were creating the first e-mail lists or bulletin board systems like usenet. they were very crude systems. they had a limited audience, because the internet was not ubiquitous. if you look at any of these things, or lack of them now, because they still exist in one form or another, this -- they are level playing field. things sometimes get treated that way. -- created that way. there is a long tradition of social media existing within the internet space. the internet is ultimately about the people who use it. >> help me understand how that -- house social media -- were talking earlier about the

earliest times when people would post the newspaper on window france and so on. what is different from that? -- window fronts and so on. what is different from that? >> some of the practices we are doing now that we think are relatively new have been around for a very long time. the very first independent newspaper published in the u.s. was in boston in the late 1600's. it was called "public occurrences." it was a four-page weekly paper. only three pages out of four had print. the last one was planned. the reason for that was that the publisher knew that he could not create a circulation that would cover the entire city of boston, and that things happened over the course of the week. he theorized that people would leave a copy and would jot down some doubts. right there, network

journalism, a crowd sourcing already existed. i have the feeling that this guy did not come up with that. if you look at the history of publishing in britain in the 1600's, you find other examples of that. the tools are different. the playing field is a lot more level, obviously. it still took a guy publishing a brushy to give people the opportunity to do that, but -- a broadsheet to give people the opportunity to do that, but now pretty much anyone with internet literacy has the ability to be a dingy organizer, a publisher, or if they just want to be a consumer. >> can add one thing? >> absolutely. >> one thing that has changed is that some of these distinctions between who does what activity

are starting to disappear. it used to be that we had publisher-consumer and that is it. now we have the middle area, where you have the ability to look at a lot of information. everybody does everything. where allconversation the actors are contributing, to different degrees. even publishers are looking at what other people are publishing and are reacting to that. also what other info answers are saying. rs are saying,.r everybody is saying, here is the other thing you should look at. what is interesting is how there is the premise of these two different roles, and that has

changed completely. if you ask somebody if you years ago what is journalism, they would say, you read something. now, there is a combination, some people are talking, others are listening, and that is causing the conversation. it is a completely different model. >> the other thing is the ubiquitousness of it. the decentralized nature of it. a broadsheet in boston in the 17th century was only available among people who picked it up in the public area. people who consume it. the people allowed into the club. the diversity of the audience,

the fact that communities have built up independent of intent or action and can tap into this new dynamic and shape a narrative and create that feedback. that is the most powerful nature. it is not about the platform, it is about the people, the audience, what they are doing there. >> when we talk about feedback, we need to be talking about miniature feedback loops. for a lot of journalists and news organizations, they think of social media as, we will do the work we have always done, produce the stories, stick them on line, and will have a common thread below that. that is feedback in one sense, but that is not that different from letters to the editor and other traditional mechanisms of getting people to that news

organizations know what they think. with social media today, you have feedback occurring throughout the entire process, before the story even occurs to a journalist, as the journalist is working -- citizen journalists, the public is creating something and did the platform from minister meet to share it with a wider audience. -- get a platform from the media to share it with a wider audience. >> when google launched, the idea of an automated trading system was so radical. people said, could this be good or not? things like blogging have mediated newspapers and publishers. the process becomes spread out. we'll also see a new role more and more powerfully of the curators. the curator is really displacing the editor.

during the arab spring, there was a curator who was passed in all these comments back and forth. he was abrogating them. 'm fascinated by pinterst, where people put incredible amounts of energy into curating collections. think of people you know who are experts on something. what is happening now is the way that social media is changing the publishing model. now we have the role of the editor change, where we do not look to the movie critic for the restaurant critic -- people who could be very hyper-vocal or needs. those are the kinds of -- those are going to be the resources. all these roles of own and control of information, meaning authority, keep breaking. i like the fact that one of the fashion experts is a 17-year- old girl, the style rookie.

she was very young and became this giant authority. that is a huge sea change that we now can look to people who are distributed all over the globe who either have a certain passion or just are filling a role as a facilitator that in the past was reserved to people certified as experts. >> it is interesting that the mentioned in maturation replacing the editorial process. -- gyration replacing the -- curation cess c --uratio replacing the editorial process. conveying a certain piece of news to the audience -- you lose some of the control, but what editors to get is a more efficient mechanism for having

this find its way to the networks and to the people who care about it. it is an active network of intelligence eyeballs who are putting this to the task of the community who cares about it. that is making it more efficient. >i think it is a fallacy that the publisher should only publish and not curate beyond what they publish. increasingly, people are coming to the news applications or news website and saying, help me navigate. it is not -- to the user does not believe that what they need to get is truly the contents of one publisher when there are five dozen other publishers. you can look at google news or yacht owners for that broad --

yahoo news for that product content, but they help you. that is a better starting point. >> people are fighting to keep that old model alive. a few months ago, there was a big controversy when sky news announced a new social media policy. they said, if you work for sky news, do not break news over twittered. do not talk to your competitors. all sorts of others -- other restrictions. that runs completely against witter culture and the use of twitter as a potential journalistic tour. within a matter of weeks, the best-known internet personality on twitter resigned in protest. he could not do his job anymore because he was not able to engage people. they then were so concerned about keeping the content focus on them that they completely ignored the reality of how everybody is sharing everything right now, and we are all

learning for -- from each other because of it. >> another thing to look at is the incredible popularity of people posting on open platforms like huffington post or salon, where a community invites comments. oakland and local, we do a huge amount of crowd-sourcing of stories. we have 40% of our content from inside community contributors who are often riding on facebook. we invite them to publish on oakland local so we can distribute that content through our partnerships. we can give them a much broader distribution than they would just have been their own network. we are very much an amplifier of interesting parts of the conversation that we find. that is very much the wave of the future. >> what annie was talking about. for media companies, there is something really important here

to go into. that is, where do you find value? the sky example, they assume that value was in the brand, and the brand represents them. the value is in your audience. the value is in the connectivity with your audience and the degree to which you can engage in your audience -- in a major audience, now 24/7. that is a fundamental shift in the business proposition and how you build value. >> i do not think it d values or brand to, in addition to doing your own at journalism, connect to the audience -- connector audience to other things. >> it challenges you to think of what you are. if he thinks are brand is a publication, a consumable entity, then you get let down this road. the use change focus to

of social media and social media platforms as important tools. -- reporting tools. annie, i want to talk about your coverage of arab spring and how it started. we talk a little bit about this. what did you learn from this? >> a big part of my job is they give me the space to experiment with new tools and techniques regarding journalism innovation and collaboration with the public. methods that work or seem to have legs -- i work with reporters and airshows to expand them. i have been active on twitter for five years now. we have used it in a variety of ways, during the 2008 election, during the presidential debates, to collect reports on voting problems, and i was very comfortable with interacting with people on at twitter to get

information who i knew nothing about. the work i had done previously, i knew a handful of bloggers from tunisia and others who were living in exile because of the government had repressed them. i also knew about the global bourses product, -- global voices product, which have launched with harvard in 2005. i was not close with these guys, but i read their blogs. late in 2010, they started using a certain hashtag. at first, i thought they meant it was a cute tourist town near tunis. i realize they were talking about this other town in the middle of nowhere in south- central to nietzsche where a young man had just set himself on fire in protest -- in south- central tunisia were a man had just said is -- himself on fire

to protest. people were coming out to protest in support of that -- him. a couple of people recorded video on camera funds and allowed to get them on youtube. does bloggers, because there were all network with each other and somewhere in europe, they began trading everything they were finding. --curating everything they were finding. they're using any network they could find to completely overwhelm the -- they were using any network they could find to overwhelm the tunisian authorities. in a country of 11 million people, 2 million of them were already on facebook. as the conversation started on twitter, it quickly spread on facebook. having been to tunisia and having experienced the police stayed there, i was completely fascinated by the notion of people getting away with protest. i kept watching it, tweaking about it,twee --ting

and i remember i said we were seeing the beginning of the jasmine revolution. the jasmine is the national flower of tunisia. after the revolution happened, i had a tunisian colleague come and visit. she said, thank you for everything you did to cover a revolution, but next time let us in our own revolution. i said, sure. but it was not until the final days of the revolution that the media really took it seriously. nobody paid attention to tunisia. anybody who knew about it thought it was just the place for star wars was found. it suddenly came on the radar -- star wars was filmed. it suddenly came on the radar. i started taking the techniques are used in the tunisian and expanded upon them, until it got to the point where my twitter

followers the century became my newsroom. rather than being in the studio with producers and researchers and somebody talking to me -- talking into my ear piece, i was sitting on a park bench with my phone having dozens of twittered followers doing all this for me. i could essentially to anchor coverage of these revolutions and fact-checked and is coming out of it. >> some of it has become more low-tech. participating in journalism is now easier than ever. >> is also rather old school. the basic principles i applied to this, they are the types of things that anybody who is studying journalism, it makes sense to them. if i only have one source on twitter, that is not good enough. but it can people are all saying they are getting shot at and i

know some of them do not know each other, that is more likely we have a story. when you pick apart the methods that i used, it is really grounded in very traditional reporting methods. >> i love the fact that there was also this community before this. in global forces, community is what forms that official german. >> i have interacted with a lot of those folks developing on- line community is responding to disasters like the tsunami and katrina, the haiti earthquake -- there were already a critical mass of people in different parts of the world who were on- call for each other if something big happens. if you combine that -- people want to volunteer on line and help -- with a subset of them who are also political activists in their own countries, it places -- place some type of role. i will not argue that these

research committee revolutions. i hated when people say that. people had to die for these to succeed in some places. but social media did play a part in different countries, in different ways. the kernel of these began because of those types of human networks. >> i wanted to ask. and he was doing this from thousands of miles away. you are on the ground in oakland. i've heard you talk before about the value of crowd- sourcing and the pitfalls of crowd-sourcing. is there any kind of editing that needs to be done to make sure that what oakland local- bus is viable and credible? >>oakland local started in 2009 after oscar grant was shot by a

police officer on a subway platform. there were a lot of issues about accountability. eventually, there was a trial. we found ourselves in the middle of covering this. we also found ourselves in the middle of covering occupy oakland. for us, we have always relied on professional reporters on our team to help validate what is happening. whether it was the devastation surrounding the death of foster grant and the trial, or occupy oakland, we have never relied only on the crowd to validate information for us. we maintain a small mobile newsrooms were we have had people coming off the street a few blocks away with stories to deliver photos. these reporters are able to that information.

combining that with the kind of information we are getting from the crowd -- that has given our coverage a depth and diversity that a lot of other coverage has not been able to get. but we are very scrupulous about not taking was reported on social media as fact. we will say, people are saying this, you are hearing this, this is what is being said and reported -- we report it essam been discussed. we try to stay away from anything we do not know as fact and report -- to be reported as fact. we sit between the very large mainstream media that often takes the expected line, and then people who are very angry and saying a lot of things they are feeling. we try to be in the middle and be a constructive, credible resource that is on the ground. we take that very seriously.

we also tried to -- i think that reflection is important. when an immediate event is over, we are assiduous about making sure the people who want to write off bads or statements -- op-eds or statements have the option to do so. we will post those on facebook. in places where there are huge digital divide issues, underserved communities -- people get trapped. people are good at facebook. there is a lot of incredible work on facebook. if we did not surface that, a lot of people on these networks may not see it. we work with them to help push some of their content so that people outside of their immediate communities can get a sense of what the thinking was. >> on yahoo.com use, yahoo news,

how you use social media? >> you look at it a couple of ways. it is the primary early warning system. it is what you look at to understand -- you are looking at a velocity. you are looking at what is taking off. what has gone from 0 to 60 in 30 minutes. in that way, it is purely a newsroom tool to indicate, hey, we need to start looking at this. during that in real time. the other thing is looking at how you can begin to look at multiple social media platforms and systems together into a narrative. i am not going to say that we have done that in a way that we found it satisfactory.

that is the other interesting thing we are trying to struggle with -- how you tell a story, how you creed in narrative, a dynamic narrative, not just take a bunch of tweets and publisher story. an article is not the story. collecting tweets is not the narrative. that is the thing we are looking to try and capture, particularly after a major event. >> you mentioned professional journalists. in a time when the social media platforms are becoming more ubiquitous and powerful, what does it mean to be a professional journalist? >> oakland local has a team of 15 people who work on a free- lance basis.

we do not have any full-time paid staff. we're producing a lot of content in a model that is there a different than what has been done before. we train our professional journalists to affirm the importance -- we train any community contributors, who like to rally around a certain topic, food, justice, things they are passionate about, we train them for professional journalism standards. we talk to them about being thorough and accurate. we really believe in thoroughness and accuracy and transparency. we do not -- having these community guidelines that go up into actual professional standards. we are trying to combine community voices with a high standard of telling a story that

needs to be told. people have really appreciated that. we have never gotten any negative feedback and people we work with. >> in my first job in newspapers, years ago, my editor was a great editor. he told me something i have never forgotten. remember, hundreds of people will read your story who will know more about your story than you do. it is understanding that our job is not to know -- our job is to try to find out as much as we can and convey it in the most responsible and accurate way and the most timely way. in recent that -- -- increasing that -- every story we work on, there are perhaps millions of people who know more than we do. our job is to connect those people with our audience. >> oakland local puts an

emphasis on working with people who live in oakland. we do not have reporters to drive home to a suburb. we prefer that our reporters covering an area live in that area. if you want to write about east oakland? it is even better if you live in some part of east oakland. we want nuanced coverage, -- it is coming in from the helicopter level. our staff has a much deeper understanding of the history, the contentious problems. they're able to bring that to the front. what you are talking about is totally right. we try to have a degree not only of respect, but of sensitivity to the fact that we are writing from a position in the community. there is no us and them. it his office -- all of us.

>> as many of us in the valley have often encountered, sometimes there are pieces about technology in mainstream journalism that are amazingly 90. you feel there be 100 people in a one-mile radius kuwait in much better. -- who could weigh in a much better. some of this information is not organized as much as other people's knowledge. sometimes you have to sink in weeks of work to produce something -- an investigative piece. that is not possible with social media. part of what social media is doing is that it is taking away stuff that you have to do because nobody is doing it. some of the on the street reporting that is now coming to

you. some of the curation that other people are not willing to do. it allows journalists to focus on something even more challenging, during the in-depth pieces. >> we have a journalism program. i will ask each of you to imagine that you are the director of the journalism program, and you need to think of one or two things that every journalism student needs to know about curating, aggregating, using these social media programs. what is important to know? >> they have the ability to be a community organizer, in the sense that, if you are going to interact with people online, you have to be prepared, on what level, to serve almost as a master of ceremonies, bringing

people together to coast and relinquishing some of the power associated with that. facilitating a conversation with everybody to upgrade the journals and your strive for. so most people can be taught how to take topics and call that curating. but it should be a lot more nuanced than that. if you are going to do this well, you want to tap directly into your community's subject matter expertise, your personal experience, etc. i would not be able to do what i have done over the last 15 or 16 months if it were not for the fact that a lot of people on twitter who know more about these countries than i ever could if i had studied them for the rest of my life. >> when i was a young reporter,

becoming a community organizer would be a huge paradigm shift. you worked in a news organization that is a pretty substantial establishment. how is the community organizing part of that? >> i am at somewhat of an aberration. part of my job is to experiment. that said, more and more reporters at npr are expanding their social graf, it is sometimes called, the space within the social media world of the people they know, how the fine people and called of resources, how they ideally get them to talk to each other. -- how they find people and cultivate sources. how they get them to talk to each other. they're expanding and diversifying their sources. how many talking heads do we see every single day on tv or on whatever medium just because we

are comfortable with our current rolodex? one of the greatest services social media provides is to not have to fall back on that same set of people. more diverse resources and will be better. i see things happening with reporters all the time. they do not have to have a mashable article written about what they have done, because it is so routine to talk to their twitter followers and get things going. >> one way to think about it as a community organizer -- you could just think of it as developing your sources. i think that, in a weird way, if you are talking about what skills a young student needs, tell them to go to a 12-year- old.

to get 10-year-old son of to get you to build a story -- that is difficult journalism. building sources is now how we develop our stores. there were times when developing sources meant you went to the bar where you know the cops went after work and you bought drinks. that is not how you develop sources now. >> i also think that a young journalist today, one thing that has changed is that trying to write in journalism-speak does not work. i believe in the value of research and reported stories. i am a huge fan of investigative reporting. but when i see people trying to copy the voice of "the new york times" in a small, local entity, i shake my head. it is important to recognize that you are writing for real

people that you need to connect with. the need to write with them -- for them in an accessible voice. i'm a huge -- i am a huge fan of "news day" which really brought the content of "the new york times" to a better -- to a more clear voice. they do not have the synonymists journalistic mantle of the fake journalist speak. there is a phony tone that journalist speak, just like in press releases. the role is to find out your own voice -- combine your own voice with a credible research that you need. to try not to play a role. journalists plan a row is over. -- role is over.

that can be a hard thing to learn when people are so admired. >> the style that they called he voice from nowhere." >> the first and foremost, partially what susan is saying, if you are writing for a local audience, try to have a voice that -- do not underestimate what your audience once. part of that is going even further and going into the experience of the individual, creating an experience that so do not be afraid of technology. work shoulder to shoulder with technologists, computer scientists, designers, to build an experience that works for the audience you want to go

after. all right? then the role of news is that you are a guide, you are a community organizer. you're not an oracle, you're somebody who is walking with that person through the maze of information, helping them experience it in a way that works for them. so that's what you're trying to do. this is the experience you want to create. additionally, perhaps you also want to create original reporting that is going to be used worldwide because imagine in addition to the current audience, the rest of the world that may also draw from here. firstly, you have to do original journalism because there is way too much redundancy out there so focus on your assistant and try to figure out -- on your strengths and try to figure out that way. so trying to find a good market for what you are producing, not just for the audience you

originally intend it for but more broadly. there have been, you know, part technologist, part designer, part businessman the >> just to add to what susan said, it's the real important to not sacrifice your sense of humanity for the sense of seeming more professional. unfortunately, as some reporters or journalists in general become more successful, the more distant they seem from their communities, it can be very hard to relate to people who have become very, very successful and see their world in a somewhat elite way now, whereas there is so much to social media that's about authenticity and i go out of my way 0 to not just talk about journalism and what's going on in the news on my twitter account. i talk about going out and adopting a dog or my kids have the flu and they just threw up

on my computer or whatever. >> ew! >> ew, but that's what happens. part if -- of it is to remind them i'm not just a bought sending out tweets the one person just described the real banal stuff on twitter, people talking auppings with -- about what they had for lunch as a form much social grooming, like the great apes sitting around grooming each other. the reason you're doing that is you're investing in the relationship. it may not seem important at the time but when things hit the fan, they've got your back. so if it's a slow news day or weekend or whatever, i still keep talking to people. if they ask a question that has nothing to do with the job but i know the answer, i stop and take the time to answer it. it is reinforcing those bonds the

>> abandon ummedsing that there is not -- conflict between eath incidentic and professional is critical. i would say that the flip side to that is the ease with which you move from eath incidentic to sort of a journalism afirmation, that if you think about i am writing with a voice for an audience, the degree to which it begins to become a television form of journalism and that's sort of the bad side of what is a good development i think in news, to basically say no, our voice should be eath incidentic, should be accessible. but our voice should still be a journalistic voice. it should still be talking to a total audience and presenting the full story as opposed to potentially flipping into a we're just going to tell you what you want to hear or tell you what you know you're going to get from us day in and day

out. >> i also think social media has really reached out because of the crowd sourcing functions, what we think of as news. traditional news is all about conflict. going to cover crime, people fighting, people doing bad things, all that news at night that you can't sleep after you watch it. the social media has helped with more stories and issues than the traditional conflict models that were considered news up until fairly recently. i think of news as being stories of discovery, things that need to be brought to light and talked about, sort of a positive and negative. it can be an expose, it can be speaking truth to power, but there's a lot of news that people have shown they're very happy to have that doesn't fit that traditional conflict model and i think social media has made it more obvious that there are other ways to think of what news is and that people will consume that kind of information the >> we're going to open this up

to questions from the audience so if you would like to ask a question, please make your way to the microphone. while people are doing that, back to you, andy. tell the story about -- the hope story. the blogger who hasn't -- don't give away too much here. [laughter] >> i just did. >> you just did. that's ok. so there have been all sorts of crazy stories that have happened over the last year, especially related to the arab spring. one that came to light last june had to do with a blogerer, a syrian-american woman based in damascus who had been very active in online communities for five or six years, moved to damascus a few months before the revolution started and when the revel lution started she became an incredible voice for what was going on on the ground. news organizations began to interview her. the guardian, bbc, cnn, she

became a bit of a celebrity in the journalism world. then one day in june a relative of hers posted on her blog that she had been kidnapped by state security or something like that. immediately people began to mobilize. they began to put together facebook pages to support her cause, creating avenue tars for people to news solidarity. some organized protests at the syrian embassies. y was very -- was very interested in finding people who knew her to find a sense of how much danger she might truly be in. as i started asking around i started getting messages from my contacts in syria and they were saying well, i'm part of the local gay community here and i never heard of here. others would say i haven't met her. each would pass me onto someone else. i got to the point i was saying

does anyone know anyone who has met her in person? it final by -- finely got to the point where i contacted the reporter at the guardian who did the very first interview, interviewed her in person and he said what can you tell me about this person. what they told me is that the two of them had skyped through texting each other for a few days to get background information, then they agreed to meet in person at a cafe and if one or the other didn't show up within a certain period of time they would assume they had been compromised and regroup later. so the blogger sent a photo to the report r, said this is what i look like. you will find me here. the reporter showed up, waited and waited and waited and she wasn't there. so she went back and contacted her through the phone or whatever back channel they had and the blog said i was followed, they're following me more an more, i can't do this, let's drop the whole thing, i can't meet you much the reporter said that's ok, i

think i've got enough background material, i'm going to go file the story. the story was filed and the story said the interview had taken place in person which gave license to all the other organizations to interview her through email or texting or skype. then a serbian woman surfaced saying why the hell is this blogger using my photograph? and all the photos on the blogger's facebook page were stolen from this serbian woman's facebook account. so all of a sudden this became a mad dash online to figure out what on earth was on -- going on here. some people assumed that because she was gay and involved in revolutionary politics, she just had covered her tracks very, very well. others thought she was a moll plant -- mole planted by the security services, and a few people thought it was a hoax.

but she had been on line for six years. she was part of yahoo groups back to 004 and 2005. my twitter followers kept digging and digging, looking through tax records, property records, tracing i.p. addresses, the little code for any computer connected to the internet. after a week of this a couple bloggers final i -- finally decided they found who it was. his name was tom mcmaster and he was an american living in scotland and going to grad school there. for about 48 hours he said it wasn't him. but eventually a colleague of mine and i were able to look through some of his wife's photos on a social networking site that matched the meta-data, you know, the background material of the photos that the gay girl character had sent to her online girlfriend. she was dating someone online and that person never knew that she was a guy.

but that ended up sealing it and she finally -- he finally came oit and confessed the whole thing was a hoax and he had created the character five or six years ago because he wanted to have more eighth -- eath incidentic conversations from the -- from people in the middle east. why he changed the character from straight to gay and started posting on personal web sites around the world, that's a whole 'nother matter the >> ok. time for questions. quickly identify yourself. >> my name is janine and i covered much of the beginnings of the arab revolution for the "washington post." krishna, if only it were true about all social media leading to an exention of journalism and long term projects we would all be so much better off. andy, i agree with you that reporters using twitter and facebook to find leads is phenomenal. i was in bare ane -- bahrain

when it all started and i found that. i did it in saudi arabia, all these places like you did from washington. but what is happening in social media right now, i think it's the era of noise and i worry deeply about what will tralked -- talked about with the fragmentation and i'm not sure we as a society and public are better informed about issues because of this phenomenon. i think there is still a role and need for places like "the new york times" which has been repeatedly bashed today, for what jim was talking about, a trained journalist you can go to and rely on and more importantly flow -- knowing the difference between a trained, well researched article and a blog post by somebody who doesn't have that kind be training. i don't think younger readers like the students i teach today know the difference between these things. >> well, for the record i said the exact opposite. i said social media is not going to replace investigative

journalism. that's going to take a considerable amount of evident by a professional. that said, i do think there is going to be a way to find leads and sources and data online that could in sum be journalism. but i agree with you that one area where it's not going to replace traditional journalism. >> i'm pretty sewer shy -- pretty sure i agree with everything you said. there is always ail place for hard core journalism on the field. i find it funny when people say well, what you are doing had ultimately get rid of reporters on the ground. why do people assume that? why can't this be comple implementary to the kind of journalism that exists. no one is trying to destroy

people's jobs or pull them out of their bureaus or field offices around the country. the bigger issue is of people not being able to tell the difference between professional, vetted journalism and what other people are posting, that's not my faultd. that's a failure in media literacy in our society and i think it's important that more people who are involved in news become part of the conversation around media liltrassy because this is a trend that's been going on for well over a generation now. i'd like to think there are aspects of social media that could actually help correct part of it. sure, there will always be idiots geeting that george loony -- tweeting that george clooney has died yet again. but i don't worry about the noise. as some have said, it's not about information overload, it's filter failure. once you become more accustomed to sorting out what to pay attention to and what to ignore

and who say better source and who is not, things begin to come into focus. all this takes practice. it's a different form of literacy. most people won't necessarily get it overnight so we need to spend some time thinking about the implications of all that. >> i also think it's real important not to make assumptions about privilege. the "new york times" is a fantastic organization but it's been heavily representative of male reporters, though it's being led by a woman now and of people who are middle class and above and i'm very, very concerned that social media has offered as great a diversity of voices. i totally agree with that -- you that there is noise and that investigative journalism is very, very important, but i would tate -- hate to give all the power back to mainstream organizations because a lot of the people i mare -- hear from,

i wouldn't hear from any more. and i want to hear from those people. >> i think it's fair to ask the question whether the explosion of social media and the ways in which hts shaping the national narrative has made it better. i would say it hasn't made it worse and that the challenge for us in media is not to say how can we stop this? how can we build more walls? how can we build the gate when the wall has already fallen down? our challenge is to say ok, that's now the media face. that's the world our audience is living in. how do we use it to create the narrative that actually means something? what i find frustrating sometimes is that there is a tendency in media, particularly in certain parts of media, to play defense and to say no, no, we don't like this. we don't like the way it's changing. how can we stop it, how can we

turn it back to what we were comfortable with? as opposed to saying no, it really is about our audience. it's about what they're doing and how they're engaging ond our job is to engage them, provide them the information. and that's what we're here doing. our job is to be professional journalists, not to be newspaper reporters or to be broadcast reporters. and as soon as we begin fixating on the method that we knew when we started the job -- >> well, i'm not disagreeing with you, but one of the issues in professionalization is that the rise of i would say the rise of social media and news had come at the same time that there's been a huge loss of prism -- professional journalism jobs, something like 40,000 in the united states alone. one of president reasons the mainstream media was slow to

get on to tunisia is that there weren't many reporters there to see it. so i think the false notion that somehow social media will replace professional journalism, there is sometimes today that equation made. >> right. no, you hear it all the timend i think people who say that journalism is dying don't separate journalism from the platforms of -- and the economics of journalism. they're very different things. and so the reality is that social media has become a part of our world and certain aspect of journalism, certain types of stories within reporting require engaging people in the public sphere. you can't say that facebook and twitter and all these other spaces are not part of the public 12350er -- sphere. so i spend time on twitter because that's where some of my sources happen to be. i do the same thing on facebook

and elsewhere. when i'm able to meet them in person, i'm thrilled but i don't have the resources to get on a plane and be in tahrir square on a regular basis. when the fighting in libya started, none of us were allowed in the country the first few weeks. we had no choice but to rely on people on the ground who still had internet access and were able to share it. it was our job to vet it and figure out what was accurate and piece it all together. there will always be times we can't be where we want to be the i wish we could have a more nuances -- nuanced conference about this instead of assuming everything is black or white or good or bad. >> you have said these two things happen at the same time but correlation doesn't mean -- >> no -- what really happened is the internet took amay -- away the

monopoly that media companies had on -- to deliver information and commerce to the doorstep. that went away. you could get ads to consumers other ways. people could take it or leave it. now when you put news out, in the past they were forced to get your paper because it was the only one in town. so social media is in some sense allowing, could correct forsome of those problems. >> please direct your question to one particular -- >> i can direct my question directly to susan. based on something that you said about the phony tone of traditional journalist speak being overly objective no longer fitting with our culture. part of what we've been asking throughout the panel is what is a professional journalist and

what is a professional journalist's role? frankly i think the goaling of objectivity should always be paramount. it is an elusive goal, it is something that cannot be fully achieved. but if we don't train our professionals to at haste try to be objective, to try to use their abilities as filters of this new social media in objective ways, we're doomed. so i think part of what i'm asking is, do you really mean to though the baby out with the bath water and say objectivity, eh, that's yesteryear and we should go forward with more subjective journalism and what journalists should be doing is providing analysis from a subjective point of view? or did you mean actually objectivity needs to evolve? >> that's a great question because i agree with you 100%. i like to combine the idea of objectivity with the idea of transparency, which means we're

objective within the framework of who we are and ha we believe. as a mog person, anything i choose to feature as important is a reflection of my values and my interests. so on that level all of us have an agenda and the important thing for journalism today is for us to be transparent about what that is, to teach objectivity, those principles are totally essential. it's one of the things we want to hold onto but not to say because i'm a journalist, i'm objective, the high priest of objectivity, but to say i'm trying to be object've but here's where i'm coming from. >> i think there say fallacy that every component avenue -- of news media has to be objective for the consumer to get an objective viewpoint. sometimes the best arguments are made by people who feel passionately that one side of the argument is drefpblgt that's fine.

you don't have to listen to them directly. you can listen to the people -- person who is guiding you through the many facets the that's what happens in a court of law. you have attorneys come in who are pretty strong arguers. so the so-called objective reporting on climate change, we talked to these people and those people and it could be either way. part of it is the responsibility of the person interpreting the news is to say here's the strongest argument on both sides and guide you to that, not ride -- hiding any of them from view. social media plays that role. there are people there who have a reputation purely because they interpret the news and they look at many strong advocates and say timely i think this is what you need to believe. so i think it's actually creating an opportunity for those who want to gain respect in social networks by providing the objective viewpoint and i think there's something really

important here, the distinction between objectivity and balance. i'm sorry, but balance in everything is phony. you know, basically, you know, would dodd frank have prevented the j.p. morgan chase crater? either yes or no? there's not one says no, another says yes. that in my mind lazy reporting. so i think there is -- and authenticity and objectivity do not need to be, you know, mutually exclusive. but phony balance, which is where a lot of us, like you've only quoted democrats, you have to go quote republicans, that's not objectivity. >> i'm deb petersen. social media director at the news group which includes the "san jose mercury news." a comment first and then a

question. a degree with andy. i caution because i think the conversation does need to be a little more nuanced when we're talking about traditional media. i invite any of you to come to our news room and you won't recognize what it is compared to, say, two years ago. you know, we are on pinterest, we feet -- tweet, we're on facebook, tweet deck is running all day. we have a community engagement teem -- team, our news media in the morning starts digitally with the web site. so it's a different news room than it used to be and many news rooms are so it's not really kind of a -- i don't think it's as much a black and white conversation -- and it's very difficult to not talk about it in black and white terms. and you guys, it's great to hear you bringing all this up. our problem continues to be to monetize. so i would ask the tech company

reps to give us some ideas for that. i would love to see next year that to be p -- the topic the thank you. >> we'll let will and krishna answer nafment i'm a tech guy, but i'm an editor. as i keep getting lectured, i'm just a call center. >> oh! >> but no, i think that -- i think the one thing, and maybe krishna can provide better insight here, but at least for us, it is still fundamentally about the audience. and whenever someone sort of it looking for a silver bullet that, ooh, isn't this the new thing that's going to final by basically turn on this mythical ad spigot connected to a new platform, it's almost never there. and i think ha we found is in fact there's like a million

silver b.b.'s and it's finding the way you can monetize what we have always done, which is providing advertisers a way to connect with and access the audience and doing it in either as targeted and therefore high cpm or mass and therefore lower cpm as possible. as far as i have seen and hopefully there are smarter ad guys at i can't ooh han they, there is no silver bullet, no new magical monetization that's going to come down the pike tomorrow. >> so i agree with will. if there were a silver bullet we'd have seen it by now. we cannot change fundamentally when monday ol -- monopolies disappear so we've got to figure out what it's going to be that will pay the salaries of people who do substantial

journalism. part of that is to walk away from the idea that everybody covers the same thing. so if finally the publications that will succeed, and unfortunately for the ones that are going to actually focus on building something that is unique, has unique value and that causes people to prefer them over other options. that's one thing. secondly the experience is what is going to get monetized. it's not the individual units of reporting. we all understand that. that requires innovation. again, not everybody is going to succeed. the companies that are going to succeed are the ones who are going to have the best experience. where people say the only options available to me are i will use this service, it's something that exposes the

entire world of news to me in a manner that works for me, that adepths to me, that knows my interests. so here's where embracing the opportunity that the open web provides, that social media provides and at the same time trying to rise above the competition in terms of experience is going to allow to you command that massive audience that's going to help you pay your journalists. but i think there's going to be efficiencies that technology brings in in terms of how much it costs to do the reporting. there are example of the kind of equipment you need to buy to do journalism in the field. well, that's rapidly becoming cheaper. that's one example. and the technology being applied on the other side in monetization, making it more, you know, lucrative by not necessarily tethering the ads to the article in question, are you going to make the ad that

because it's about iraq or about what the user is likely to buy at this point? so being smarter about the way you make money and being efficient in the way you actually use your money to do journalism i think is going to drive down costs and increase revenue but ultimately it's the most innovative company that's going to succeed. there is a lot of innovation going on right now and i am hopeful some will try and distinguish themselves. >> i want to say while i think it's great for people to use social media and social media tools, using the toolss isn't going to make you successful with this new generation of business models. in oakland there are a lot of people that we would like to collaborate with who would really like to see us disappear because they see us as a theat so i'm kind of cynical about news entities that don't link

out, don't have partnerships, yet talk about how they're the next generation. npr and the atlantic are woth -- both fabulous examples of organizations that have reinvented themselves, started as legacy media but have really linked out, partnered, really been very open to supporting new entities. there is a lot of lip service from newspaper companies. they want to be community drinken but none of them has ever offered to do anything that would be beneficiary to us. that has to change. they have to walk the talk all the way. going halfway is nice. not enough. >> i'm john grakin. i'm not a reporter, i'm not a journalist. i'm an ex-engineer who has been accused of having fortran as

his native language. i'm not able to direct this to any single person the if i did, which i don't, tweet and plog and manage to get more than any own family to listen to what i am tweeting and plogging, can i declare myself to be a journalist and veil myself with the protections that have evolved over law protecting journalists and their sources? >> um why don't you, you probably have the most experience with the issue. >> there is a man who -- a woman who lost a very expensive lawsuit because the court ruled she was a blogger, not a journalist. so this is a very painful, controversial area. there are no universally held standards. people have the power to publish, to take product

endorsements, to do things they may think are professional but may not meet the standards of journalism. we worry about this all the time. we have insurance, libel insurance, and at oakland local we vet everything that isn't published as a community voices piece. there are things that can go up on the site that are just people's opinions. they have to follow terms of vfer guidelines around no slander, but i think you're raising a great point. it's a complete gray area, right? this is an area where we don't really have a set model yet. >> free speech can have conflicts with legal requirements, right? >> to get to krishna's point from earlier, it's a continuum and that's the challenging part. it's not just a gray area. it's that there are so many points along the continuum that, you know, at what point

does the legal opinion stand? add what -- at what point on the continuum? and how do you measure in each individual case where someone is on that continuum. i don't think it's any clearer. >> my sense of it is that there is a move from side to -- trying to decide who is a journalist, which is a personal status sort of question, to who is doing journalism, and protecting the act of doing journalism as opposed to the individual. but it is a very murky area of the law right now for all the reasons we've been talking about, who is a journalist? who is a professional? and so on. so we'll have to solve that one for next year's symposium. we're going to have to wrap up and i'm going to ask each of the participants to give us a quick to middling idea of what happens next in this realm of

the impact of social media on the news. crashe -- krishna, i'll start with you once again. ? i think it's a good tomorrowation i see in the next decade, traditional media realizing that in order to thrive they need to be part creator and part curator. and i think becoming the trusted guide that takes you through that journey is going to allow them to ultimately succeed. >> no doubt we're going to continue to be more networked. the internet is going to continue to be more affordable. new tools are going to make it easier for people to connect and contribute to public discourse which makes me all the more fearful for the people who are still left behind because we take -- it's easy to take for granted that we are connected with the public as a news organization, whereas in reality we're connected with the public that is online. there's a reason why you don't see people live tweeting from

congo. there are reasons you don't see people doing citizen journalism from certain neighborhoods in washington, d.c. and we ignore that at our peril. >> i think we're going to see more and more collaboration and that a lot of the collaborations are going to be not only between different kinds of organizations but more that are being done with news. i'm thinking about the kged youth radio collaboration in oakland on prostitution in a certain neighborhood in east oakland that won a pea body award. that wouldn't have happened five years ago. i think we're going to see more and more of people teaming up together to really create content they couldn't do otherwise with you -- but really bringing in communities of use we might not have looked to to be part of the team. ? i think what we're going to see and hopefully not in the next

decade is the point at which the social graph, the interest graph, the local graph all overhappen into some common interface and that media becomes less about this fragmented experience and more about a new sort of narrative paradigm. i do think that's the point at which social media becomes massively disruptive to the current media experience. on the one hand it's fascinating, wonderful and i hope we do it. on the other hand, watch out. >> will, susan, andy, krishna, thank you very much for your participation today. [applause] and thank you to the department of communications for sponsoring this and thank you to all of you for joining us here today. please join us for a reception right outside now. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> on "washington journal" tomorrow morning, a look at the potential for states and medicaid and the federal government. our guest, douglas holtz-eakin. then msnbc host christopher hayes talks about his new book, "twilight of the elites," exploring the idea that the current economic crisis is primarily related to inquality. later we'll hear from an executive consultant. "washington journal" live every morning starting at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span.

from the afternoon, live with the president approximately 2:00 p.m. eastern. you can watch both events on c- span.org. on the events of al qaeda as attack that left 17 dead. >> routine paperwork. there was a thunderous explosion. you could feel all hundred five -- all 500 feet violently thrust

up and to the right. we almost seemed to hang into the air for a second. we came back down in the water. lights went out. ceiling tiles went out. i literally grab the underside of my desk and -- until the ship stopped moving. >> more sunday at 8:00 on c- span's "q & a." >> tax reform can create jobs. it can spark innovation. it can expand opportunity. it can guarantee our competitiveness. it can put america back on top. >> you can talk about gold all you want. we have put up stop signs, put up stoplights, and none of it ever changes behavior. from the time i had lost total

control of the committee and went out for a beer with my chief and staff, give us a tax bill at 25% rate and he said ok. mortise -- mortgage interest reduction. i said, what about 6% -- 26%. [laughter] >> more aggressive. what we did was to convert the home mortgage deduction to a tax credit at our lower rate. >> changing the tax code yesterday and today. current and former lawmakers on the battles won and lost. find it online data -- on-line on the c-span video library. in june. he addressed the crowd in the stadium where he played varsity football, telling them about civil rights, his career, and

change. the stanford university president introduce the mayor this is 50 minutes. >> it now gives me great >> it now gives me great pleasure to introduce the commencement speaker, cory 2010 world mayor prize, a former rhodes scholar with clinton yan charisma, fearless, determined, committed. that's how the press has described cory booker and he is

all of that. but that leaves out the two most important things. corey -- cory is a two-degree stanford alumnus and a former member of the stanford cardinal football team that held the axe for four years. [applause] born in washington, d.c., he grew up in a predom inately white suburb of new jersey. his parents were among the first black execute ivessatd i.b.m. they instilled a sense of honor, commitment to justice and opportunity and a strong work ethic in their children. as an undergraduate at stanford he studied political science. interested in helping urban youth even then, he volunteered at a student-run crisis hotline reaching out to young people in east palo alto. after receiving his b.a. in 1991 he earned his second stanford degree, an m.a. in

sociology. awarded a rhodes scholarship, he studied modern history at oxford where he received an honors degree in 1994. three years later he earned his j.d. from the yale law school. in his second year at yale he moved to newark. at the time it was one of the poorest, most violent cities in the nation, but it was also a city with a glorious history. booker has often described cities as, and i quote, the last frontier to make real the promise of america. and he believed that newark was just such a city. in 1998 at the age of 29 he was elected to the newark city council where he focused on cleaning up neighborhoods. some of his methods were unorthodox. in one of the best-known examples he went on a hunger strike and camped out in the middle of a drug-ridden housing project, an act that prompted dozens of neighbors to join him because they were concerned

about his safety. and it worked. the newark mayor, sharp james, who had opposed earlier reform efforts, agreed to increase police patrols in the area. in 2002 booker decided to take on city hall, literally. he ran for mayor against the four-term incumbent. after losing in a campaign later chronicled in "street fight," an academy award nominated documentary, he withdrew from the public eye but not from public service. he remained focused on transforming his city and four years later he ran for mayor again. in 2006 cory booker was elected the 36th mayor of newark by a huge margin. currently serving in his second term he was worked with what -- has worked with what one reporter called epic determination to reduce crime and create an urban environment that nurtures families and the

economy. he has understood that a city cannot flourish unless families feel safe. he tackled crime prevention in a typically booker way, hands on, against the advice of everyone, he patroled the streets at night with his security team. he partnered with newark businesses and raised millions of dollars to install more surveillance cameras. he hired a well-respected police chief who put more officers on the streets in evenings and weekends when crime was most rampant. within two years the murder rate dropped 36% and on april 1, 2010. newark marked its first month in 44 years without a homicide. [applause] under his leadership the city has also added more affordable housing, increased the number of parks and green spaces, and

attracted millions in private philanthropy. after booker expressed deep concern about low academic achievement, facebook founder mark zuckerberg committed $100 million to help him improve newark schools. despite a grueling schedule he remains one of the nation's most accessible mayors, responding to personal appeals, molding -- healed -- holding regular office hours and using social media to stay in touch. he has more than a million followers on twitter and a few years ago when a constituent tweeted him directly that she was concerned about her 65-year-old father shoveling his driveway on new year's eve, cory responded, please don't worry about your datchtd i've do the salt, shovels, and great volunteers. and yes, the mayor shoveled his driveway. since his days as a big brother, cory has been

concerned about at-risk youth. when a couple of teenagers in newark were arrested for spray painting the -- graffiti including the phrase "kill booker," he decided to mentor them, taking them out for meals, arranging tutoring, but also setting standards for dress, behavior, and language. two months ago on arriving home he saw smoke coming from the building next door. he heard a woman scream that her daughter was trapped upstairs. his security detail tried to keep him back, but he said, "this woman is going to die if we don't help her." help he did, running into the building and suffering second degree burns and smoke inhalation but saving that woman. hours later he was back on line -- [applause] hours later he was back online tweeting reassurances to

everyone concerned and praising his security officer for help. newark fire officials characterized cory's rescue as very heroic but very dangerous. indeed, he tomed oprah winfrey a few days later that he was terrified and thought at one moment that he might not make it, but that seems to me to characterize his leadership. he has the courage to do the right thing. even when it is scary. and that courage, that conviction, has helped improve the lives of people in his community and beyond. he exemplifies the potential of every stanford graduate to make a profound difference in our world. please join me in warmly welcoming one of stanford's own, newark mayor cory booker. [applause] >> thank you.

thank you. all right! thank you. last time i was on this field, some guy from ucla tried to bury me right here. it's good to be back on top of the soil. i feel so lucky to be here. i really do. it's a feeling that stanford has given me for all the years i've been involved with this amazing university. i know there are some people here that felt like me after freshman orientation. you got back to your dorm, you closed the door, sat on your couch and said why did they let me into this place? i began from that moment on when people got impressed that were not from the stanford community and said you went to stanford? i said, yes. well, they let me in because of my 4.0 and 1,600. and i said it was 4.0 yards per carry and 1,600 receiving yards

my senior year in high school. [laughter] every step of my stanford career, this university has given me immensely more than i have ever been able to give it and i feel on this day when we celebrate the class of 012 -- -- is this going to go on my whole speech, guys? i'll be very careful when i use that then. i feel that this university and this moment for me just fills me again with a sense of gratitude. for me and this great class, today is not just a day of celebration, but it is a day of appreciation. and allow me with the class to just give my thanks. first, thanks to the trustees of this university. i had a chance to serve with them for five years. it is one of the most incredible assemblages of human beings on the planet, and they pour their heart ar -- and

their spirit into this university to protect its highest values and to ensure that it endures. thank you, board of trustees -- trustees. [applause] i want to thank the faculty and staff. i have never, ever in my life seen folks that have not just mastered their discipline, not just mastered their academic endeavor, but showed to me and other students a level of love, caring, involvement, and spirit that sustains me to this day. my connection to faculty members here at this university has not been severed just by leaving here. indeed it's a fackult aye member every time i've gotten inaugurated as an elected official, it was always my family there and even a stanford fact ulty member, jody max min, who joined me on that stage. please thank all of the faculty members as well for all that

they've done. and i want to thank another group that i probably did not say thank you to enough. a group that is otch first forgotten. those are the people that really keep this university running. they are the secretaries and the assistants, the people that mow the lawns and water the grass, the people that clean toilets and bathrooms and windows, they are a part of the stanford community and their caring and concern has made this day possible as well. please thank them. [applause] and finally i want to thank the families. you are the ones that really made this day possible. each and every graduate has someone tied to them by blood and/or spirit who was there for them, who planted seeds in their spirit, who nurtured the ground on which they grew.

you are responsible for them being here, and while they were here you sent care packages, made phone calls, sent money. and that's perhaps what i want to talk about today. family. not the money part. all us politicians are focused on more than just that. the family. today is fathers day and i thought i would focus really on two men in my life. i am one of those guys that knows in my heart that women in this globe, philanthroppists are finding this out, so many people are seeing that if you support women, you will help change neighborhoods, change cities, change countries, and from a man who is part of the african-american tradition which is rich with mate ray arcal power and strength, please do not think that while focusing on men today that i do not understand that truth.

but today for a very specific reason i want to focus on two men in my life who were at my graduation. and i know they would like to be here today but for reasons i'll mention later they could not make the trip. these two men are my dad and my grandfather. they taught me what it means to be a man. and they both are these outrageous spirits with the corniest jokes imaginable and they would show up to my graduation and both of them would be like a stereo phonic bad joke telling machine as they would lay into me. my grandfather, this huge, big -- big man, would sidle up to me and say, "you see, boy, the tassel is worth the hassle." yes, granddad, yes. and then of course he would look through the program and say, i see that you're not magna cum laude or summa cum laude, you're just thank you,

laude, i'm out of here. my father would not be undone. he, too, was atd every one of my graduations, and his jokes got more painful as the years went on. he and my mom would love to say they'd look at me and they would whisper to another parent and they would take the line and say you know, behind everyone successful child is an astonished parent. i really can't believe this. unbelievable the my father got tired of graduations after a while. he's eau guy to -- that went to college and then went to work. he saw me graduate from stanford once, graduate from stanford twice, then go to england and study and get another degree and then go to law school. and finally he said to me at my last graduation, boy, you got more degrees than the month of july and you ain't hot. get a job! i want to pick up on these two incredibly corny men and really get to their two specific

lessons that they imparted to me on graduation. my dad would touch me hmm like he was trying to feel my very spirit. he would look at me and he would say in ways that are eloquent, he would impart to me this truth. he would say to me, boy, you need to understand that who you are now, you are the physical manifestation of a conspiracy of love. that people whose names you don't even know, you who struggled for you, who fought for you, who sweat for you, who volunteered for you, you are here because of them. do not forget that. my father said those words on a graduation day and he knew that i would not forget that because this was his consistent theme to me all of my life. he wanted me to know where i came from. now, my father in his own charismatic way would always talk about his own journey being one that was a result of

a conspiracy of love. and i listened to those stories year after year. by the time i was 40 i would start arguing with him because the scenes with get so much more dramatic with time and change. and i'd be like, dad, i can't believe this, you were born a poor boy. he goes poor? i wasn't poor. shut up, man. i said, dad -- he goes no, i wasn't poor. i was just p-o. i couldn't afford the other two letters. don't exaggerate my material well-being, son. he i'd have to argue him and fry to convince him that he was not telling the full truth when the weather patterns began to shift over the years from, you know, raining in the mountains of north carolina then the thunder storms started then the hail period began where it rent -- went from hail the size of golf balls, then foonls -- footballs, then soccer balls, then small cadillacs. this last year i argued with

him. because he tried to tell me and i couldn't accept it, i had to be respectful of my dad but i could not accept it -- there's no way, dad, you were in the mountains of north carolina. you con have had a assume annie in your child hooled. but as much as my dad seemed to exaggerate aspex of his childhood over the years, the truth was is he was born very poor. he was born to a single mother who could p take care of him. he then was raised by his grandparents, like many children in my community. but then his grandma could not take care of him. then he was out in the community but it was the -- that conspiracy of love, people whose names i do not know in a small, segregated north carolina town, that rallied around this boy, would not let him fail, got him to school, put a roof over his head, put food on the table, taught him discipline and respect and he made his way and then when it was time for him to graduate high school he was not going to

go to college. he thought his destiny was to go to work and get a job but it was that conspiracy of love that could not -- would not let him turn his back on higher education. i could not believe it, this last thanksgiving as my family was going around talking about what we were tankful for, here is my father that begins to cry because he could not remember all of those people in the turnings -- town, he con say their names who put dollar bills in envelopes to sha -- so that he could afford his first semester's tuition at north carolina central university and then get a job and stay in school. but they are part of that conspiracy of love of the and then in college my ma'am and -- mom and dad would not let me forget the truth of that time. it was the early 1960's. i had this privilege last year being the commencement speaker for my mom's university. fisk university, on her 50th

reunion. she reminded me about what happened at her u6r79 at the night-dinner she took me around to table after table stopping and saying cory, this is the young lady that led our voter registration movement at a time that it was dangerous in the south to go out and register people to vote. this is a young lady that led our boycott of a downtown store that would not serve african-americans. at every table it was almost like shes talking to me again as a ., snapping her fingers and saying pay attention! this person marched for the conspiracy continued. my parents would tell me about landing in washington, d.c. -- that is where they met, two college graduates, african- americans that confronted the reality that many companies would not hire blacks. but it was this conspiracy of love -- black folks and white folks and latinos, in washington, d.c.

and elsewhere in america -- that were forming organizations that were challenging companies and working with them to hire blacks. my dad soon became one of the first blacks hired by an oil company, then one of the first black professionals hired by a department store. then, he and my mom became part of a wave of the first blacks hired from this small tech start-up you all out here in silicon valley may not have heard of called ibm. the conspiracy continued. when my parents got promotions after doing so well at ibm, they got moved to the new york city area. they were looking for towns to move into and, immediately, found out that many of the nicest towns with the best schools would not show the homes to black families. and so my parents worked with this group of conspirators who formed something called "the fair housing council" and every time my parents would go look at a house and were told it was sold, they would send a white couple there to see if that was the truth. i was told that white couple's

name was mr. and mrs. brown but they were not brown. my parents fell in love with a home. they were told it was sold. the browns were there next -- told it was still for sale. they put a bid on the house. on the day of the closing, my father went instead of the browns with a young lawyer whose name i do not know, walked into the real estate agent's office and said, "you are in violation of new jersey fair housing law." and before he could finish his piece, this young lawyer, bright and ready to confront injustice, the real estate agent stands up and punches the lawyer in the face. he sics a dog on my dad. now, the size of the dog has changed over the years. my father now insists it was spawn from hell, it was cujo. [laughter] my mom will whisper to me it was just toto, cory, it was really a small thing. and so, there i was, 1970, a

baby growing up in this town. my father and my mother, my brother and me -- as my father referred to us "four raisins in a tub of vanilla ice cream." and in this amazing town, in this nurturing community, i grew strong and had my share of success -- high school all- american football player -- i was in the honor society, president of my class. but, if my parents saw me gettin' too big for my britches, if they saw me lookin' proud, my father would be right there. he would say to me, "boy, do not you dare walk around this house like you hit a triple, when you were born on third base!" he would say to me, "you need to understand something, you drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty and opportunity that you did not dig. you eat lavishly from banquet

tables prepared for you by your ancestors. you sit under the shade of trees that you did not plant or cultivate or care for. you have a choice in life, you can just sit back, getting fat, dumb, and happy, consuming all the blessings put before you, or it can metabolize inside of you, become fuel to get you into the fight, to make this democracy real, to make it true to its words that we can be a nation of liberty and justice for all." and so, in answer to my father's call, when i had exhausted most of the degrees available to any bright student, i moved to newark, new jersey. and i tell you, it was not some great altruism. i was looking to be the man that my father raised me to be. i was in search of myself and i found a community of heroes that embraced me and brought me back full circle to family. when i first arrived in newark,

i decided to answer that call from that great american philosopher, chris rock, who said "why is the most violent street in every city is named for the man that stood for non- violence?" newark had so many strong neighborhoods but i sought out one that was in struggle and found it on martin luther king boulevard. it looked spectacularly troublesome to me. my eyes saw abandoned homes being used for drugs. my eyes saw violence. my eyes saw graffiti. but the first person i met, the tenant leader in high-rise projects that i would eventually move into, miss jones, she said to me, "tell me again what you see. describe what you see around you."

and i described what i saw. and she looked at me and she said, "boy, if that's all you see, you can never help me." and i go, "what do you mean?" and she goes, "you need to understand something, that the world you see outside of you is a reflection of what you have inside of you. and, if you see only problems and darkness and despair, that's all there's ever gonna be. but, if you're one of those stubborn people who every time you open your eyes, you see hope, opportunity, possibility, love -- even the face of god -- then you can help me make a change." and i remember, after she said that, looking at her, scratching my head, and thinking to myself -- ok, grasshopper, thus endeth the lesson. i worked with this woman, this tenant leader, and i would sit at her kitchen table and watch these other african-american women sit around that table in these projects being run by a slumlord and they would sit

there and strategize about how to take care of the kids in the community, how to keep a family in their housing when they missed a rental payment. i stood there and i watched them thinking about how to support that community and i found it, i found conspirators. i found people coming together and they weren't just in those projects -- all over newark i saw more and more people who had a courage, who had a spirit, who had a love. and so, for my father's sake, i want to explain to you the three things that these conspirators all had in common. one was they embraced discomfort. they did not seek comfort and convenience. they went to where the challenges were. here were people around me in newark doing extraordinary things outside of their comfort zones. like the man who was a retired state worker that got his stimulus check in the mail and, instead of just spending it on

himself, he went out and got a lawn mower, marched into one of our troubled drug lots -- there was this big grassy, overgrown, field with trash and debris -- and he started cleaning it. he made it look like the white house lawn. never confronting a drug dealer but, eventually, they left. like the woman who came to me in my office hours, an 80-year- old woman, complaining to me about how dirty her street was. and the next day, i go out there and here's this 80-year- old woman outside of her comfort zone on that street, sweeping the entire block showing that, he who has a heart to help, definitely does have a right to complain. it is about the guy i know who was driving to work in newark and didn't like the graffiti. and instead of just driving by it and accepting what was, like so many of us who just fall into a state of sedentary agitation when we're upset about what's going on but we do not get up and do something about

it, he stopped at a store and began making a routine out of his commute to work where he would stop and take paint and paint over graffiti. in my city i see that conspirators know you do not go through life comfortable. democracy is not a spectator sport. it is a difficult, hard, challenging, full-contact, competitive, participatory endeavor. and this, this is critical -- [applause] -- people who get comfortable of body get fat. people who get comfortable of mind and intellect get dull. people who get comfortable in their spirit, they miss what they were created for. they were created to magnify the glory of the world, not

simply reduce in size and fail to reflect that spirit. i've come to learn in my life to embrace discomfort because it is a precondition to service. i've come to realize to embrace fear because, if you can move through fear, you find out that fear is a precondition to discovery. i've learned in my life to embrace frustration because, when you get really frustrated, that is a precondition to incredible breakthroughs. now, the second thing i've seen amongst conspirators is this idea of faithfulness. mother teresa was once asked how she judged success. and she said, "god didn't call me to be successful, he called me to be faithful." i didn't need to read mother teresa, i just simply needed to look at people in my community in newark. miss virginia jones, that tenant leader, was once telling me a story when i was peppering her with questions about her life. i had lived with her now, in

those buildings, for years, and i never knew that she had a son. she told me about one day somebody knocked on her door, she opened her door and there was this woman crying who could not speak. she dragged her down to the lobby and there, on the lobby floor, was her son, a veteran, who had come back to visit her. there he was on the lobby floor with three gunshots, bleeding that lobby floor red. she sat there and telling me the story that she fell to her knees, crying in her dead son's chest. and when she finished telling me the story, i looked at her and i said, "miss jones, i am sorry but, why do you still live in these buildings where your son was murdered, walking through that lobby every day?" and she looked at me, almost like she was insulted by the question, but i knew that she and i were two people that paid market rent to live in this housing. she had choices of where to go, and she looks at me and she says, "why do i still live here?" and i said, "yes."

she goes, "why do i live in apartment 5a still? and i said, "yes." she says, "why am i still the tenant president for over 40 years?" and i said, "that's electoral longevity, i want you to tell me about that, but, yes, why?" and she crossed her arms looking at me and she said, "because i am in charge of homeland security." here is a woman that remained faithful. and i want to tell you graduates of all the lessons of conspirators, this is the hardest one for me, personally. to stay faithful in a world that can be so cruel. to stay faithful in a world that justifiably emotes cynicism. i have seen things in my life that have broken me in spirit, have ground me down to the floor. in 2004, in april, i was walking through one of the neighborhoods of my city and i heard gunshots going off. it sounded like cannon fire between the buildings. i raced towards where the gunshots were fired and i saw kids screaming and yelling. i saw one boy falling backwards off of some steps.

i went to catch him and i caught him and i looked over his shoulder and i saw the white t-shirt he was wearing filling up with red blood. i laid him down and put my hand on his chest trying to stop the bleeding but the blood was coming everywhere. i screamed at someone to tell me his name and they did, and yelled at people to call the ambulance. and i start screaming his name. "do not leave us, do not leave us." foamy blood was pouring from his mouth. it was one of the most gruesome things as i sat there trying to stop the blood. but he kept bleeding, and he died right there in front of me. the ambulance came and pushed me away, opened his chest and i saw the number of bullet holes in him and, i tell you, it was over, i was broken. i was done. i went back to my apartment and tried to scrub the blood of this boy off my hands but i felt my heart fill up with anger and blackness. all i could think is, what kind

of world do we live in where everybody i know knows who jon benet ramsey is or natalee holloway but few people i know can name the name of one black child killed in my city today? what is going on with this world? [applause] that we seem to value life so little that dozens of kids, of boys, of men, are murdered every week. i wanted to give up. i was done. and then i left my apartment and walked out to the courtyard and i saw the back of miss jones's head. she turned around and she saw my expression. she said, "come give me a hug." and i hugged this woman and i wept in her arms. she held me and all she said is, "stay faithful, stay faithful, stay faithful." i am telling you right now, courage does not always roar.

it is not when you stand up and beat your chest and you're ready for the big game, the big fight, the big speech. that is not real courage in my book anymore. it is not running into a burning building. real courage is that when life has beaten you down so low, when you are broken, when you have wounds that you wonder if they could ever heal. courage is when you've done something wrong and you feel the weight of shame on your chest so heavy that you can barely breathe. uprage is when you're curled in a ball on your bed sleepless throughout the night and when the sun comes up, courage is not the roar, courage is that small voice in your mind that says, get up, get out of bed, put your feet on the floor, brush your teeth, wash your face, comb your hair -- god, if you have it --

[cheers and applause] put your hand on that door knob and go outside for another day of loving and stand with all of your might and look up into the heavens. and courage has you say in a defiant spirit, you can take everything from me, you could cut me deep, you could render me in shame, but you will never, ever, stop me from loving. from loving those who mock me, from loving those who hate me, from loving those who do not forgive me, from loving the cynics, from loving the darkness so much that i myself, through my small acts of consistent, unyielding love, will bring on the light. and this brings me to the final point of conspirators that my dad and my community have shown me is that conspirators are the ones that show up. they just show up.

and what do i mean by that? i mean that, we go through life all the time but we do not always show up. we may be there in body but we're not there in spirit. and we begin to erode the truth of who we are, we fail to live our authenticity. a great president, lincoln, said that "everyone is born an original but, sadly, most die copies" because they do not show up. i've learned that what you think about the world says less about the world than it does about you. and when you show up in this world and have the courage to tell your truth in moments big but more importantly, in moments small, then you are the architect, not only of your own destiny but you're the architect of transformational change. showing up. forgive me, i've got just a, a

bad story about that. but i was on my way to stanford as a freshman, coming back to "the farm." and here i got on a plane and it was packed with people but, somehow, god shined his grace upon me, because, as they closed the door to the plane, there was two seats open next to me. and i thought to myself, look at all these other people, it is such a shame that they have to deal with all of that cramped space but i have this whole seat. god, obviously, loves me more than them. well, just as i was sitting there so satisfied, the door to the plane opens and, all of us shot to attention because it sounded like someone, some beast was coming in. some screams were happening. we could not understand what was going on outside the plane, and then we understood because the beast came onto the plane and it had three heads -- it was a woman and a little boy and a baby. [laughter] immediately everybody on that plane looked at them and then slowly turned their heads to me. and i could see everyone was

thinking, you smug little man. and that woman and her two children came to stand before me and said, "i am sitting there." and i said, "are you sure?" [laughter] and they moved in and they sat down and, immediately, as a 19 year old man i had, suddenly, i had an evolved thought -- that i could accept this now as being the worst flight of my life or i can make it different. because, in life, you get one choice over and over again, that is, to accept conditions as they are or to take responsibility for changing them. to yield to the circumstances around you or to show up and do something about them. i decided that i was going to make this the best flight of my life. i started telling this little boy jokes and he started laughing at my horrible jokes, like my grandfather would love, like, why did tigger and eeyore have their heads in the toilet? because they were looking for pooh.

[laughter] like, why, what do you call your mother's sister who runs away and gets married? an antelope. [laughter] i am sorry, i am sorry, i had to try. by the time we landed, we were all having a ball. the woman who came on the plane embarrassed suddenly felt like she was lifted. we exchanged addresses as i was getting ready to come down here to the farm and we never kept in touch but, five years passed, 10 years passed, 15 years passed and i was running for mayor of newark. on my most discouraged day in that campaign, i got a letter from this woman saying, "you do not remember me but i met you on a flight to stanford 15 years ago and i will never forget your kindness then." she said to me, "not only do i remember your kindness but we're actually here in newark, we own a factory here." her son became a great volunteer on my campaign. they got me involved with their

company, and she ended up being something that all politicians love -- a campaign contributor. show up! and now the second man, my grandfather, who was with my father in spirit. it is one simple thing that he would say to me at graduations. he would say to me, "boy, understand that you have a role in this world and that's to get along with others, to join your spirit with them." i tell you this is one that i struggle with. you see, conspirators need to embody those things i mentioned before but they also need to join together. my grandfather, this amazing man, his life was all about the joining together of disparate elements of our society. he was born, also, to a single mother. but he was born in a difficult circumstance because he was born with red hair and much lighter skin than his siblings.

it was obvious that he was born to a white man at a time that it was illegal for blacks and whites to marry. he grew up feeling that he had, inside of his spirit, so many different parts of his country. he ended up becoming a person that did everything he could to unite people. he was a union organizer bringing people together for justice. he was a democratic activist working within the party to support fdr. he was an entrepreneur, bringing people together for business endeavor. and he wanted his children and then his grandchildren to understand that what makes this country great is how united it is. he used to load us onto an rv and drive us around the country to show us how great this nation is. he would tell us history of our country even if he didn't know it. we would ask him questions when we were driving through arizona. "grand-dad, why do they call this town yuma, arizona?" and he would say, "well, let me see, that's because when this town was founded, there was a

gun fight and one guy shot the other and he grabbed his heart and said, 'you ma' and then died." [laughter] i talked to my grandfather all the time about this country. he tells me that, son, this country, we forget we talk always about the declaration of independence. but really, this nation was founded on a declaration of interdependence -- this recognition that we need each other. when i talk to my grandfather now, i anguish to him that we are a nation that has become so polarized, where people are so quick to identify themselves as democrat or republican before they say, first and foremost, that i am an american. they're so focused on left and right that they forget that this nation must go forward. [applause] i anguish to my grand-dad when i talk to him now, how can we have come so far as a nation that

the word compromise is a curse and the word patriotism is not used to unite us all but it is used to demean others and to esteem yourself? like i am the true patriot and because of you and what you believe, you're not. this is not the america that my grandfather believed in. he said we were formed to come together and make a more perfect union. and, to me, this is what i found in my work. that the change we make really comes about when we come together across party lines, come together across religious lines and racial lines. when president hennessy introduced me he talked about a hunger strike. the great feeling that i got from that experience was how the city came together to deal with a problem and that's what we need in america today. my grandfather would love that every nation that makes up this nation, every heritage has this ideal of unity. it is like the old african

saying that says if you want to go fast, go alone but if you want to go far, go together. it is like another saying that he loved, it said, when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. it is like what golda meir said, that when jews come together, they're strong, but jews with other people, are invincible. it is like the islamic faith, that one of the pillars of islam is that word tawheed, which means we all share one god, one spirit, one soul. it is like this wonderful man in a jail cell in birmingham who wrote the truth of our nation in 1963 when he said we were all caught in an "inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a common garment of destiny that injustice, anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere." and when i stand in a conspiracy in newark, i feel that connection to conspirators who understood this truth of coming together like those people who came together -- scientists and engineers that turned the moon from a dream

into a destiny, like those conspirators on the underground railroad, black and white, who came together saying that we must overcome this slavery, like the conspirators who took us as a nation from child labor to public education, from sweatshops to workers' rights. they were all conspirators who came together to exult our highest ideals, to celebrate our common aspirations, to live the truth of our founding which is that this nation is nothing if it stands apart but everything if it stands together. [applause] that, ultimately, we must live our hallmark -- those three words from a dead language -- e pluribus unum. and, so, graduates, i tell you today this from my heart. and it pains me to tell you that

my grandfather and my father, who would have so wanted to be here today, to pillar you all with their corny jokes, to tell you that "the tassel's worth the hassle." the two men are not here today. my father is not here because he's at home in atlanta. i talked to him this morning. he is struggling with parkinson's, in the latter stages of that disease. oh, what 20 years have brought. from my father, the man that was running after me on football fields to, now, a man who this terrible disease is stripping of his physical mobility, stripping him of his mental faculties. but, when i am with him, i see that this disease can take everything from him, it can make him not even recognize me when i sit before him, but i still see in this man his spirit, his kindness and his love. i see within him the

manifestation physically of so many conspirators. my grandfather is not here today either. my grandfather also had his struggles with a terrible disease. cancer kept coming at him, again and again, and my grandfather, with his spirit and his humor, kept beating it back, time and time again. i will never forget, once i was visiting him as he was struggling with cancer, i said, "how you doing, granddad?" he says, "i am doing fine." i go, "why?" and he pulled out one of the pills he was taking by his doctor and he said in his best quote from one of his favorite films, he lifted it up to me and said, "say, hello to my little friend." the last time i talked to my grandfather his big body was now shriveled and weak from radiation, from the sickness, and the last thing he said to me before i left him was, "i love you, son. i love you, i love your children and i love your children's children." i left him confused. i am not married. i have no kids.

i thought he was just delirious but as i struggled to make sense of his words, i got a cruel phone call that explained them to me. it was almost 10 years ago to the month that i got that cruel phone call. i was in the midst of a campaign for mayor, and i was on spruce street in newark, and it was a family member of mine that said, "your grandfather is dead." and i remember not doing what they told me to do -- call my grandmother, they said -- but i could not. i just pulled over to the side of the road and i wept at the loss of my hero. and then, suddenly, in the midst of my tears, i remembered his final words. he said, "i love you and i love your children and i love your children's children." and it made sense to me. an of my friends who's astrophysicist told me that the stars we see at night, millions and millions of light years

away, some of them could be gone already but the light and the energy they gave off you can still see it today. well, that was my grandfather. he loved so much that his love will affect generations yet unborn. he loved so much that he may be gone for a decade from me but i still feel him today in every cool wind that breathes in my face, in every deep breath i take, his love is with me and i hope you feel it today. and thus, i say to you, on this graduation. i say to you, in the name of my father, cary alfred booker, i say to you, in the name of my grandfather, limuary jordan, to join the conspiracy, to be a class of people that rejects cynicism, that is not joining the ranks of the denizens of divisiveness or the nattering nabobs of negativity but be lovers. join the conspiracy and love with all of your heart and all

of your courage. let your love be defiant. let your love be rebellious. join the conspiracy and make change in your life because change will not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, it must be carried in on the backs of lovers. class of 2012, i say stand up and be lovers of life, be present, take the more difficult road, and love in a way that you can make true the words of children being said in newark almost every day that you can be responsible then making for this world and our nation true of the fact that we are one nation, under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. god bless you, 2012. [applause]

. .

it hopes to broaden our understanding of why someone decided 50 years ago it was important to put this memorial here, and why it continues to stand why it's significant for the future. >> as we mentioned as well, the changing world, explain the changing world in formal education in the public spaces and places that we have. >> i think we mentioned in my the that it was humility. so when we commit to a location, it stands.

as we learn more about the history, we discover new information that needs to be told. i don't think we should think about memorials in the way that they are a final destination. edge indicators continue to learn information they share with young people. i think as builders of memorials and monments and museums, we should be more humbled in how we design them, how we expect to interpret them and how we share them with future generations. >> because it's part of the dug today, designing. does a design impact the ability to broad at any conversation about a memorial? to make it, as you said, more than stone?

>> not necessarily so. i think to the extent that we can build into this design the kind of interpretation that we're talking about, in terms of educational opportunities that make sense, technologies change. so we revisit a design. if we're stuck with a design, that begins a debate and conversation as well. how could it better represent the history we're trying to tell. i don't think we should ever see any of these things as permanent and static and immoveable. and lacking in the understands of taking care of the design? >> only one cutter? >> exactly. >> thank you. one more question. >> the trust for the -- is

preparing all the work on the mall on the ground itself. how is your organization engage so that there's a smooth process in this -- the? >> the amount of work on the mall that you're preparing for, how would you engage to ensure that there's going to be a smooth process? >> well, the commissioner of fine arts of course reviews these appropriations as they come to us. through the national -- they have a review process. we also participate extensively in discussing all these projects. in minute detail although it feels lucky since it comes before a commission for review. so with our partners such as

ncpc, the district of columbia and history of preservation office -- a lot of these issues are debted in terms of historic preservation issues. i think generally we're trying to assess the commission of fine arts perhaps more so trying to assess they are more lou of the larger correspondent newty. so i guess the answer is, everything that is being proposed is eventually going to be coming through closer scrutiny at all steps of the process. >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> all right. i have a few questions as well. mr. whiteflow, we welcome you here. the respect i have of the nash

parks and forest and public lands -- erroneously citing a 399 pages and they were qud, do you have the 399 pages we requested three years ago? >> i do not. i understand the department has received it and is locating it. >> so another three years? we have two-year terms. >> when are we going to receive a response to those questions? >> i'll check -- >> once again, we only have two-year terms. >> let me ask you another question that deals with the members of work acts? >> the cwa in the process of

mall proposals? >> what are the risks of exempting c.w.a.? >> i think we'd be in a position where congress would be asked to have to evaluate these without the benefit of having the input on fine arts and national capitol planning commissions. so the result would be tying up congress in an endless number of hearings and comments currently handled through administrative processes. >> let me try to significance of the reserved and why the 2003 amendment to the c.w.a. was important to the mall? >> reflecting on your own comments, mr. chairman, you found it important that the national mall not only tremb

open space and reserve the nature of it for past generations but preserve it for future generations and memorials. in our process, building on what mr. switesal comes for us, of course under daw there's a stake holders and magic two-tiered. they come back much later with the refind concept for preliminary approval where the public gets to respond. then perhaps months later they come back to us third time for a final approval. anticipate step along the way, they get feedback. we have a staff of 45 specialists, so following up on

mr. switesal's comment, the risk is not having that level of expertise and months and months of technical interaction. >> how long does that process usually take? i mean, we're talking longer than two-year terms, aren't we? >> the average for a memorial to be asproved about eight years. of course that debbeds on a number of factors. how complex and big and controversial it might be as well as funding. public versus private funding. if there's a significant amount of private fundraising, you get into that. >> on the c.w.a. process, how can exemptions from that act have unintended consequences? >> that's an excellent question, mr. chairman. the work establishes a litmus test and a process for all

accountants to go through and then it's measured against that law. the memorial advisory condition considers each of these and then returns to congress with advice. the danger is i think it's best described as a hazard of precedence setting and it undermines the law to control and be careful about what is authorized and gets placed in this incredibly important national setting. so it may feel cumber some at times. it's trying to be a one-size-fits-all process to go from a plaque to a national war memorial on the other. but it has some flexibility, and i go to accommodate really

the issue is running around an existing body of regulation. makes it very dot enforce it later. >> thank you. i have other questions, but my time is expired. mr. grijalva? >> thank you, mr. chairman. >> you seem to be ignoring the national capital planning commission, the commission of the fine arts and your recognition and in your comments regarding the mall. can you give me some of the reasons for your plan to ignore the work of these other organizations that have been -- >> well, i will say i don't intend to ignore them at all. in fact, i would rely on some of their great successes in the

past. and in its earlier years, the commission of fine arts was the main institution stewarding the mcmillan plan, and in fact one of the great successes was opposing the franklin delano roosevelt who was is 50-foot classic concrete stabs at the time the commissioner of fine arts understood the tradition of the classical arts and believe they could do so again. >> at present you don't feel they do? >> it's a mixed bafplgt sometimes they weigh in appropriately, and other times i think they ignore the classical pairing this is the trends in art and culture you go to a museum and see a shark in formaldehyde there's

something similar going on in that piece that unfortunately affects main stream at times. >> at the risk of being out of touch, some of the monments that you propose in this retro classic style that you think is the only way to go, how is it inclusive, and how does it tell the story of america today? i understand when you memorialize someone, there's thed a her asian and level of hero worship but how do we see the complexity of those people, the issue how do we deal with those two questions? to be more includive and to deal with the complexity as part of our nation's measure --

measure mohrize -- likewise the crazy horse monument. all of these speak to our ideals, and i would say that our tradition the best one for memorializing our greatest figures. n contrast to what the doctor said, i would think for certain figures such as lincoln, washington, jefferson and eisenhower, we don't want too much disagreement in our memorials. we should say a few things and honor and reflect on what they did for us. what we don't want to see is the sort of brown bag memorial where every visitor brings whatever interpretation they want to it

>> and -- well, this is -- this debate is endless, but i yield back. >> well, let me follow up on it, if i could, mr. schaeuble -- mr. shuble. >> if i may quote, the purposes of this chapter are to preserve the integrity of the comprehensive design of the -- for the nation's capital since those designs are classical, it requires future buildings to be classical, dr., this is almost a not question. when you said why wasn't

vietnam done before world war ii, we had no answer to it, do you have an answer to it? >> i'm afraid i don't. let me go back to commissioner bryant for a second as you know the memorial for the eisenhower memorial has become increasingly controversial. it requires or uses the word "consensus" in the concept of what is durable can you make observations to improve the process in the future based on the lessons we learned from this controversy? >> yes. it does encourage con census, and we have been constantly concerned with it and constant consensus. it may have been before us

months ago but has been delayed so the parties could continue shopping. u correct that part of the commemorative works act has us look at the durability of materials, and that's one question i personally had, as to standing up with him over time. the architects are continuing to work and test the materials to answer those questions. the last part of your question is what can we learn from this process muned can it be perhaps improved? there has been joint task force on memorials that worked from 2002- -- from 2000 to 2002 and how can that process be continually improved. one of those tasks was to create a reserve. we're concerned about overbuilding on the mall and

create a reserve where no new meents -- no new commitments. to construct the dialogue about continuing to improve the dialogue. >> realizing i'm running out of time, are there additional things that haven't been implemented? >> i will have to check. >> let me follow-up. the concept of durability, how, indeed, does one measure durability as required by the c.w.a.? >> well, i guess if you're referring to the eisenhower memorial, this being undertaken is quite true building with solid masonry as opposed to

other materials. >> mesh. >> yes. of course this is where the designs in contemporary experiences where they are going -- i did want to make a point that the commission doesn't actually determine the style of what comes before it. it's a review agent dri and it's not a position we don't -- i don't think we consider ourselves opposing this style although it does defend the resources we have, many of which are classical. >> and i know it's unpleasant sometimes, but all of these national memorials, almost all are incredibly controversial usually involving years of debate. this is true of the lincoln memorial and president roosevelt had to intervene than to memorial. it took several years to come

to completion. so we're used to the fact that there will be debate. >> i would agree it probably, is healthy to have has the de bait. let me just go over my time limit and then we can conclude. mr. shuble, if i can follow up about the process. especially when you consider the eisenhower project, have you all determined where in the process change could be made to trigger a more desirable design outcome? i don't know if that makes sense to you. >> has the procedure been set where we're in the process to make those changes? >> issue. the commission of fine arts could follow with noble tradition and find that the memorial is discordn't with the best of washington's monments?

they have done so repeatedly in the past and they can do so again. there's no way you can describe this post mad erin design as fitting in with the rest of the national mall. another way this process could be involved for the monument to capital or the commission of fine arts to find that the material war minutes save assist, one of the main if not the main feature of the memorial is an enormous feel -- feel is not as permanent as say stone and even the architect and eisenhower memorial who were behind it said they are doing testing to ensure it lasts is 00 years well, is 00 years is far short of permanent. in addition the screen will require maintenance work to

ensure it lasts. >> i have another question. in the path of making those decisions leading up to those decisions could be a time where you could have imposed the change of direction as far as the design lower? >> i would say if you could go all the way back to the original -- like the f.d.r. memorial -- >> i realize i'm asking a convoluted question and not stating it very well i have two last questions for you. t first deals with the work you're doing on the mall right now i realize you're doing considerable work on the multier which has had a huge impact on my softball season

and so i'd simply like to know when and how will it benefit and how will it affect the future? >> well, the return on the monment is only a part of the -- from rd to 7th street as to how it will affect your softball game, i can't say, sir. >> well, at my age, playing the game is -- but could you give us a brief update >> in terms of the construction process? >> where they are in the process. >> for instance, the reflecting pool is under reconstruction right now and should be completed by the first week in august. according to the engineers on

that project. we're in the process of developing the plans for the restoration rehabilitation of the washington monument which was damage bid last year's earthquake. so those are the principle ones . >> i want to thank witnesses for their testimony and ask all the witnesses to be prepared to answer in writing the questions asked by members of the subcommittee in a timely fashion and further ask that -- i don't further ask because we don't have that part in my agenda, so we're done here. so without objection and further questions or business, this committee stands adjourned.

[captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> on "washington journal" this morning, a look at the potential cost of medicaid for the states and the federal government former congressional budget officer and president of the american action forum is our guest. then msnbc host talks about his new book, twilight of the heat. explaining the inequality debate. we'll hear from tim, an executive consultant.

"washington journal's" live every morning starting at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> c-span's road to the white house coverage continues later today. president obama kicks off a two-day bus tour to ohio and western pennsylvania. later this morning we'll be live with the president from ohio and tomorrow at noon, 5:00 p.m. from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. you could also watch these events on c-span.org. >> one of my favorites to talk about is this where maybe half of cows and lot of turkeys. these are drugs that make animals grow faster so they make more money, but this particular zrug not withdrawn when they walk on to the killing floor, so when the meat

is sowed, it's still in there. >> this weekend on "afterwards," martha looks at regulatory lapses and government simplicity and the debate on junk food. part of c-span 2. >> last october marked the is 25th anniversary of the dedication of the statue of liberty. author of the new book "the statue of liberty" a transatlantic story. he spoke about it in may. this is just over an hour. gthis.

>> good evening, and welcome. i am happy to introduce a brand new boa and just a note but we are being taped by c-span, so when we get questions at the end, we will want to entertain them, so i will call you at that point. he is the director of french studies at nyu. he is the author of five other books. in 1999 he received the distinguished teaching award. we are particularly lucky to be one of the sites to discuss his new book, and this is something

we have been looking forward to for over a year now. he has been indelibly linked with the poem at the statue of liberty. good he has worked on the exhibition on display until the end of 2012, and i am pleased he here to share his inside. one reason we decided to do this is this is a big year. we are into the year 125 years into the dedication, so it is a perfect time for your book to come out, and i think very few

people really know where the idea came from for the statue, so give us some insight into how it came into being. >> it came into being in france in the middle of the 19th century. it was 1865 right after the assassination of abraham lincoln, and a group of french people behind the radio were a emotionally tied to the united states. they love the american form of government, and they were abolitionists, so they have a particular affection for president lincoln, so they came together at the home of a man who was friends's leading specialist on the united states. smoke-filled died in 1859, --

toquevill died in 1859, so a group of guys got together, and the idea was to try to come up with a way of commemorating the life achievement to celebrate the victory of the north in the civil war and to make a critical on their own government. france had an authoritarian government run by napoleon iii, and it was a government that was friendly to liberty. they tried to put these together to commemorate abraham lincoln and a way of being critical to the government and so the ideath it,

was to criticize their own government by talking about how much better the american system of politics was, so that is the french origin. it comes out of the french situation with a group of well educated french man who wanted to make a comment about their own governments politics, and eventually out of this group came the idea of a colossal statue. i want to talk about a whole development, but the legend says out of this the conception of the big statue in new york harbor happened. it did not take place at all. it's a good about six years for the statue to develop, and the first idea was to build it at

the southern end of the suez canal, and it would commemorate the opening of asia on to europe, the bringing of enlightenment to asia, and he had this idea of the coast -- he had this idea because he had studied the ancient world, and he had taken a trip of the nile and seemed a colossal 3000 years ago, and he was impressed by those, and he wanted to build a colossal statue of his own, and he thought he should building it in egypt, and that was his first idea, and it is only because the

egyptian government ended up being bankrupt. were able to use their position of being creditors to buy up the susette -- to buy the suez canal, and that is the reason they took control, and the egyptian ruler did not have the money to ,inance the statue of liberty and he went back to france, disappointed he was not going to be able to build the statue and a whole variety of circumstances that intervene. one was the franco prussian war, which kicked him out of his home here again he was from a province occupied by the germans in 1870. his actual home and was occupied by german soldiers. good he was a great french

soldier, and he went back to paris only to have the paris commune break out. that was a revolution in which the working people basically seize control of the wanted to and institute a radical form of politics. he was a liberal, which would have made him more of a centrist, a moderate diet, and he believe in liberty and republicanism, but he thought the paris commune when weight to far -- went way too far. he could not live in his home city, because it was occupied by the determined -- by the germans, but he could not return to paris, because it was in the hands of political radicals he hated, so the idea was to go in

person to the land of liberty, which to him was the united states. good he had never been there before. he did not know anybody, and in 1871, he wrote a letter to his friend, the professor in american politics and history, and he said i am leaving france, and i hope to have the liberty. it was only when he got here that he came up with the idea, you know that statue are was going to build in egypt, it really needs to be in new york harbor. good >> i love hearing about his gjourney. he went from east and west, and

he is really seeing america as something much more progressive and done what france have to offer a this time that he came to see this as the only possible true home of the statute. i read that the rocky mountains were terrifying because he had never seen anything like that before. >> there was a group of people, but it was a theoretical thing. they had never set foot in the united states, and what they knew they read in folks, -- books. he figured out immediately the statue was going to go up. he did not have any takers. no one was interested in this. here was a guy no one knew.

he wanted to put of a colossal statue in new york harbor, and he wanted the americans to pay for the pedestal it was going to stand on. they thought he was ninth. he decided, i really need to find out who the americans are and what it is as a country if you're a good -- as a country. he crossed and took the route on the way up and the southern route. toqueville did not give further west than ohio, and he only spoke to a handful of people, and everyone knows about that trip.

bartholdi made that pale in comparison. he talked to a wide range of people and explore the countryside, and he wanted to understand what made americans , and he was surprised by what he saw. the saw us as collectivist. he saw the united states as a group of people who likes to form associations, who wanted to be with other people. he saw the french as the individualist and the americans as the more social people, and from that he concluded he was

going to put up his colossal statue. it was going to have your mean something to people as a collective entity, and that is what made him realize the statue of liberty needed to say something to all americans, so he came up with the idea that what it would do is commemorate a hundredth anniversary of the declaration of independence, and this idea worked that he would build the statue in 1876, and it would stand for 100 years of american liberty, along this --- the longest period of liberty anyone had seen, and when he

presented it in those terms that it was going to be the anniversary of the centennial of american liberty. good >> it is interesting that he looked back 100 years to find that moment and will sing to americans, because americans were coming out of the civil war with abolitionist ideals and the position of the french have supported the south, and all of this is creating great anxieties, and the statue is going to help heal those anxieties and the relationship between america and france, so it was a strategic moment, because it is not a contemporary looking backwards. >> what is important is to gloss over the civil war. the civil war did not jibe with what their understanding was.

america was the land of liberty. it was orderly liberty. we could be free because we had ourselves under control, and what they feared about the french was that they did not have enough control to live in a free society, and they wanted to figure out how the americans could do it, but they could not look too closely at american history, because recent american history was pretty terrible with the fratricidal conflict of the civil war and slavery contradicted the very ideals of american liberty, so he wanted to take the long view, and in the long view, the civil war receded in importance, especially with the revolution, and especially because the no. 1

and slavery was abolished, so the story had a happy ending. >> let's talk about how the storm of the statute took shape, because we talk about the suez canal, but it is so fascinating that the same time he is starting to do his journey to america, it is starting to take new form to the one we know as liberty, and that curtis and -- that crystallizes it more clearly . >> he goes to egypt, and the first sketches look like an arab woman, and that made sense for egypt, but he also have a lot of other images in his head, and one of them is the colossus of rhodes. this is the ancient statue built on the island of rhodes in the

third century bc to commemorate a great victory, and this was a male statues that presided over the island and the city, and it commemorated a great vision. we can get back to that, but he has got these different competing images in his head. he has got a colossus of rhodes, but he has also got the goddess of liberty. good these were greek and roman goddesses that surfaced during the french revolution that come from greece and rome that in ancient times represented a freedom of slaves, and those images reemerged to symbolize the liberty the french revolution was supposed to bring, so all during the 19th century in france you have

different versions of a goddess, a female version of liberty, and you see them in sculptures 0000 i i i i i i i i there is a whole bunch of them that symbolize bartholi. you have images they are looking for. the image of the goddess of liberty is there for frenchy

people to keep in mind what an ideal liberty might be, so whem all of these images are jostling around in his mind and he decides this needs to be a class, greek or roman goddess. as to be western, the western power of the ad states. and it will represent the ideal liberty that was percolating in france, but never realized. >> how did they get added motion, behind the idea of selecting the site, talking to americans? how did this monumental work of art, engineering, fund-raising get made? >> the first thing to say, the statue of liberty was not a gift

from france to the united states. neither government had anything to do with it. neither government raised a single penny towards it. there was a bill the state legislature in new york and congress to put up money to pay for the pedestal. the bill in new york state was vetoed by governor grover cleveland, and congress voted down the appropriation. all of the money had been raised by private sources. he gets here, does not speak a word of english. the first person he goes to is the editor of a french newspaper published in new york. so he speaks to this french person. she says, it does not do you any good to speak to me, you have to talk to americans. he has a letter of introduction, to the great abolitionist, some are. he goes to washington, meets summer.

there are asking why are you building the statue in new york? talk to people in new york. at the united states was still much more a separate entity of other states in the middle of the 19th century. it just did not get any play until the centennial, really, until 1876. there, in philadelphia, the celebration, fairmount park, the 100th anniversary of the declaration of independence, and for that, he sent over the arm and the torch for the statue of liberty. which he managed to cobble together some money and france, after his trip. he goes back to france, he comes up with this definitive model, tries to raise money. he finally gets enough money to build the arm and the torch, and

it goes up during the centennial celebration in philadelphia, and zillions of people go to see it. and for that,it is the most popular attraction, the most photographed. then he gets an idea, i can make money by selling souvenirs. so all of the cakes that we see if we go to the statue, into the gift shop, the sculptor even before he built the thing, he was already figuring out how to make money from souvenirs. and that is how the fund raising got off the ground. once philadelphia displaced the arm and porch successfully, they decide, ok, we cannot let this second-rate town beat us on this. but so than the torch and the arm went up in madison square, in 1877, and a year later, there

was the world's fair in paris, for which the sculptor built the head of the statue of liberty. he was a very shrewd promoter. all while he was doing the statue, he had the process photographed. ithis was the beginning of the era of theall of a sudden you ca lithograph. people in france were fascinated by this. he said, i have got a torch. i have got the head. he let people climb inside and

look out the windows. rudyard kipling, his memoirs, and i was there as a boy, and i looked out the windows, and the french guy said, you have now looked at the world through the eyes of liberty herself, so it was things like that that made the statue of liberty seem real. you should tell me if you know this, but the statue of liberty was built entirely from head to toe in paris, stood in paris for two years before it was dismantled and put into 212 crates and shipped to the united states. the new york times ran this release snarky editorial in

which it said, maybe he is going to build the statue of liberty. if it was built up from the bottom, he would be convinced. "the new york times" i have a bunch of different locations, because they were warm and cold. they got a warm mainly after it looked like philadelphia or boston might want the statue if new york did not end up getting it. >> i am going to look at what lazarus is doing at this point, because perhaps her only encounter with the statue of liberty would have been the arm and courts in madison square park. she was not far away. she was a cultured young wom an, and a lot of people probably

assume she was an immigrant herself, but she lived on the east side and hyde of hard time and came over on a ship, but that was not the case. when she was born she is a fourth generation jewish- american, so the thing about that, even a lot of my friends are not fourth generation, and to be born before the civil war, she is seated at the american table, but she always knows what it means to be an insider and an outsider at the same time, said she has a wide access to social circles. at the same time, her jewishness is commented on. she is an avid student of history, anti-semitism, and literary works. this has a profound impact, and

by the time that statue is going she is not yet known as the spokesman we would want her to be, but her mind is hard at work to break down society and recast it in her poetic terms, and even as a teenager she is constantly looking at these events. she might have seen the funerary casket of abraham lincoln, so just ask los are: -- just as bartholi is thinking about these same forces, she is hard at work in the new york scene thinking about the plight of immigrants and refugees that will crystallize in the 18 80's a few

years later. she undoubtedly saw about torch in madison square park, and she would have known these images of liberty, and it did not mean that much to her. it was not until 1883 that they came together. what was some of the other buzz on the american scene? >> there is a fair amount of skepticism about the statue in "the new york times", and there were certain religious figures who thought the statue of , andty was a pagan in menmage they worried about that, and there were a lot of others who did not understand why you

would build a classic goddess in new york harbor. americans did not do that sort of thing. they did not build big monuments triggered this was a country that was just beginning to develop, but this was a practical place where people were incredibly hard at work in building an economy from scratch, and and they were not stopping to commemorate things, and when they did, it took a long time. it was are hard process. it took 40 years to build the washington monument, and this was to the greatest hero in american history, the founding father, and it was clear what the washington monument was about. it was about george washington. it was not clear to americans with the statue of liberty was about, so this is where emma came in, and she in some ways to

define what the statue would mean fewer good -- would mean. bartholi had no idea it would represent immigration. for hamid represented abolition of slavery we did for him, it represented abolition of slavery. it represented 100 years of liberty and the friendships he hoped to see between france and the united states. immigration did not cross his mind. >> i think there is a great >> i think there is a transition from her name. the fact that this old world will shed new light on to the new world, and that emma changes that identity forever.

we do not know the statue of the liberty as much as the poem, but it makes great sense, and the way that she'd reframes the statute and its meaning, to be a symbol of immigration, she is one of the first people to set that a motion. this is kind of a storm that makes great sense for her and her professional, emotional, heritage development, that she is through seeing the effects of anti-semitism, the great waves of immigrants coming in 1882 and 1883 who are not finding jobs. she volunteers for the hebrew immigrant aid society, she goes to a ship refuge, and this is the direct experience that we can attribute her writing the new colossus to. but the time americans need to fund raise for the pedestal, she

is positioned to be the number- one spokesperson. tell us about how that happened. >> the americans will is to build the financing of the pedestal. we are in their early 1880 east. the statute of liberty is fully up in paris and paid for, and now it is our turn. we have to come up with the money and the money is not coming in. the fund-raising committee is not doing well. one of the ideas is to get a bunch of prominent american artists to contribute a work, auction off that work, and use the proceeds to pay for a pedestal. this is the origins of and the lazarus -- of emma lazarus' p oem. she said i am not a writer of

higher even for a good cause like this. i write a poem because it comes from within. one of her friends says you have been doling out, you have been going out to wards island, working with the jewish emigrants who are suffering, who have fled a place where they have been persecuted. you are working with these people. you have come to know them, feel for them, and you should then write a poem that represents their plight. emma then _ good that she could connect the plight of the jewish propertierefugees that she had n working with the with the statue, and she did that. statue, and she did that. lazarus