you deny get it, you need to write it. >> the best way for me as a historian was for the players, keep people from that era, to tell the story themselves. i thought the best way to do this was to start a video oral history program that involved the nixon players but also players in the watergate drama from the left and the right, to have them tell the story and use portions of that story to that visitors understand the complexity of the constitutional drama. >> the former head of the nixon presidential library details the library's oral history project sunday night at 8:00 on c-span's q and a. >> brooke gladstone as host of "on. the on" her new book is called "the

influencing machine. she sat down recently at fort university. this is an hour and 20 minutes -- fordham university. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> our moderator is the author of four books on cultural programming and for 15 years, he was the head of special projects at the directors guild. he frequently moderates and events around the city for bafta, the screen actors guild, the producers guild, the academy of motion picture arts and sciences. please welcome brian rose. [applause] next, but could not be more delighted to have brooke gladstone here tonight. she is the managing editor and co-host of npr's "on the media" and author of a highly

acclaimed book "the influencing machine.:" " we will be doing a signing of her book. she has been at npr for many years, including a three-year stint in moscow where she covered the last turbinate years of president yeltsin. i know all of you die hard groupies out there will agree there is something about brooke that pulls you in. each week, even at 7:00 a.m. on saturday, i think i -- the host of this american life put it right when he wrote -- just like malcolm glad well and michael lewis, brooke can take any

subject, even something you deny give a dam about, and make a very interesting -- you don't give a damn about, and make it very interesting. please welcome brooke gladstone. [applause] >> thank you for coming tonight. i will like to start with your book. you talk about a number of media bias is. one of my favorites is the narrative bias. the media takes a story and a matter what it is, come up with a beginning, middle, and an end. we have just gone through an election in which there were thousands of just such recorded a events. i am wondering - do you think we miss a lot when presidential elections are treated primarily

as a four year heavyweight battle to the death beginning literally the day after the last election as health? >> we miss some things. i am careful not to complete the condemn horse race covers. that is a big part of the story. the problem is what is being covered? 1 gets completely fixated and it unt for who said this. some of these are quite revealing. you have here 47% remark which anyone would argue -- your 47% in march which anyone could argue could be extremely revelatory. he said he did not mean it did after the election pretty much said the same thing. but it did tell us a lot and it had a great impact.

so did the president's first debate performance. these things are part and parcel of the merit -- of american life. the problem is the wired for narrative. we like stories. we organize our information in the form of stories. there are lots of breaking news items that cannot lend themselves to narrative but we have to use it anyway. it is part of what is wired into the way we organize and interpret information and in business and journalism discussions of tax policy, obamacare and so forth -- once you have said it, can you say it again? it is antithetical to news to keep reporting the same thing over and over again every time somebody misrepresents it.

>> speaking about the election, how would you characterize the way the press handled this election compared to other elections you have covered? >> they all suck. let's face it. [applause] [laughter] i cannot remember a single election where i went that was a truly satisfying experience. i have been criticizing and analyzing the media for the last four elections, at least. so i and they're looking for it, with the court, ahh, there it is -- so i am there looking for it, wait for it, wait for it, ahh, there it is. >> he faced john sununu. i wonder if he could share with our on the -- audience what it was like to face him.

>> it was up there. right there with john stossel as it came rick interview -- as a train wreck interview. when i questioned one of his remarks, he said your public radio, you are just there to kiss the presidents but to reverse a we pay any attention to you -- butt. why should we pay any attention to you? in a way, it was kind of refreshing. here's a guy, and varnish. it was very addicted but i did not add that, i never edit -- it was very edited but i dnot not edit for my benefit.

>> he seems to have that effect on however he talks too. you bring up the notion of npr. why npr and pbs are such a target for people like john sununu or mitt romney? can you understand why, particularly at npr where fairness and the object of the scenes to be so emphasized, why does everyone who -- i guess, what are you such a target for people who you would think would embrace fairness and objectivity? >> who would that be? [laughter] >> that is true. why is big bird such an enemy? >> it is not a big bird. big bird is the savior. cycle after cycle, every administration has bumped into

npr and complained about it. republican and democratic kerry but it is only republican that want to zero out of her budget. the only thing that beat them back every time is big bird. he is invincible. he has a light saber and slices through the opposition. by public radio and public television is such a target is public radio is increasing in implants but most important, 10% of public radio's money come from the government. but that money were not there -- oif if that money weren't tehre, they would not have the case to make. but just be anybody else that it is like. the new york times has not been singled out over and over again. it had been 30 years of creation of this notion that meet the

media reports in a liberally biased way. there were about the people who felt ill served by mainstream media. in fact, there was one completely dead form of media that was singly handed, resurrected by rush limbaugh -- that is am radio. it was a place for people who felt ill served by mainstream media could go. and that formula was applied to fox news. although fox news, i watched them almost exclusively on election night. >> who didn't? >> i did not meet for gloating purposes. i does wanted to see how they covered it. shep smith is a very fair guy.

their coverage, the commentators have to talk about the election results, were m ore diverse and more on msnbc by far. then there was the great moment when karl rove produced that rimal scream and you saaw fox try to address this in as open the way as they could. the head of fox news sent to the staff before the election, if it looks like obama is winning, don't act like somebody ran over your dog. some did, but mostly they did not. >> we live in an age now where it is possible to little league be hermetically sealed off --

possible to be hermetically sealed off from any idea that is by yours. i'm wondering, many people pointed out, is there a difference in the way the press used to behave 150 years ago when everything -- we live in an age of 24/7 cable networks. is it impossible for one point of view to ever listen to another point of view? >> it is entirely possible. you are right about that history. i have spent a big chunk of my book recounting the history of journalism from the invention of the written word to the year 2042. a little sci-fi at the end.

over and over again, that period, that golden period so basically is the golden age of consensus media. it happens because, contrary to centuries long historic trends and begin getting cheaper, did was a creation of a medium that was when more expensive, television. which required assembling enormous audiences. how do you do that? you have to create television that appeals to a broad middle and immortalizes outsiders. if you want to watch television, and he will have to find yourself identifying with that great middle. no matter that you are we to your life has nothing to do with the life that beaver cleaver lead. a lot of people were otherwise

not represented. people of all the colors, people with accents, immigrants, valves at the end of their names, who never saw themselves on television who were forced more less to subscribe to the great middle. likewise, at the time that television was being created and newscasts were being created, the government was in the midst of a political moment. the cold war. the collision of the cold war, expected technology, created the culture of conductivity. which basically was leaving stuff out of creating a big central point of view. that make everybody happy, especially the government licensing television and regulating it. mostly it is a bit = = it has

been a big mess -- it has been a big mess. can we find voices that reflect the views we do not agree? of course we can. if we want to. there was a study done at harvard that found that people who were incredibly well informed before the internet were even more informed after the internet. and people who were unintererested in news before the internet were even less and formed after the internet. which just shows what i've always believed and which i think all the evidence there is out -- the new technology just makes me more of what i was going to be, what you were going to be anyway. if you are naturally curious and are willing to venture out of your comfort zone, the

environment is so rich. if you want to be hermetically sealed, that option is available to you, too. >> people who might be liberals or conservatives to at least have an enemy they can identify with which was not an pot -- which was not possible in the age of walter cronkite, with one solo voice of television mainstream journalism. >> they had enemies, they were just not on television. consider walter cronkite. known to many in the day as uncle walter. it would be little as -- ludicrous to call in the news anger and relative to date. it would be arrogant to end every newscast with the phrase, "and that's the way it is." can you imagine anybody try to get away with that presumptuous statement? yet it was his sign off and everybody believed it and quit

the comfort of that dinner time slice of consensus reality. >> do you think cable tv and the that kind of comfort -- ended that kind of comfort? >> not initially. the more media sources you have dividing up the audience, the smaller the public prayer becomes. the let's consensus. you are changing that comfort to the comfort of knowing there are other people like you in the world who care about the things you care about. i and in favor of more speech rather than last, even though everything has a side effect that is unintended. >> a la the cities in this country, -- a lot of cities in this country are having their local newspapers disappear.

going three days a week is the same thing as disappearing. it is only a matter of time before the new houses say do we even need three days a week? what do you think the impact will be when there is no longer even any central voice of a particular locale? >> the fcc did a study and found that the biggest lack this new media era has created is a local accountability. for cities and so on. there are some blogs that have tried to rise to the occasion. the texas tribune, a databsed online site, partners with local television and everyone else. i think you will see in other

partnerships coming up to fill that gap and that -- to fill that gap eventually. the public have to value it. it is really up to the public to value of these things. everyone says he cannot monetize this. cannot monetize this. when i was a kid, i was used to water for free. [laughter] you get used to paying for things once you realize how much they matter to you. i have also found people love their gadgets and will pay for content on the gatt that they will not pay for necessarily on the internet. the love to have the special apps on the phone. it makes the consumption of information very convenient. there are paid walls that never worked before that are working better now. haveaev been caught -- bee

been caught. antoni bramsci wrote prison diaries and said the old world is that, the new world has yet to be born and there is much morbidity. >> your book devotes a considerable amount of time to talking about the development of objective reporting, fairness in journalism. i am sure a number of people in this room undoubtedly hope to follow in your footsteps and become a journalist. i wonder if you could talk about what you think are the major challenges they will be confronting in terms of trying to practice serious, and biased reporting.

>> unbiased, objective, fair, they are all slightly different. i think that the obligation of the journalist is to tell the whole truth, and to tell both sides barely, not to be invisible or pretend to belong to some order of passionless beat that does not really care. that you cannot bring any judgment you have accrued to that experience into your reporting. i think that we are entering a period of more reflective reporting. some of the greatest reporting america has ever seen was done by muckrakers. ida tarbell and exposing standard oil. these amazing investigative enterprises that did so much to expose what was wrong in the country. i think that the golden age,

which is a misnomer, has passed. and i think that anybody wants to be a journalist today should not try and follow days of your, working in the mail room. anybody who wants to be a journalist in the next generation needs to find something they care about, and develop expertise, and then go there and start writing about it. i first encountered a new york times writer when he was doing little blog about people dating, which everyone in the industry was looking at. did anybody know that he was 16 or 17? he came to the office for an interview and i said, are you old enough to do this?

he said next year. need i mention nate silver, who has become a byword? he had expertise in an area that was filled with guesswork. it served journalism. he came in and fill this need and i think by any terms, he is doing great. he is a household word. those are just two examples of people who were passionate and

knowledgeable and found their way into an area that people were not following. it was extraordinarily, these are the people you should be looking to, not me. my path was weird and cannot be followed. >> let's open it up to questions from the audience. when you come to the microphone, please give us your name and where you go to school. if anyone would like to come up. here is our first inquire. he is adjusting it. until someone gets the courage up, you mentioned nate silver.

he offers the fascinating thesis that it is that talking heads on all the cable channels are the ones who are constantly predicting things that, believe it or not, have the worst prognostication records. >> he said that the amount of minutes you are on television are inversely proportionate to the accuracy of your predictions. >> i listen to your show every sunday afternoon. i want to know, i saw on your web site that you went through an independent bookseller. i am wondering about the role of

amazon in the book industry and how it is hurting it. >> actually, norton bought the book. they wanted it. i was delighted that they did. we were proceeding along very well. it is owned by time warner, and they came in and said by the way, we own all rights to it. we can do what we want with it without any input. it started as a graphic novel, which i shifted to a nonfiction when i discovered i did not know how to plot any thing. if warner brothers just wanted to buy it and do anything they wanted with it, i would have done that. but they could not go in and change 30 years of work and my conclusions, so i just took the

whole project and walked away. norton is an employee-owned house, but that was just serendipity. >> you have done many shows on the decline of global media. i know you have tackled the music industry. given the fact that you have grown up with the media, doesn't give you a sense of regret that so many of these empires are toppling, or does the expectation of new media, which cover extensively on your program, fill you with the sense that this is all for the good? >> in the book, i quote the lakes, great douglas adams. he says that any kind of technology that was around when you were born is right and natural.

is in the natural order of things. anything that comes along and around the age of 35 is fascinating and exciting and brilliant. anything that comes along after that is best to civilization and is going to destroy humanity as we know it. i think i am very lucky in having the job that i do, because i don't have the leisure to be incredibly blessed doubt it for my childhood. that was a world that i was not part of an was unlikely to ever be a part of. the kind of coverage that we get from anybody with a cell phone, all over the world, sullivan unreliable, is still astonishing and necessary. you brought up the arab spring.

it brought up real-life coverage of hurricane sandy. it is everywhere we need to be, to paraphrase some advertisement or other. it is a great, wonderful new world. the big difference is that you as the news consumer have to do the work they did not have to do before. you have to choose your pension plan, your healthcare plan, paper or plastic. you have everything thrown in your lap, and maybe most important is the information you choose to consume. you are what you eat. if you eat nothing but chocolate pudding your entire life, then you can venture out there and very your diet. it is all there.

there are so many times when i have spoken in public forums and people will say, why are the media not covering x? how did you find out about that? it was on page 6, but they thought it should be on page one. the media you consume are not reflecting your priorities. they are run by people. if you go straight to google news, you can have an algorithm doing that search for you. i think you just have to swallow hard, do a lot, and realize this is all up to you now. i am not startling for the world that was at all.

>> that task of leaving it up to you can be kind of frightening. >> you have to find people you can trust. when you watch cbs or it read the new york times, those were your aggregators. it is not about "here is what i had for breakfast today." it is about "this person is incredible." they send me links from across the media and show me stories that i would not otherwise know. i have to say that i have my own twitter feed. >> how many do you follow?

i am a bit bifurcated. >>on the media calligraphy, i read avidly but rarely contributed to. they are the best aggregators that i have encountered of media stuff. that is just one. you find the people that you love and follow them, or website that you can subscribe to on twitter. to address another issue which is really critical, when you are talking about breaking out of your shell, in the parlance of our computer age, there's something called serendipity, which is accidental encounters with information that you would not. there are websites that are basically serendipity

engines. they can connect you to stories that are fascinating, but you would never know. it is not impossible to find out this stuff. you just go there and you can create a live and rich array of information coming directly to you. you just have to build it. >> do you fear for the day when inevitably the new york times disappears? >> i don't think it is going to disappear. i really don't. i make this prediction before. i think that the new york times will become a boutique item that rich people get. for instance, you subscribe to the sunday new york times because you love the feel of newsprint on your hands and you love the magazine, the book review, and so on.

you have a ritual and you pay for it. and you pay a lot for it. you already pay a lot for the new york times. it is expensive. but ultimately, the paper will be for people who want paper, and the information will be on-line and available through the various pay walz they are creating. >> i am a freelance journalist. you were talking about abrogating and curating. i started off as a writer/reporter. the thing that strikes me is that when you talk about the new york times, the one thing i found is that quality costs money. there is a lot of crap out there. >> tell me about it.

>> my question to give is, where is the money going to come from to finance quality journalism? it is a combination of the heavy stuff as well as up and coming stuff. but where is the money going to come from? >> it is a deep question, the question that everybody asks. the new york times has created a partial pay wall. it is actually doing pretty well now. old and barely perhaps the new york times and daily newspapers in general, they used to be one-stop shops. you had your movie reviews. you had a whole bunch of sections that could be done elsewhere and you did not need to have the local paper do it. it could also argue, there is new york sensibility, new york

movie reviewers could have a different perspective that would be different from the cincinnati movie reviewer, perhaps. if there were, which there probably are not. but ultimately, newspapers have been mulling over the idea of becoming nonprofit. the trouble is that in order to be a non-profit, you are really cannot make a profit. they are having trouble getting around this. like the l.a. times got a big foundation grant. there will little bit of consternation in public radio circles about it. the point here is that the l.a. times can put its money in different subject. but they can get ford to come in

and pay for local coverage or whatever public service coverage the money is going to be posturing, then it can put his money and other things. why are you not putting your money in the stuff that really matters? i think the foundations are understanding that these are valuable institutions and they need to be supported. partnerships, foundation grants, people talk about the project for public integrity in places like that that are funded by foundations or private individuals that are very public spirited. then they go and partner with the new york times or the washington post or the new yorker to get that information out. it is my understanding that the

new yorker does not pay for a lot of the articles, they just provide the space. they are not just handing off their space, but there is, good reporting that is coming through these partnerships. that is part of where the money will come from. it is true that ultimately, people will have to, once again, pay for content, and publishers always prefer when their readers or consumers pay with their eyeballs. they find it the advertisers easier to deal with than consumers who want this and that. there have been magazines with hundreds of thousands of subscribers that have gone out of business because their ad rates have disappeared. their audiences would have paid more, but they thought it was too much of a headache. there is much to be done to

educate the older generation of publishers to understand that they will have to engage on every level with their audiences in the next phase. >> my name is jeff roberts, former broadcast journalist. winston churchill famously said democracy is the worst possible form of government. i am curious what country you think might be doing a better job in disseminating news through the mass media where it is not as hysterical, not as pointed as our news coverage is. does anybody do it better, or is this just the way it is in free society? i hope you don't say great britain. >> i think this is the way it is. if you go to europe, you will

find that they did not seem to go through this golden age. the big newspapers there are not owned by parties, they are affiliated with parties in their ideology. the editorial page and the news pages will work together to report stories, where you are we have this great fire wall between the editorial pages and the news pages. i do think this is the worst possible media except for all the others. >> so there is no place like home. >> i think danish media is probably fantastic. >> the german news media is not owned by the parties. the real difference is that

their newspapers are family-owned, they are not publicly traded. even a family-owned newspaper still wants to make some money. the publisher wants to keep his family alive. i used to be skeptical about family-owned newspapers. >> it really depends on the family. german newspapers are very much falling to the right wing, left wing, center cast. we know there will be orientations to those newspapers. most of our newspapers are pretty centrist.

in terms of families, you have hearst and pulitzer, who built great dynasties but did not always do the best journalism. the family-owned papers were motivated differently, but they were not necessarily better. i am not speaking in favor of -- i worry about corporate owned media but as they don't care so much about the enterprise of journalism. the greatest opponent of journalism today is rupert murdoch. he blocked the wall street journal, not to be rich. his papers are the tiniest part of his media empire.

the wall street journal was unlike the post. some people said when he goes with his friends in the war room, now he does not just on the new york post, he owns the wall street journal. rupert murdoch is a good example of somebody who really cares about the bottom line. he was perfectly willing to make deals with tony blair. he tried to make deals with hillary clinton. to extract promises from blair on regulations, and and newspapers have had a much bigger impact in great britain than they have here. his entertainment property, fox television, offered something

the public wanted and did not get from basic television all those years ago. the simpsons, if anybody can remember when the simpson started, just created howls of anguish from the guardians of family and value people, who thought it was just a disaster. married with children? please. this is stuff that people wanted to consume, but it was not conservative stuff. for him in was about the bottom line for most of his properties. family is no assurance of great journalism, but i do think it is

and assurance that people care about the enterprise of producing content. >> you work for national public radio. >> just for the record, i worked for wnyc. produces this show. >> wnyc is a radio program. >> i encountered this fact with my generation of students that radio is simply not on the menu anymore as something that anybody listens to work, regrettably, has even heard of. despite what happened with hurricane sandy, what do you see as the future of radio? >> is radio dead? they have been saying that since

at least 1950. i have about a million listeners on my boutique radio show. that is compared to colbert's 3 million. the morning edition has 30 million listeners. it has begun to level off in just the last couple of years. during the time when all other mainstream media was plummeting, npr was just moving up, up, up. npr the network has had some trouble shifting to digital, although they have done a good job in recent years, because they have member stations. the numbers tell a different story from your students.

it is true that we don't have the youngest audience in the world, but apparently we have something like 20% of every age group. however, there is going to be a migration. i think an enormous number of people in new york listen on podcast. that is where the younger audience seems to be coming from. they have not figured out how to count them in the ratings, so they do not show up. >> you mentioned that you want people to subscribe on itunes. >> we offer more material on the podcast frequently.

we want people to get comfortable, to fit us into their schedule, rather than to subscribe to our schedule. if it shows up on their ipod, they will be more likely to listen to it than if they slept through one of the broadcast. we understand that our schedule is growing increasingly irrelevant. our show is produced and goes out on a satellite on a friday night. it is on our website on friday night. the pressure is on friday night. by the time it gets to sunday, we have worked very hard to make sure nothing goes out of date. i would prefer people to get it hot off the presses. we plan to offer more material on podcast. there is a lot of competition

out there, right? a more questions? do you want to know what nina totenberg is really like? i have not added to the person is probably 1991. i remember that i was allowed two edits. if you are going to ask me to do that, i might as well just throw it out and start all over again. i love you, nina. you are brilliantly talented. >> what is the difference in

your mind between journalism and the media or the press, if any? >> journalism is what you do, and the media and the press are where you do it. journalism is like cooking and the media, whatever medium you choose, is like the restaurant. it is how you serve it up. what you do changes, depending on what medium you produce it for. some media are much better suited to different kinds of journalism. >> with the medium of the internet and social media, the

role of journalism in regard to bloggers and blogs, how reliable can they be? >> i see your point. i believe, and this is my definition, that journalism is something you do according to a set of standards and with a particular focus in mind. you can convey really good information for any number of people, but a lot of people who were covering the arab spring were providing vital, important information, because they wanted the world to know, because in just this was happening before their eyes. i am not in any way impugning their information. in egypt, the mainstream media

did a lousy job for decades before and up through the covering of tahrir square. it was bloggers and activists that offered a true picture of what was going on. it has to do with motivation and a set of standards. if you are doing journalism, you want to be accurate and fair. if you are doing propaganda, or activism, being accurate and fair could be part of it or not part of it, but you are doing because you want to assess the events in a very real way. i don't pretend that journalists don't want to have any impact. why would you devote your life to something that is irrelevant in the way the world works?

it is fussy. i feel like i was not as clear as i should have been. i need to formulate that a little better. >> i am a fordham graduate and now i work in publishing. my question is, in the beginning of the q&a, you mentioned that your advice to young people was to find out what you are passionate about, go out and be an expert, and then write about that. i wonder how that relates to what you do, that if there is a niche in the media that you particularly enjoy reporting about. is there one interview you did that stands out as your favorite? >> i was happy with our first interview last week.

that is the one that is in my mind right now. the green revolution, people took to the streets in iran and a woman was tragically shot and killed. the video of her death went all around the world and became a symbol of revolution. it was a tremendous, mobilizing force. the world media wanted to put a face to this woman we saw dying from a distance. they picked the picture of her facebook page -- someone who looked a lot like her. the experience, she tried to correct it and was ignored by cnn and voice of america. every news outlet around the world published the picture.

the revolutionaries accused per of trying to steal the symbol of their darling, their hero, a person that was doing so much to mobilize the revolution. then the iranian government came in and said i want you to say that you are still alive and that this never happened and that you would never do that. we will probably charge you with treason and kill you. she talks about how she had to live with the other in her mind. it is always with her. it is not humble, but there's no point in having people in and then talking through it. we got through in a way that any listener could understand.

every time i feel that i can take a stranger and make them familiar to the listener, i am really proud of that interview. i wish we had more individuals on the show unless discussion of trends and policies and lawsuits. everything that goes through the media, i have to have very clear at stake so the program does not become a boring, specialist program. people understand why these issues are important, and some of them are really hard to tell. i loved doing an interview last year about this big media conference where during one part of it, everybody there was to write what coverage issue they wanted to talk about. one of them was, how should we cover alien invasion at the end of the world?

do we have to talk to the aliens, or is it a case where we should just -- really this kind of thing. it was like covering 9/11. don't you have to understand who your opponent is? it was really fun. it made it really clear as a kind of metaphor for the conundrums that media faces. >> you have spoken eloquently about diversity and freedom, opening up new platforms, and yet at the same time, we are facing a tragic situation where more and more journalists are being killed, and often by governments that they are reporting on. i just wonder if you can comment on why there is a corresponding

terrorism directed against journalist? >> the committee to protect journalists has done studies on this. what they have found is that the most dangerous time for any journalism enterprise is when democracy is being fought or redefault over or is emerging. five years ago, the place where the fewest journalists were ever killed was burma. there was not really any journalism. interestingly, a lot of the journalists that ended up on the committee to protect journalists are killed by organized crime. cases that are not being pursued by the government. this is serving true in russia and mexico.

deals have been cut in the case of russia, or the system of justice is struggling to be effective, as in the case of mexico and russia. there tons of deaths in iraq. struggling democracy, war. there was a time when wearing a t-shirt or a press credential would give you a status, that would enable you -- we have a friend who covered the trouble in northern ireland. he would run from one side to the other and know that both of them wanted to get their stories out, and that he would always be protected. when you don't care about getting your story out or when you can get it out a different

way, then you have no need for a western press that may not provide the narrative that you want them to. i spoke to reporters who said the big change they found was the attitude that it just did not matter. it was chaos. the drug barons that kill people in mexico just don't care. in places where journalists think they might have a chance to report something, but there are no structures to report them, no justice system or police to protect them, you will find many more dead journalists. this is a world in which there are a multitude of struggling democracies. >> we also have the example of wikileaks. i wonder if you can talk about your feelings about julian

assange and the information coming out about how the u.s. government, despite president obama's liberal policies, has been one of the harshest administrations toward whistle-blowers. >> this is interesting. it is certainly true that the obama administration has been among the harshest on an external whistle-blowers. however, the obama administration has been -- especially this new administration which managed to cram through a whistle-blower protection act and expand it for government whistleblowers, is offering protections they have not had for decades. so he wants them, whistle-blowers, to be able to work without retaliation within the system. he is very much opposed to information being released

willy-nilly by people inside that just ended all over the world. we interviewed assange right after the wikileaks issue, he believes that all information should be there, regardless of the possibility of innocent victims. he is a person who believes that, no matter what the consequences are, the information should be out there. a lot of the wikileaks stuff was pretty niggly stuff, people having affairs or whatever. some of it was big stuff, for sure. some of it was important stuff. the stuff that made a difference when people knew about it was when he partnered with a

guardian, a bunch of other newspapers, the new york times, and had them vet and do stories on the material that he provided rather than just document things that don't seem to serve any purpose. the other is an entirely separate issue. the government behaved inexplicably, or the marines behaved inexplicably in removing saddam's clothing and treating him like some sort of feral child raised by wolves or something. i would say it was cruel and unusual treatment of bradley manning, whatever his verdict turns out to be. that was, i cannot understand it, and i do not know why that happened. i think it was marine procedure rather than government

edict. >> sir? >> my name is michael chaplin. i am a former student of prof. rose. i am wondering if that changed how you reported. >> yes, it was kind of a gauntlet thrown down by ira glass, who came on and said, "npr is not defending itself against this canard. it is just not true. why do you not find out?" we went through. we had a lot of people who were critical of npr but were listeners. most people who criticized it had never heard it.

it was just a word on fox news. they never listen to it. we got several listeners who were not supporters. they liked the content, but they were very biased, so we took apart their anecdotal experiences, and we examined them closely for some clues, and then we did some quantitative stuff based on pew and other research outlets who had attempted to evaluate media, and ira said it changed the way that he was reporting, but i cannot say it changed mine. i know that will endear me to all of our critics, but we try to disclose exactly who we are

in a way that npr as a general rule does not. they like their hosts to be uninflected in their presentation, and we made a conscious choice, bob and i did, that if we were going to criticize people for not disclosing things, then we would try to be open books, and even as open books, we would allow ourselves to be corrected and be wrong on the air, especially when we thought it was instructive. if i say a wrong number, and he says, "actually, it is 24," and i had said 22. that kind of correction is useful. illustrative mistakes we will leave on the air. like the one you mentioned with sununu. we will let people accept us on the terms that we provide.

we are honest. i think, and this is a slight digression, but i really do think it does come back to your question. you mentioned walter cronkite. back in the 1970's, there was some poll where he was voted the most trusted man in america. there was a similar poll done of people on the internet, and the most trusted man in america was jon stewart, so the question is why, and i think it is because he is an open book. it is no longer -- it no longer pertains to be some person speaking from some great cloud-like fortress down to the people below. the playing field has been leveled, whether me and the media like it or not, so it does

not change substantially how i would report, because i have always tried to apply fairness and balance to our discussion, and i have never tried to pretend that i do not have an opinion about it. >> is there any journalism on television that follows a similar kind of approach to what you are doing? because the cable networks, msnbc, you know what you are watching is going to be -- of course, they do not do much reporting. it is all talking heads. fox does not do much reporting. it is all talking heads, but then there are the problems that cnn is facing. they do journalism, and they are in big trouble. >> they have not done journalism in a long time, at least not the domestic cnn. the international cnn is quite good. the domestic cnn has really gone for a lot of bells and whistles, and i cannot say that they are head and shoulders above the

rest. nbc at least has the power of nbc behind it. cnn's sometimes does inspiring work. it is still very good sometimes, but, you know, it is something to do that kind of work. on broadcast? >> yes. >> the show that we get most often likened to for better or worse is "the daily show." >> which is a high honor. >> which is a high honor, but our intent is quite different, but it is, pace-wise or with tone or something, it just reminds people of "the daily show." if you have not heard it, you are not going to be laughing out loud.

>> given the fact that you are open about having the tone, did you face any issues -- well, npr is just a distribution network for you. >> they have problems with it. they have had problems with it. they are kind of used to it now. in the first few years, there would be some squirming. there would be occasional things that would create some discomfort. in all honesty, i think that the entire media landscape has shifted in a way that we do not stand out as much like we used to. npr, look. npr is a fantastic news organization, but it has a style. it has a cadence, but it is not our style, and it is not our cadence. >> you began working there in 1988? >> 1987. i was an editor on a show, and then i was an editor on "all things considered."

>> two voices on npr. can you talk about how they schooled you in that cadence? what is the npr voice speak? >> well, for one thing, you lift your soft palate. i will tell you how that sounds. now, sitting comfortably in my seat, i will say, from new york, i am brooke gladstone. if i was filling in, i would say -- voice] you see, that is much nicer. but it requires putting air over your soft palate, and that is way too much work for me. there is, you know, i studied acting in college, and i remember my first time on the radio, i went to the university of vermont, and there was a shakespeare festival there, and

i was doing commercials for the festival, and i would lift my soft palate, and i would say -- voice] air-conditioned and sporting its new seats, the champlain festival offers its most comfortable season ever. there is also the ending phase. let me see if we have got a final sentence here. >> probably not. try the first paragraph. she has co-hosted what i think is one of the most indispensable programs on the air, called appropriately enough -- there is a rhythm. you are going across the country, and you want to hear npr, and there it is. you can hear it right away.

but, you know, even the shows that are not produced by npr. "fresh air" is produced by wnyy. these are nationally produced programs. "car guys" was produced in boston, obviously. "wait, wait, do not tell me" -- there is a certain civilized quality that happens. >> how did it happen? >> how did it happen? wow. i think initially, npr was this hippie property that was truly alternative. it did not have a national desk. it did not have a foreign desk. they did not have a show. they did things to find out

about life savers at the north pole, would you get a spark, and they did. >> you do not have to be at the north pole. >> he was at the north pole. it was ira. but slowly, it became a primary source of news, which made it less quirky, but it also maintained the ability to go longer. i know i was once at a conference, a conference of radio professionals in new orleans, and people were talking about their stories and how they were normally 50 seconds, and someone said, "we have had a real breakthrough at our station, because i get 90 seconds for my story," and i was like the last person, and my

average story when i was a correspondent for npr, my average story was 7.5 minutes. lots of voices sound -- you can slow down a little. you can write a little. you can bring people with you, and you do not have to harangue them. >> is that because of no commercials? >> well, i am sure that is part of it. you do not have to be hot, hot, hot. the sound, the way it is produced, it is not as compressed. if you put compression on a radio signal, you will have fewer -- it will be louder in the center, but you will have less of a dynamic range. this is all pretty wonky, but these are what contributed to that sound, but mostly, i think it is an intention. we are not yelling at you. you can think. i think that was not a conscious decision.

it was part of how it evolved. it did not spring full grown from the head of some executive. it built larger and larger, and it brought and created an aesthetic that went with the form of information provided. >> hmm. >> that is a tough one. >> any questions? >> i want to know, brooke, if you wanted to get somebody on, and they refused. who were they? >> when jonathan klein was -- >> the head of cnn. >> have you heard that? jonathan klein was the head of cnn. he said he was going to change the esthetic of cnn, and it was

going to be different, and it was going to be about storytelling, and it was going to be about important issues, and then the runaway bride story happened, and we had an interview to talk to him, and then the runaway bride story happened, and i had to deal with the runaway bride story, and it was in some ways the most hilarious interview i have ever done. he was so mad that cnn will not let anyone come on our show anymore, and fox generally will not let anybody on our show anymore, and then people who you would think would want to come on, seymour hersh would not come on because he does not want to be edited, and a lot of people who would go on "charlie rose" would not come on our show. hersh has sometimes come on our show. you know, for a long time, he would not.

a lot of people just do not want to be in my hands. i cannot understand that, but that is the way it is. yes, whole networks will not talk to us. they are less likely to talk to us -- they are more likely to turn us down than to talk to us, but somehow, we still fill the hour. >> the book looks fantastic. >> thank you. >> congratulations. >> i emptied my brain in that book. >> it shows. the graphics look really fabulous. my question to you is a two-part question, which is you are so knowledgeable about the media. what do you think is the most influential media machine right now, and where do you go for what you think is the best information, the most factual information? i think that is something we are all trying to figure out for ourselves. thank you. >> well, here is the thing. what is influential for me is

not influential for a whole lot of other people. you know, i live in the bubble of new york, and the bubble of bubbles of brooklyn, and the -- in the bubbliest. i think "the new york times" is very influential, but they are not that influential except for reporting. cable news actually has very few viewers, relatively speaking, but they inform the mainstream media. there is so much cross fertilization going on. there is no single -- kierkegaard hated the media and was a media critic, and one thing he objected to more than anything else was the notion that there was a public. that there was a public. that there is no such thing as a