country. i grew up on a farm in the middle of wisconsin. my parents will probably never be able to retire. be able to retire like most of the people in the previous section you guys were talking about retirement. think we should be more accept date of these all and what they have to offer. i am going to school for political science right now. i do not like the intolerant of it. know, i have aot book in front of me, it is by michael walzer. i am in the middle of this part that is based on immigration and the justice of it.

toy have just as much right try to get ahead basically. ofid not inc. that a lot people have this fear that they taking the wealth we what are your but thoughts? >> with ben quite a lot of time talking about the politics of it and the ways to address it in bills and all the sort of thing. at the core of this debate, it is what makes it so difficult is that very reason debates we have been having in america since its founding.

this has been a constant source for generations. face of thee generation is via march the his manic community. it is that much more difficult to have the discussion. difficult to look at the economics of it or how economic programs are supposed to work. a lot of these bills cracking down on illegal immigration, we saw them joining immigration advocacy groups to frame it in a civil rights perspective. this year we have seen a lot of as a moralat it issue about how you treat the strangers in your own land. about the rogue room

within five months all we want but at the very heart of it it becomes the question that a lot of americans are still somewhat resistance to allowing a lot of different folks coming into the country. makes about much more difficult to have the conversation. from usa today. always appreciate you coming on to talk to us. >> more live coverage of discussion on immigration policy tomorrow from american university. the morning session features alex rodriguez. arden andernoon, jack the federation for american reform. a panelist expected to discuss whether they think it can be passed in the next session of congress, which starts next week. i've coverage tomorrow here on c-span.

>> all this week, book tv in prime time. continuing tonight, books on world affairs. jonathan katz on his book, the big trucks that went by. how the world went to save haiti and left he had the big disaster. after that, discussing the book, white growth matters, how economic growth in india reduced poverty and the lessons for other developing countries. that is tonight on c-span two. carolinarsity of north recently hosted a conversation on the future of tv news. sherwoodwood -- ben spoke with students about new technology and investigative journalism. this is an hour and a half. [applause]

>> thank you, david. thank you, susan. this has been a delightful day. this is the second time i have been on campus. i am always impressed when i am here. white harbor has been my friend for 25 years or so, when wade says that i need you, i will go wherever that goes. he has been my most trusted business advisor, i have a high appreciation for him, this has been on his mind for years. we have talked about this. i smoke a cigar, wade bears with that and tells me about his vision. i am delighted to be here. i also want to shout out to hank price.

hank is my colleagues who runs w x i i over in winston-salem, station we are very proud of. hank is one of our great leaders and i am glad that he is here. also another person i am glad who is here who wore the hearst jersey for a number of years, he got honest and came to a university for the closing chapter of his great career, he ran the station in pittsburgh for us, an outstanding executive who made the company a lot of money. so, good to see jim again. i have been blessed to work for hearst for many years. i was the lucky guy who had the opportunity to run the radio station. i found the company to be a great fit for what i was all about. our company was founded in 1887. we have been at this for a long time and have been at the forefront of media as it has

evolved over the last 426 years or so. we are very active in the digital media space and we will have an opportunity to talk about this tonight. mr. hearst was one of the true visionaries. early in his life as a newspaper publisher he declared it was good business to be a good citizen. it has been a cornerstone of our value and has resonated at all the stations and markets where we operate television stations. one quote that is on my mind as i meet students is teddy roosevelt, who said far and away one of life's great religious is to work hard and have the chance to work hard on something that matters. journalism is important to this community and to all the communities around the country,

aspiring to work in a business that matters, do business that matters in these communities. one of my abiding believes is that people care about what happens in their local towns. they want to hear about what occurs. men can talk well about national and international media, and we will have an opportunity to talk about local media, tonight. another thing to focus on is how culture is so important in any organization, along with these notions of core purpose and core values along the built to last theme, the notion of transparency, honesty, and integrity in reporting.

values that transcend the strategic and tactical changes that occur in media on a regular basis. those are lasting values. there was a great piece in "the new york times" a couple of weeks ago, october 26, that talked about values that do not go out of style. one of the things we are focused on as a company is ethical decision-making in the digital world. then and i will chat about at a little bit. i think it is terribly important. this has been a time of disruption. review this time of disruption as one of opportunity. the hearst name, randolph hearst was always a gentleman who believed in innovation. we have tried to be gentleman in the things we have done and things we have associated ourselves with, which often means taking risks. risks are a good part of what we do. yet acting responsibly in the journalism that we do is equally important.

i love the quote from the other than bob dylan, a hero is someone who understands the responsibility that goes with freedom, which should resonate with all the journalists. in recent times in just the past year we have had experience with the boston bombing. our washington bureau cover the navy shipyard shootings. there are all manner of these very significant stories that have been poorly handled by certain people in the media. i am not here to criticize them, but i hope we take away learning from the people who did things the right way, the wrong way, and see the opportunity for us to be better as journalists. this is a great calling. i have law of the people who are engaged in the pursuit of their journalism careers here. you should be very excited about what the future holds.

as an old guy now, i wish i had the opportunity to enter the media business at age 20 or 25, this is a time of really great opportunity. there are important careers available to people. i always think about how important the role of the storyteller and the editor is. i think about mr. hearst's father, part of the gold rush when he came across the country. there were radio stations, television stations, a few news no radio stations, no television stations, and only a few newspapers as we knew them. i imagine that people sat around and spoke to each other around the campfires. few of us are very good storytellers. few of us are very good elders of jokes. to me they were the early journalist. journal -- journalists.

i would say the same thing about the armies of napoleon, marching across the world. high priority on storytelling, it is essentially important to people in the societies that we serve. it is now an opportunity for us to pursue individual pieces of information, different rights of media, audio, and the like, but the notion of a media company that is an aggregator and creates and curates content is still very important. one of the bedrock principles of the corporation as a media company, if you do not put something on the screen or on the page that resonates with viewers and readers, you are not really in the media business. it harkens to the line that sam nunn used to use from time to time, that everyone who says

they want to be a leader should look over their shoulder and be sure that there is someone behind the leader as he marches down the road. absent any one behind you, he said you are just out for a walk and not really eating at all. we will have an opportunity tonight to chat about some things i hope are on your mind. i am particularly delighted to be here with ben, who is so good to come join us here. no one is busier than the president of news organizations. ben is a young guy, the dean of music executives, telling you what a pair of us and brilliant producer he is. he has made abc news a better

place. he and i have become good friends and i am delighted he is with us tonight. you will have the opportunity to hear his point of view about abc news, an important institution that matters in this country and in this world. the same way that hank does important work in winston-salem, the same as our stations in sacramento, albuquerque, it matters to the local community. people care about their towns, the issues that occur there. it is important for us to be the future in those communities. it makes us who we are in the markets with the important businesses. this is an exciting time. there is a great future for journalism. we will be serving people on a lot of platforms. it is an exciting time and i believe the best is yet to come

for this industry, we will have a chance to talk about that tonight. with that, i will be seated. [applause] >> our spec -- our second speaker this evening as the president of abc news, responsible of all aspects of the broadcasting, including world news tonight. in addition, he oversees their radio, online, and satellite services. he began his career when he was still a student. during a year off from college she worked for the news and observer in raleigh. the los angeles times paris bureau. and the united nations border relief operation in thailand. i have to imagine that it was especially hard for him to leave raleigh for that assignment in paris. [laughter]

he launched his journalistic career in earnest when he joined abc news in 1989. after a brief stint at the network, at that network with a peacock, he returned to abc news in 2004 as the executive producer of good morning america and it was not long thereafter that he was named president of the entire news division. under his leadership, abc news has been anything but complacent. last year they watched content art ship with yahoo!, reaching nearly 100 million people, serving up to half of a billion videos each month. this year they launched fusion, launched just recently, stealing one of my favorite lawyers to run it, assuring them good legal advice. a network to serve and empower u.s. hispanics, the youngest and fastest growing demographic in america.

as if that were not enough, he is also the author of two critically acclaimed best- selling novels, the death and life of charlie st. cloud, released by universal pictures in 2010, and "the man who ate the 747," also being developed as a broadway musical in a major motion picture. his latest book is an exploration of those who beat life-threatening diseases, who triumphed after economic hardship, and who surrenders. i see obvious parallels there with sites topic on the future of television. please join me in welcoming ben sherwood. [applause]

>> thank you, professor. good evening, ladies and gentlemen. it is a great privilege to be here tonight. deans, professor, we appreciate your warm welcome. wade, sandy, congratulations on this great night. when he calls, we jump on planes. we will fly anywhere. especially to this wonderful institution in chapel hill. i have to say it is extremely humbling to be excited to share a stage, tonight, with my friend. bbn work together a few years ago.

david has been a friend and a mentor. usually when we sit next to each other he is in the even more contentious board meetings of the network. sometimes we sit next to each other at a new york rockers basketball game. it is a privilege and honor to be here. thank you, i look forward to our discussion. when i look out at this audience friends. as the professor mentioned, 29 years ago ipaq up my car in massachusetts and drove a beat- up round saab down into north carolina to start was -- what was a formative experience in my journalism career. i began working for "the news at the observer."

a beacon of great journalism. what i want to say in introduction is very simple. i echo -- if i could do it all over again, i wish that i could start right here and right now. i wish i could begin a career right now in this highly disruptive, highly volatile, and highly certain media environment. i think the future of television news in the digital area at -- digital era is very bright. now, there is some history to share with you very quickly about the disruption that has taken place over the last thousand years. i think it will give us a sense of what is to come. if you think back to the beginning of communication and storytelling, news is

fundamentally a social activity. fundamentally news is coming back saying -- do not hunt over there, hunt over there. it took thousands of years to go from the first stories that were told around the fire to the advent of being able to write things down on stone, paper, and then being able to print them on a press. the time between was around 377 years. and then another 71 years until the advent of television. then another four years before the advent of the internet. some futurists predict that the rate of change in the next 100 years, it could equal something like 20,000 years of change in human history. 20,000 years of change. we know that these disruptions are coming fast and furious. at abc news, we welcome the disruptions.

we are excited about that change. as the professor mentioned, we have begun to make the changes in that world. a world of digital transformation, demographic transformation as this country becomes a majority minority nation. so, the future is highly disrupted. one of the things i look forward to talking about tonight. this is an exciting moment to be here at chapel hill. my job, in 1984, was to write a letter box. after earning my stripes writing the weather box, my job would you to wrap up for the political reporters and cover some event in some far-flung place where the reporters did not want to go and they would send an intern.

i relished those chances. one of those jobs was to run around north carolina and my little car and see what the candidates were spending on political advertising. i would like to think that i am one of the few people in this room and this state -- in this room, in this state, who has regularly visited every station. i called my parents and told them i was leaving college for a year, that i would stay in north carolina to see the race to the conclusion. the epic battle between senator helms and governor jesse thorn. at the time, the most expensive in national history, i went on to write an honors thesis discussing the changing role of race in north carolina politics, going back to 1950, front senator lamb ran against senator smith in the runoff. all fodder for conversation later.

i will go join david for the discussion. thank you very much. [applause] >> you get the first question. >> excellent. >> today in the new york times, the former executive editor of the times described this as a golden age for journalism, particularly a golden age for international reporting. my question for you, david, looking at where we are today and where we are going ahead, is this a golden age for television news, bronze age?

silver age? >> i lean more towards it being a golden age. there is a world of opportunity out there for us to tell stories on all kinds of different platforms. i believe that people gravitate towards the best available screen. but there are so many screens that they can take advantage of, it is an opportunity for people to engage with journalism, engage the storytelling that is very profound. accompany this year generating 5 billion pages on our websites, 250 million posts on news and weather information. 10 billion ad impressions. 60% of those impressions are on

smartphones and tablets. the migration to mobile is extraordinary. i view that as a great opportunity. we strive to have the leading source of local information on traditional television. 80% of our newscasts are rated number one or number two. i think there is a world of opportunity out there. it is not contract in or as involved in the newspaper business. our business is expanding because of the proliferation of these devices. the world is interested in video and that is what we do for living. >> i think some people would say that the number of people watching television -- there are

these studies that come out periodically, young people in particular are asked -- did you watch television news yesterday? six years, seven years ago, 49% of young people said they watched television news yesterday. most recent statistics show that that is around 33%. there is this sense that there is a declining audience among young people. how do you feel about the changing demographics? >> people are migrating to different places. if we are going to do right be our -- right by our viewers, we will have to be in these different places. it is very important that we have established brands. i spoke briefly about the value of the editor, the value of storytelling.

i am the boss of the best television station in the market. though you would expect me to say that. we saw the bombings occur around the marathon, people's viewership increased. younger people migrated to a known, trusted source for information. our audiences were typically greater than that of our largest competitors combined. so, sometimes it takes a big event. oklahoma city, when there are tornadoes in that market, as the demographic patterns change the people do gravitate towards watching local news with local information. it is a challenge to remain relevant, you know. do i worry about the next four to five years? it is about maintaining that. we have to stay invested in business, recruiting the best and brightest from institutions like this. find a place for them, putting resources to this business in a

proactive way, to remain relevant and create reasons for people to watch our stations and rearm publications. >> i think the actual title of this conversation tonight could be slightly modified. i think that we both share the belief that the word television news is one of crushed -- of questionable relevance. in fact what his stations create, it is that it give journalism. video storytelling that can exist on a television station, and ipad, iphone, or any smartphone. the question to me is, what is the future of the journal is a mage?

all the all of the students here, telling stories with pictures projected into all kinds of screens. all of the content creators and all of the students who are here tonight who are gg into television journalism, you will really go into a progression that -- into a profession that is video journalism, telling stories and pictures that will be projected into all kinds of screens. some of them will be television screens. many of them will be little devices, the little television devices in your laps that one can watch on a watch application, on an or tablet or iphone. so i think the future is very bright and very robust. there is clear evidence that more and more people are consuming more and more video journalism, not just on television, but on all kinds of devices. how are you adapting your story telling your production for different devices? it is one thing to do gma, to do diane's show at 6:00, 6:30 in the evening. how do you view the need to adapt productive and -- adapt production techniques?

>> once upon a time, when the web was bolted onto the side of news organizations and digital was literally strapped on to these broadcast organizations, the theory was to simply take the creations of dollars in shows and put them out on the web and maybe make them a little bit shorter. and i think that it is not profound or a result to know that the web requires and these devices require their own content give we simply can't take what works on television and put it on a mobile phone or a tablet. we have to customize it. one recent example, our team took the abc news ipad app, which was one of the first in this space -- you made recall the spinning blue globe -- and they decided to look at how people use and consume the information on the ipad, which is different from the way they consume it on a television set. they realize that, in the

morning, a watch short bursts of information. so we created day parting on the news app. so they get one expense of the morning which is short. at lunchtime, when people like to snack more, we created a different format for the lunchtime period. and then that, people like to curl up with their laps -- with their apps and we created three different expenses that are customized for this particular kind of device. one size does not fit all. we cannot take television and put it on the web. we are creating content for each of the different experiences. >> social media is a spectacularly interesting tool. news organizations are trying to figure out how to use it in a responsible way. it is fraught with opportunities and also enormous challenges and

risks. how do you manage your newsroom? what kind of conversations do you have about using social media and sources and the like? >> in 1984, in order to get that paragraph of whether copy into the news and observer with a circulation of a couple hundred thousand readers, it had to go through to editors. that was running the goblet of two editors who seemed to believe the fierce and ferocious and would rewrite all 75 words because they were not up to stuff. -- up to snuff. today, some of our young people right out of school who are social media editors have access with the flick of a twitter switch. they can communicate with literally millions of people without any editorial -- direct

editorial oversight or editing because they are the social media interaction with the audience. a million people at world news. a million plus at abc world america. these are the things we think about a lot. there are so few filters and editing writers over that social media interaction. but because it is branded abc news, it has the same stamp. it has the same importance as abc news so we think about that a lot. >> how about at the stations? what is the relative importance of social media and getting your anchors and correspondents and your television stations engaged in the audience? >> it is an important tool, but it requires real responsibility and how we use that tool. we are very mindful of outsourcing and using facebook, for instance, as a source. it carries a real risk with it. i ask you to raise your hand if you believe that your two closest friends' facebook pages 100% accurate on what everything on everything that is portrayed on the page and nobody raises her hand. and people are in the country,

people go to that faced the page and use it as a source. it is a conversation that has to happen in every newsroom. the job of the news director has always been critically important, but it carries with it a lot more responsibility than it ever has before. i was alarmed as can be during the marathon bombing and the aftermath, the hours that followed with the random reckless nature of social media posting accusations and implicating individuals who had nothing to do with what occurred in boston. there was a posting on the web of an eight-year-old girl wearing a number as though she had run in the boston marathon, which of course he hadn't, and it more and her death. and this -- and it more and -- and it mourned her death.

and a lot news organizations ran with it. the apprehension of the bombers, they implicated a fellow at brown university who was convicted in no way with the same. "the new york daily news" ready picture on the front page, if you have seen these people, and they were the people involved in the bombing -- directly this this -- the recklessness of it was frightening. >> we have committed to an entire program that we call abc, which is for accuracy and balance and credibility. for the social media editors, as i mentioned earlier, will have to go through strict and rigid rules about what they can send out and what they can't throw the different reporting, the priority is to get it right.

in our business, it is always to try to be first-in to be right. but in this age, the value of being first has declined rapidly and the importance of being right has never been more significant. one of the things that we noticed during the attacks in kenya in the shopping mall was that, very quickly, parity twitter feeds began to -- parody twitter feeds began that al- shabaab had claimed responsibility. there's all kinds of valuable information that we can gather and can collect from social media about what is happening. everyone can send in pictures and see what is happening. at the same time, there are all kinds of prices under the type to -- types who jump in there and try to have fun and cause mischief. the receiving end of trying to filter all that information and

trying to figure out what is real and what is not real and to have checks and balances in being able to check out all of these different accounts, we have a whole social media team the mobilizes in these instances to begin to try to digest that information and check out what is verifiable and what is not verifiable. >> there is an obsession with being first. you said it is better to be right than first. i certainly agree with that. talk about election night in 2012 when ohio was up for grabs. everyone was clamoring to be the first one to declare president obama reelected. your team in new york at the election center was monitoring the results coming in from ohio. >> we had to challenges. right around 7:00 p.m., we suffered a massive power outage at our studio. our entire team was literally

sitting in the dark for 20 minutes. there were no lights. it was because we had plugged in some heaters from the outside to keep some of our team warm in times square and they had been stuck into a wall. some had plugged in some heaters and blew out the entire system. the electrical team ran from the basement in times where up to the cable to plug us back in to keep us on the air. this is our network. [laughter] >> david knows the story. the second thing that happened that night was that we know what happened in a previous presidential election when major news organizations did not call the election correctly. we have said to our election team and our projection specialists do we have to be

right. we just have to be right. so there was a gap between abc news coverage and projection of ohio and some of the other networks somewhere between eight to 15 minutes. that is an agonizing time because one sees other networks proclaiming that president obama has been reelected president and abc news is not there. in fact, on some of the scree's some of the screens behind our people at the various election headquarters, the crowds are going crazy because others have reported and abc news is not there. our job is to get it right. and if we get it wrong, we lose credibility and trust. so sometimes it will take us a little bit longer. in other elections, in other situations, we have been ahead of other people. so we have great trust in our team and we cannot push the team. we have to let them come to that in their own way. >> was abc news damaged in any way because it was not first that night? >> i don't know the answer to that.

i think it would have been much more damaged if we had gotten something wrong. i don't think abc news was. today i bring it up. i remember it. but i don't think people remember who was first or second or third on the air. but the consequences of being wrong are much more embarrassing and much more damaging. >> can i just interrupt? you've talked about in the past about the importance of winning. can you define winning? most people think that winning in television or some people might think that adding in television is defined by ratings. how do you define winning on election night and on all other nights? >> winning for hearst television is about conducting yourselves with integrity, about ruby tatian. it's about -- with integrity. it's about ruby tatian.

-- it's about reputation. it's about top profitability that allows us to reinvest in the business to provide the kind of service that needs to be provided and employ the people that we employ and fulfill our mission as broadcasters. so it is a lot more than just ratings. i think there are some people with a narrow point of view that says, if you win at whatever cost, it is worth of the wind. we will put our name -- we don't want to put our name on a win that came with the loss of integrity. we don't want to damage our reputation. ratings are critically important and revenue generation is important and profitability is important. these are very competitive businesses.

we have been in business in the television space since the very first days in 1948 and we have been in business, as i said, since 1887. one's ability to stay in any business that long depends upon successful operation of the commercial enterprise. you have to do in the right way. and we're pretty greedy. jim hefner and hank price will attest to this that we have pretty high standards in terms of wanting it all, but wanting it all with the right responsible way to conduct ourselves as a business enterprise. >> in that context for the the students center here, what are you looking for when you're hiring someone for hearst? what are the qualities among the young people who you are bringing into your organization? >> not necessarily in this order passion is really important. love what you do. i don't think you can be successful in any endeavor unless you've got passion for what that is.

i think the people that we hire are smart, curious people. curiosity is something that i like to see when we checked with people and interview people. there are skills that can be developed if there is a lot of skill development at this institution. but passion and curiosity and a sense of urgency are really important. i think sense of humor is really important. i think that eisenhower said that sense of humor is one of the most important qualities a leader can have. i look for that in people that we talked to. i think the people who are most successful in any endeavor have a passion for what they are doing and they bring with it a whole package of skills that are required. writing is important. a good eye, if people are photographers. wade has taught me how important and how elusive judgment is for people. it is a quality that is hard to tell or to show people, educate people about how to have good judgment.

but it is terribly important. we are in the newsroom. you have someone you has to make a decision about whether they go to air with a story. judgment is really, really important. so those are the kinds of qualities that we are looking for. >> i would add one quality, which is sort of that inner go, which is the story that lewis mumford described it, the fire from inside, lit up from inside, self-starter. >> absolutely. >> just driven, that inner go in that inner drive to get things done, to make a difference. how does a newsroom learn from and respond to mistakes? >> i think of the navy yard shooting in d.c. last mother a few weeks back and two of your competitors misidentified who

the shooter was. quickly or not so quickly, and had to go on and retracted the name that they had put out over the airways. how do you do with mistakes? how much is management involved in the control room or the breaking news and permit? -- news environment? >> first of all, we take the trust that you described. that is paramount. we know that the trust of the audience and our integrity is primary. we also know that mistakes happen. so we have elaborate systems in place to protect against making mistakes. we train and drill for every kind of scenario so that we make very few mistakes.

we also know that they do happen and, when they do happen, we try to correct them as quickly as we possibly can, as clearly as we can, and then set out to learn from them and not make them again. i think that one of the things that we know from our friends in newspapers and magazines is that there is that little spot in the newspaper where the corrections appear and mistakes happen in journalism. it is just part of the process that we want to reduce as much as we possibly can -- there are many good systems and many good people in training and we try every civil day to make sure that we are, as we talked about, being right among not just first. >> when we make mistakes, we try to correct those. first, you have technology made the mistake. that means there can't be a sense of this additional arrogance in any station. but we try to address the mistakes as quickly as we can and in the same spot that we made the mistake. get out in front of that and that is the advice of good lawyers, but it is also just a

matter of common sense. that is the right way to go. i think that helps us preserve the trust the people have for the station. you can't make excuses about the mistakes you made. i had one experience that is ugly to tell, but one of our stations some years ago -- the station was doing a story about pedophile priests. there was a priest arrested. it went to the seminary yearbook and did a story on this fellow and they selected the photograph of father o'flaherty. and next to father o'flaherty was father o'flynn and it was father o'flynn had a problem, not father o'flaherty.

and a viewer called the television station and said you got the wrong guy. and our station at the time said we know what we are doing. we don't make those kinds of mistakes. and we went with the story at 6:00 and we want the story at 11:00 and it was a dastardly mistake. when we had to correct and made it contributed to that archdiocese -- one we had to correct and made a contribution to that archdiocese. [laughter] i think people come to a station in these kinds of circumstances. you can't be -- you can't have such a high sense of certitude that i can't be wrong because this is what i do for a living. i fear certitude wherever i see it to -- see it. it is never created. it is never thoughtful. and people have that sense of certitude, beware. it is a mistake that, thank goodness, we haven't repeated in our universe.

but it is a nostra to problem -- it is an ostrich of -- but it is an ostrative problem. >> with strained or limited resources, it is affecting journalism. >> i think it is important as newspapers diminish investigative reporting and pullback resources. i don't think we do enough of it. alaska bluebeard's, we have had workshops for our reporters about how to do -- the last couple of years, we have had workshops for our reporters about had to do investigative reporting. there is so much competition out there and so much cost competition. that you cannot starve good news organizations and good news

television stations. in five years come in many markets, there won't as many stations doing the kind of news that we do and we have a responsibility to our viewers and a responsibility to our shareholders to do everything we can to make these businesses competitive and grow and do things that the audience wants from us. the country, the society benefits from investigative journalism. god help us if we are not allocating resources to do that. we are a company that believes in it. we did an investigative piece for wba otb a few years back that resulted -- four w ball -- we did an investigative piece for wbal tv. i worry about newspapers not staying the course and doing the job they do.

a friend of mine from detroit had a cover station where he would observe that the correctness, the corruption in the mayor's office, which was somewhat legendary, wouldn't have been uncovered without the enterprising work of the newspaper there. i'm not sure that the tv stations would have devoted the resources over a long time to identify the kind of corruption. and i think we, as a society, need to be sure that that is happening. >> go back to your mention of baltimore because i think that, especially for an audience of a lot of students in people thinking about careers in media, you have not arrived where you are without taking some risks and had some wins and not wins. do you care to tell us any stories about your moments of taking big risks, taking big swings and how those turned out? and what you learn from them? >> i imagine you're referring to this is 1985 or 1986. i arrived at wbal radio as a manager. through the 1950s, they had the

orioles games. then we lost the orioles games to a high bid gave one of my objectives when i got there was to try to repatriate the orioles. then and now, the rights fees on these things are really staggering. it is hard to run things things run these things and a profit. we hope to create a halo effect and the overall effect of having the games that illuminates the whole station. i had in my mind. so i went up to new york and sold my pants off to my boss to the ceo of the hearst corporation.

they liked my enthusiasm and my passion and they put me through the hoops, every business model thing. i had an answer for everything. i went back home and we made a deal with the orioles and i thought now we will really get it going. that was the year that the orioles started to 0-22. [laughter] and i was dying. i was dying. we couldn't sell advertising to anybody. there was this morbid curiosity about the team that all they did was lose. jim hefner was in the company at that time. the young radio guy down there thought he was hot stuff. he signed up the orioles. there was a lesson there. john conaway and frank bennett teasing me but never be me up. they supported the decision. therefore the grace of god go i. but it was a formative kind of

decision. i lived to tell about it in the hearst corporation. it is funny 28 years later. [laughter] >> so we have about another half hour and i am wondering whether you think it is time to open it up. >> yeah, let's take some questions. >> because we are recording this, we need to get the questions on mic. >> once you get the first question rolling, then it goes really well in my experience. >> first of all, thank you both so much for being here. i am a journalism major here. he mentioned your fear of what will happen to long-term investigative journalism with the decline of newspapers. i wanted to know what you see as television's changing role.

>> i think good televisions will develop more resources for investigative journalism. we will train our people to do that kind of work. we are a company that is demonstrably doing that. we have some very talented investigative reporters. we will have to learn to be more patient and the newspaper people can remind us that the time required for really great investigative journalism pieces is longer than it is typically the case for the television reporting that we do. so we will have to be more patient. we will have to train people. and we will have to put resources to it. that think you will see the best tv stations in the country do that. every year, i go to the peabody

awards and we have been lucky to win a number of those awards almost every year. i'm impressed by the investigative pieces that renowned tv stations around the country are doing. we need to fill that void. i don't think the newspapers will go entirely away. i don't mean to be so negative about the newspaper industry. we own "the houston conical, "the houston," and all those newspapers are profitable this year. they are reshaping their business. they are creating more digital products and they are working hard at the work before them. their ad bases contracting. but they are finding efficiencies. i think we need to treat -- we need newspapers to survive at some form or another going forward. and treat -- our company is continuing to invest

in newspaper resources so they can continue to do that kind of work. >> i would add that i think it is a very exciting time to be an investigative journalist. i started in 1989 on an investigative team. today, there are some in a different ways to pursue investigative journalism. there is television, print, all kinds of digital ventures that are doing invest it at work in all kinds of new partnerships between nonprofit organizations, online, and broadcasters. so there's all kinds of cross- fertilization in the investigative space. just this past week, abc news teamed up with the center for public integrity in washington to do an investigative piece about the diagnosis of black lung disease at johns hopkins university. and we partner with all kinds of different outfits to make areas

versus go further and to dig deeper into the very thing that david was describing, which is an important part of our mission, which is serious investigative journalism that sheds light where otherwise we can shine the light. >> it matters. that's important stuff. >> and i would say come about north carolina, one of my clearest memories from 1984, there was a great investigative producer pat was a dog in -- was a dogged investigative reporter who made all kinds of change through good old-fashioned reporting. he also taught me a thing or two about spitting in his cup next to his desk. there were cups all over his desk with his habit for tobacco. and he taught me a lot about the importance of the time it takes to do one good investigative project.

pat took months and months on every single one of those projects. >> thank you so much for your great insightful talk. can you elaborate on your position regarding aereo? you have been trying to nail them in courts for quite a while. i know that abc ran they watch app, which does what aereo does, which is popular. how good was the model? what is your general sense on the? >> we are a litigation with them in boston. over the past three or four weeks, we applied to the court for an injunction to have them

cease service until this thing could be heard by the court. that has been the case in a number of different markets. we view that matter as an infringement of our copyright. we produce content, copyrighted content. and we think that they are not in compliance with the copyright statutes and we think that is a problem. i think there is a number broadcasters who are happy to license our content to them in the same way that we license content to telco and satellite and two cable. it feels that they have a scheme that allows them to have access to the content. we disagree with that. ultimately, it may be a matter that goes to the supreme court to be resolved. the watch apps are a very different story. it is abc's content and they are making that available. if i take wcvb's content and put it on an app, it is our content. we can do with it what we want.

but this is the case of someone who is taking our content in violation of the copyright statute. so there is innovation there, but part of the challenge that we have as an industry is are people going to be willing to pay for the content that is generated by great journalists in this room and elsewhere? that is a challenge for the industry. there are a lot of people who feel that they can have free access to all of this content. we will be in a world that cannot sustain itself if we don't get paid for the content that we generate. in the tv station, 80% of the revenues we generate come from advertising revenues. now we are generating meaningful fees from cable, the retransmission consent fees from cable and satellite and telco. by newspapers and magazines, everybody has an issue. we all love content, but are you

willing to pay for that? last week, i met a woman named carol cousy who was a photographer at "the washington post." she has won four pulitzer prizes. i have seen her photos but i was unfamiliar with her. she did a presentation at another university and showed the most compelling photos, different themes, a number different sets of themes. it struck me as i watched her brilliance. it is a resource that the newspapers will want to hold onto as best they can. we are going to miss out on brilliant storytelling from still photographers who were geniuses if there are too many cutbacks. we will go back and shoot the stuff that is remarkable? i also have the impression that people would be less inclined to steal her photographs and use it

for themselves -- she and i talked about this -- and people would be more inclined to take their video clips off our television coverage and go out and try to market it. it is a more sacred medium in some respects, still photography. so there is a disconnect for me how there is more respect paid to carol's still photography then there would be for the video that hank price shoots over at winston-salem. people will ultimately have to pay for content. >> that think the david answered that question perfectly. [laughter] >> thanks again for being here. my first question and i would like a follow-up is whether edward snowden has contacted your organization.

secondly, how is it that you are talking to your reporter, your news executives about what i think is essentially the year of the whistleblower? how do you think about dealing with whistleblowers in an environment where government information can be shared so easily, corporate a -- corporate information can be shared so easily? how do you advise your managers and your reporters? >> snowden hasn't contacted us. >> we are trying to contact snowden. [laughter] i would like to take this opportunity through c-span2 and got -- through c-span to invite mr. snowden to do an interview with abc news. >> the whistleblower point? >> the year the whistleblower. for as long as journalists have been practicing a particularly the kind of investigative work, it is always the year of the whistleblower. we depend, as news organizations, on whistleblowers

of all different kinds. i think that there is a technical term for what a whistleblower is under statute. but we depend on people of conscience standing up and telling us what is really going on. sometimes anonymously. sometimes on the record. and i will even try this to debate patriotism and violations of different laws. but newspapers in raleigh, north carolina, television stations in the great state of north carolina and journalist's all across the nation always count on whistleblowers. so we got all her teens when it comes to whistleblowers to ask all the questions, check out their bona fides, ascertain whether they have a particular interest in sharing this information, what is their agenda or motive. we go through all of the basics that you teach in journalism school to try to understand why this person wants to say this.

as a young investigative producer, came to north carolina to do a story about the tobacco industry with one of the early whistleblowers who worked at r.j. reynolds and who wanted to talk about what was going on in what was then known as the mouse house, which was the lab that r.j. reynolds tobacco company where they were looking at the effect of tar and nicotine on mice. and he wanted to blow the whistle. when we got into it, we discovered that he had all kinds of conflicting agendas and interests that related to r.j. reynolds and r.j. reynolds came forward with all kinds of evidence that this person had a -- had mixed motives in coming forward. all of us who practice journalism no that -- journalism know that it is always the year of whistleblowing. we have to exercise our very high standards in evaluating what to do and how to do it. and then there is what david discussed, our judgment come over whether we publish -- our

judgment, over whether we publish and whether it is in the public interest or it is in the national interest. >> in the case of the local station, i would add that, where we may have less experienced people, it is him orton for management, news management and rup's to be involved in these kinds of stories. -- it is important for management, news management and our ep's to be involved in these kinds of stories. that is certainly the case at the network as well, but we do not have the depth of experience arough the radix -- ranks at typical local station, so it is engagement by management. >> let me be the fourth to thank you for being here. may great conversation. i am a first year phd student here at journalism school. as someone who is interested in sort of teaching the next generation of journalists, i was wondering if there is anything that you think we should be teaching our students that maybe we are not at this point, something to prepare them for

the future? >> i admire what is going on here and that a lot of other institutions, the interdisciplinary approach. it is notable to me that, when we interview younger people, they have a very broad set of skills and i think i continue to encourage that to be the case. the intersection between media law and practicing journalism is very important. that is an initiative that needs to continue to blossom in a significant way. i think nowadays people have to understand technology. they have to understand -- they have to have deep subject matter expertise. i would encourage this university and other universities to be sure that people are trained with depth, not just shallow knowledge that

-- that is pejorative, i shouldn't say that -- limited knowledge of subject matter which sometimes whitewashed tv reporters. we need more subject matter expertise. i think there's room for a lot more of that. >> i have something simple to offer in response. which is a we can think about technology and its restrictions and we can think about subject matter expertise, but something that is one of the prerequisites and then is quickly gone after an introductory course is storytelling. just the simple art of telling a great story. for all the students here and for all the professors and for all the practitioners, i think that we all know that, as long as a person entering this business knows how to tell a story and knows the structure of

story depends on the story itself, that there are different ways to tell story, people will always have work. there will always be a need for storytellers. it doesn't matter how or what screen it is on. it doesn't matter what device. in may even be the chip implanted in our head. there will always be a need for storytelling and a desire for storytelling. there are books and studies about how we, just as a species, relate to and resonate with good stories. we want stories. it is a gift. it's an art. and it's a craft. so i think i look at some of the artists with storytelling and i read and i think i could never arrange the words in that way to tell that story that way. but it is also a craft era and that craft can be mastered by most.

and that is the part -- and the art we can all reach for it, but for the craft can be taught. it is taught very well here and at other places. the craft of storytelling. >> i teach medical and science journalism, but i have a question not related to that. i want to thank you both for your insight in sharing with us what you have today. mr. sherwood, you mentioned at the beginning killers -- beginning keller's article this morning. he talked about the dark side as well, which is that freelancers are assuming a lot of the burden of international reporting as major news or in positions cut back end freelancers who are hurt me not have insurance, who are of ducted, as -- who are abducted, as in syria, may not have networks to help them.

if they are killed, their families may not get the a that they otherwise would have. what is the responsibility of major news organizations in terms of utilizing freelancers rather than hiring people for full-time jobs with all the benefits and the strength of the news or news nation behind them? >> first of all, let me acknowledge that one of your first students was our health editor at abc news who was a great contributor and great colleague. dan is a reflection of the kind of students that you put out into the world, abc news is fortunate for what you do every single day. i read the piece and i know very well these very public aided -- very complicated issues about freelancing. on the one hand, these freelancers, the news organizations have depended on them for a very long time -- it is not a new thing -- we have depended on freelancers around the world for a very long time. they provide a vital role in helping us do the work all over

the place to the farthest reaches of the globe to and there are also some major responsibilities that come with them. i would say that, when i saw the peas come i shouted to a number of our colleagues. there are all kinds of initiatives and movements of that are afoot to give more protections to our freelancers. we work with a cadre of freelancers and we work with them for a very long time. but i think that the responsibility is great. and we said this earlier today to some of my colleagues, the sleepless nights in our business have to do when we have sent people into harm's way. and there are people, freelancers and full-time employees, around the world tonight who are in danger spots because we are try to fulfill our mission, our important public service mission. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> ima media law professor -- i am a media law professor. we are in the 50th anniversary year of "new york times" versus sullivan and yet libel cases against the institutional press are as low as they have been in decades. at least according to most indicators. i was wondering if that was also your experience on the broadcast side, both nationally and on the local level. if that is so, why do you think that might be? >> you try that. >> go ahead. i defer to you on that one. >> we are in the subject of 300 plus subpoenas every year, pursuing your stories. we have a lot of legal help. a lot of these deals, these issues are settled in progress, a lot of these libel stories.

i think everyone takes a more cautious and measured approach to how we are trying to respond to such matters as they come up. i guess i am seeing a little bit less of this occurring. i don't know that if -- i don't know that i have an opinion of what to make of that off the top of my head. i would have to give that a little more thought. >> me, too, i'm willing to think about it some more. but not off the top of my head. >> are you conceding -- when i asked people like you and i talk to a lot of people like you -- when you ask them about young people, what will they do to bring young people to broadcast journalism, they talk about mobile apps and streaming and getting to the phones. but what are you doing to bring young people to the actual broadcast? i don't see a lot of innovation,

neither a the network level or the local level in just the format of the news. we are using the same format that we used 30 years ago. can you react to that? >> i think the morning format is done in a different way. the new things we try, the escalations we try occur on the weekends and in the morning news block. i think this is an evolving circumstance. i don't concede in any way that next-generation people won't watch our news. >> would you concede they are not watching it now? >> i think they are watching it in fewer will -- in fewer numbers. i am not satisfied with nielsen measurements. i think nielsen has a very hard time capturing viewership of younger demographics. we know that the sample is small. that the ratings samples are very unstable. i don't kid myself, but there are fewer people of younger

generations watching our news products. but i don't concede that they don't watch it. we know that when there is big breaking news events, storms or shootings at the navy yard or the boston marathon bombing, those people tune in. i think people grow into the kind of news that we do. there is a bit of a generational factor and i observed that in a lot of different places. i think that we have to write in a different way. we have to shoot video in a different way. it is often about story selection. it is about taste of shows didn't -- it is about pace of shows. it is finding a way to be relevant. part of it is hooking people in on mobile devices and other devices and fostering the notion of how powerful our brands are in the marketplace, how we can be trusted, and it may be that come instead of the tv station news casting, the first place they go -- and it may be, instead of the tv station

newscast being the first place they go, it is the third place they go. and they will move from mobile to ipad to desktop to watching channel five in boston in that fashion instead of the reverse. i think it is a challenge that the industry has. i don't concede in any way that we need to give up on the next generation viewership. >> not only do we not give up on it, but last week in miami, abc news in partnership with univision launched a brand-new multiservice platform called fusion with the express purpose of appealing to a younger audience, specifically a latino and hispanic lineal audience, but really a diverse multicultural audience of young people in this country. so the entire philosophy of this new fusion network is aimed at younger people with different filters for the programs, different lenses for the programs.

it is aimed to bring them both socially, mobley, digitally and also to watch on a traditional cable television screen. the entire philosophy of this new multiservice platform is extremely exciting. and what we will do there -- we have deployed several dozen of our very best of abc news and they will come back from these deployments to fusion in miami where they are helping get this network launched. it is a very soft start. it is starting in a smaller number of homes. over the next five years, it will grow in the number of subscribers to about 60 million in its fifth year. we will be doing a lot of experimenting and testing the question that you are asking, which is how do we get young people, younger people to engage in use information and lifestyle programming. and we will bring some of those ideas back abc news and try to infuse some of the abc news programming with some of those

lessons. >> leslie and an important -- lastly, an important leadership characteristic is to value diversity. it is about contrast. we are putting different people in different stations that reflect the community and reflected the demographic that they are serving. we have a better opportunity to attract your peer groups into viewership at the stations. that is the challenge that the industry has. >> thank you. >> we have been given the signal. maybe one more. yes, sir, go ahead. >> i am a first year law student. i have an open-ended question. i'm wondering if you could talk a little bit of user-generated content and how you are

incorporating that into your overall platform, whether it is growing in importance for you and how you pick out the best user-generated content so you keep your credibility. >> it is important to us. it is growing. we spend a lot of time curating that content. but i think we had seen in all of these breaking new situations that there is great value in getting the video from the users and the people in the field and it adds dimension to the broadcast that we have. but it needs to be curated in a very careful way. >> thank you. >> this has been a remarkable evening. the audience had a chance to hear a candid exchange between

one of the a3 in broadcast television news -- one of the big three in broadcast television news. wade, congratulations to you. congratulations to kathy packer. relative codirectors for the center media law and policy. thank you david barrett. thank you ben sherwood for this animated discussion. i have to make a few closing remarks. i told david already i thought i may simply recite the sign outlines of radio and television news broadcasters over the last 75 years and sit down. [laughter] and in taking my own idea, i began this past week and to review what is really an astonishingly short history of broadcast news or whatever it might yield.

the first truly national radio broadcast came on air 75 views ago in 1938 when the legendary bob trout of cbs news created an anchorman's role in radio new york, bringing on the scene live reports in the aftermath of the ominous union between expanding nazi germany and a relatively helpless austria. at the other end of august routes live broadcast from new york were too young legends -- were two young legends in training. edward armour road -- edward r murrow. and wordy four william scheier in london. old william scheier in london. soon to join the team were eric separate and gerald collingswood.

the national appetite for their live news broadcasts grew steadily during the horrors of world war ii. nothing was really more memorable to many during the war years from media then edward r . murrow's nightly report for cbs radio. with the voice that got -- with a voice that god might have and lead, he ended each broadcast with this, "this is london." he would then close his broadcast with a ocular parting phrase shared among londoners in 1940 wooden door the night of nazi bombardment -- "good night and good luck." after world war ii, they shared their emerging infant technology to television.

they had to turn to douglas edwards of oklahoma to host the first regular television news broadcast from 1948 to 1962. i found no characteristic closing line from edwards. but his replacement, someone who became the most trusted man in america according to a national poll, developed perhaps the most well-known signoff line during his many years at cbs news. walter cronkite was everyone's dutch uncle. the face and voice that announced the assassination of john f. kennedy, who told america of nasa's expanding space program, chronicled the escalation of the war in vietnam, brought news of the assassinations in one year. or martin luther king and presidential candidate robert kennedy. through it all, walter cronkite ended each broadcast with the memorable son of phrase -- and that's the way it is.

americans everywhere trusted that walter had indeed told them the way it is. cronkite was followed at cbs by dan rather who had been a 32- year-old reporter in dallas in 1963 when president kennedy had been shot. dan rather reported that he was an assistant of cronkite for many years and became the anchor in 1982. he turned to a more modest closing, saying only that is a part of our world tonight. from "this is london" to "that's the way it is" to "that is a part of our world tonight," from claims of omniscience to claims of implicit acknowledgment that television news was at best partial, limited, a part of the world tonight.

a similar tone of honesty characterized tom brokaw. the boyish south dakota 42-year- old ended each of his television broadcasts as nbc's anchor with a simple statement -- that's nightly news this wednesday night may 1 or whatever. long before brokaw, the nbc network interviewed one very important earlier element. in 1956, and nbc pioneered the practice of a dual banker, -- dual anchor.

they ended their broadcast with a personal exchange -- good night, david. good night, jeff. the closing could not help viewers nightly that they were expending the way it was. the broadcasters were themselves human. they inevitably work in a collaborative journey with others. his ironic tone, his individual takes on the news were another important step in transformation of the genre. paving the way that national broadcasting toward the highly individualized style in many of today's cable and alternative new shows. abc, the network of our guests, have been relatively late to the

network news party. throughout the 1950's and 60's, it ran a perennial third-place finish until the 1970 haas when the brilliant head of abc sports turned his creative genius to abc news. what four forth from his collaboration with the abc news team was a series of inventions that putt abc in the broadcast race for real. canadian peter jennings and more recently, dianne sawyer has closed with the words i will see you right back here tomorrow night. reflecting more the reality that brought cass news is a product.

no time in the short closing , not much time for the advent of 24-hour broadcasting is. ted turner broadcast news in 1981 that perp and another profound change pain -- change. reporting the incoming live missile rounds of an air bombardment all around them. 50 beers later he wore american broadcasters in the enemy capital reporting incoming

american missiles about them. two observations, final observations. many of you young journalists, journalism students here in capitol hill. the first is obvious. you have been drawn to a profession, a craft that relies on narrative, storytelling. inform and share the news yet your profession must serve up that isws in media absolutely among the unpredictable and rapidly changing technologies. can foresee even the format, much less the delivery systems and audiences for narratives that you want to share. 75 years ago the one that could link journalists in london and ,adrid all at the same time that was almost unthinkable. 1948 this season and war

correspondents, foolish to abandon the powerful media of radio for the dubious lack of white child that was early television. it was not until 32 years ago, a date that will seem a very practical yesterday as young people. ted turner dared to think there is money to be made. dayet of all day, all television news. media will take you and take us all in the years ahead. i agree with these panelist.

it will be an extraordinary adventure. indeed my final observation about the uncertain world, it was 21-year-old charles carley -- collingwood. 30-year-old edward our moral. .cquired -- douglas edward david brinkley who struck out to make radio or television history. the 15 years that lie ahead of you.ong to to use students. law or investment banking can sometimes see areas in which college or family connections can play a huge role. are tied by birth or close connections to no one in the trade. they work from the media centers of new york and chicago. it was from north dakota, south dakota, kansas and montana. all the from where

journalist came. each of you were journalism students tonight here you presently receiving a gift. the schoolucation at of education. leadership of king and her faculty. you are in a profession that will change over your lifetime in a way that will confound virtually all of your elders gathered here tonight. i have a feeling there is nothing under these circumstances that would waive hargrove or david barrett more than to sit together in some assisted living facility 20 or 30 years from now and brad, we spoke one evening in chapel hill about the future of broadcast journalism, and do you know who was in the audience? a 21-year-old student but -- fill-in the blank.

it was you. the broadcast future awaits you. it will not stop moving, and neither should you. that is the way it is. good night and the block. -- could luck. [applause] luck.d >> later today watch an encore presentation of queuing day with yuval levin. publicerly journal of essays and political thought. here is some of what he had to say. in 2000 one before september 11 one of the big issues that the then new president faced was the question above whether and how the federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research.

this means the taking of the human life. the question is if it is moral to spend public money on that kind of research. the president made a decision in which he was advised that said you could spend money on lines of cells that already existed but not on new ones here yet you would not encourage the further destruction of human embryos. in the course of announcing that , he said these issues will stay with us, they are not going away . he called together the biometrics commission, a group of 18 scholars, almost all of them academics who would come together several times per year, consider a challenging question holocenepublic implications and provide advice to the administration and the country in the form of reports. that is what they did. they wrote a report on cloning, stem cell research.

they wrote a report on enhancement. for wrote reports on caring the agents. they wrote a report on dementia and other related issues. i think the counsel did important work. it is important in the long run. the direct effect on public policy is very hard to judge. the president called the counsel the stemafter he made cell decision. while i think the work was useful in certain particular junctures where those kinds of questions were central, there are more important lasting resources. >> watch all of that interview later today at 7:00 eastern here on c-span. on the next " washington talks" peter wehner

about american conservativism. after that, jennifer lawless. live aton journal" 7:00 eastern daily on c-span. or 15 years ago we started looking at the census department data, and something very strange pops out. when you look at where the profits are for multinationals -- if you look at a map of europe you see france, germany, ireland, italy, but if you look at the data at where the profits not a huged, it is leap this proportionate amount of profits in ireland. that was one indication that something was going on. ,> more with marty sullivan nonprofit global provider of tax news and analysis on c-span q&a.

charlie cook of the cook political report highlighted the upcoming 2014 midterm elections and why most americans do not favor one party over the other right now. posted by american university, this is an hour and a half. >> i am the academic director. this is the 35th year that we have existed. we started as a bipartisan training institute. the first speaker today is and writerk, editor for the cook political report. charlie is a political analyst for washington journal. has always been very generous of his time and will start us off by talking about the

political environment going into 2014. charles cook. fa[applause] thank you. first of all, i want to complement all of you for your decision to participatein cmi, because hardly a month goes by that i do not run into somebody somewhere that did not say i've met you or first heard you at the american university campaign management institute. i have been doing this for a really long time. i remember my favorite story was back in the late 1980s or low 1990s. was running the program. this was march, april, may him and he was walking through the capitol building. he ran into the speaker of the house who he knew. he pulled him aside and said a

few months ago, over the holidays, my father was very ill and was spending a lot of time with him and one night i could not sleep and started watching the management institute was on. the speaker of the house goes on to critique each of the speakers. will ber know who watching this kind of thing on c-span and also a terrific program that is put together. what i will do is talk about the lay of the land, the political environment. a million years ago back in the 1970s when i first got out of college and was working in politics, there was a terrific political news later that a guy named evan phillips did, a political -- political strategist for nick and.

it was produced every other week. the first part of it was fake themes of american politics. the last couple of pages was the alabama to wyoming, what is going on in each state. i was just out of college. i would go straight to the back pages. i would go through all the states to see what was going on and then i would read the front part because that was like cocktail party conversation. career progressed i started realizing, wait a minute, it is the stuff in the front that drives what is happening in the back. as i moved along, the semantics are off -- awfully important. i think a lot of people tend to think we put too much emphasis on some of the big picture stuff.

at the beginning of each election cycle. the second is what will the election will be about. let's talk about these two questions. what kind of election will this be. the late democratic speaker of the house, tip o'neill coined probably the most popular phrase, all politics is local. to me what this beaker meant was that whether you are looking at a state representative or state senate race or congressional race, governor's, whatever, that every district or jurisdiction is largely independent. what is the population like in that area? what are the voting patterns and

voting history. go who are the candidates? what kind of resources do they have? what are the local issues and circumstances that can influence that race? the idea that each one of these contests are still piped pretty much freestanding independent of all the problem -- of all the others. there are a lot better not. we have theseime wave elections where all politics is not local. it is almost like there is an invisible hand that is pushing up or forward the candidates of one party in pushing down the candidates of another.

it used to be one per decade and now happening more frequently. our political process is not parliamentary. it is getting more parliamentary than it used to be. people are not splitting the ticket as much as they used to be back when i was in school. it used to be fairly routine for someone to vote democratic for the house, republican for the senate, democrat for president were mixed any of those of the way you want and move back and forth. the choosing back and forth between the two. that was quite common. now we do not have those anymore. we have gone a long time without a really big one and in 1994 we have the new gingrich election during president clinton's first midterm election. that was one that swept speaker out of office.

then you had 1990 four. 1986 was a big democratic one. rather. 2010 was a republican one. you have these wave elections from time to time. whether it is a micro all politics is local kind of thing or not grow, one of these wave elections where it strongly advantages one side or the other . the other question is, what is the theme of the election? there is a famous saying of winston churchill where he apparently or reportedly sent act the desert to the kitchen and said to the waitresses, take this putting away some it has no theme. the question is, what is the theme of the election, what is it about? sort of what is the

use,nt term that people the narrative of the election? so at the beginning of this election cycle a year ago, i started thinking, ok, there are two possible narratives in this election. is public brand image problems and internal problems just continue. the other theory is this is a midterm election in which the party of the white house traditionally get absolutely hammered in the midterm election halfway through the second term.

it does not always happen but almost always. which so which will it be. let's talk about each one of them for a second. we are talking about republican brand image problems. i do not know if we should read too much into this, because it got caught -- talk a lot -- talked a lot about in 2012. you can blame mitt romney for his loss in the campaign. to be honest, i think that was a very winnable race had it been run somewhat differently. the obama campaign was a very smart campaign and made a lot of very smart decisions. the mitt romney campaign not so much. when you look at other races in the broader, you can see there are huge problems facing the republican party. first, minority voters, african- americans make up or 10% of the

electorate and presidential candidate loses by 87 points, that is pretty bad. when hispanics take up 10% of the votes admit romney lost by , the group i like to point to is making a statement is a smaller group, asian voters that make up three percent of the electorate. let's do some profiling here. what are the stereotypes of asian americans? capitalistic. a lower unemployment rate than whites. cairo household income. what that describes republicans. attributes that one was described as the republican party.

mitt romney lost the asian vote by 47 percentage points, three points more than he lost the hispanic vote. that is really interesting to me. the vote for congress was almost identical. you say no one was talking about the asian vote. polling,look at the when you sit through focus group , the message with minority voters across the board are getting is the republican party does not seem to like anybody that does not look just like themselves. is that a fair characterization of all republicans? i do not think it is. that is the message so many are getting. what is happening with the asian vote is particularly symptomatic because it has a lot less to do with immigration or anything else. republicans have an enormous

problem with minority voters, and the country is getting more .nd more diverse mitt romney won the 59% of the white vote in the last election. will -- iflay you you are a republican income 59% of the white vote, you just won the election. is no longer sufficient. what we see is the share is dropping basically 15 points over six elections. the simply winning the white vote is just not enough to win anymore. when republicans have to go back and look at the recipe a little bit, because that is not working so well. then you look at young voters. mitt romney lost by 23 percentage points. what you can actually do is look

at each of the four age breaks, and there is basically a line of 45 years of age. over the ageters of 40 five vote pretty strongly andrepublicans for congress under 45 voted for obama and democrats. it is even higher. they balance each other off or something and maybe a little bit but when you look at the long haul, and i just turned 60 so i can say this without getting into trouble but when i look at voters under 45, particularly under 30, i see the future. that is where american politics will be down the road just a little bit. for those of us over 60, we are

kind of the pre-dead. republicans are doing really well with the pre-dead and not so well with the future, which if i were an old republican, i would not scared, but if i were a young republican, i would be really worried because something has to change or they will not be winning many statewide or national elections. then you get to women voters. i used to think we started hearing about a gender gap back in the reagan administration. i remember initially i thought this was a glass half empty- half-full kind of thing. republicans have a problem with women voters? >> so they cancel each other out. there are two problems with that notion. number one, women live longer than men do. as a result, they are 53% of the

electorate. kaiser only 57%. when you have such strong --tisan voting powder and voting patterns, that is a problem. the other problem is democrats are doing a lot better among women and republicans are among men. this is true i'm -- among congress and in the presidential mitt romney only one the male vote by seven percentage points. from a republican perspective, republicans are winning a smaller slice of the smaller pipe. over the long haul, that does not really work so well. another thing is self described moderate boaters. i used to completely obsessed over independent voters. people that did not call themselves republicans or in --

republicans or democrats. you look over time, and basically 90 plus are sent of all the people who call themselves democrats vote for democrats for president and 94% of self-described republicans vote for republican candidates. predictable. the problem is independence are becoming a bigger and bigger role. republicans, if you told me two years ago, three years ago that mitt romney would either republicans would win the independent vote five percentage point, i would have assumed he won the election. all of the things being equal. what hasis has -- but

happened is the makeup has changed a little bit and another group has become more important. when i say the makeup of independence has changed somewhat, i think from within the realm of self-described independents, you have one group of people that used to be republicans. they are very conservative, but they now call themselves independents and are more sympathetic of the tea party movement. so they no longer identify as republicans but in a two-way democratic republican race, you can pretty much bet on them going republican. there are some moderate republicans. they no longer call themselves republicans or independent but still more conservative than they are liberal. admit romney won among five of the independent vote,

and then lost the election by 2.8 percentage points. what i'm trying to describe is self ascribed moderates. about 40% all themselves independent. last election was 41%. independent voted for obama by 15 percentage points. group -- is democrats are winning among liberals and republicans among conservatives, if democrats are 41% of theerates, electorate by 15 percentage points, that makes a huge, huge difference and did not used to

be that wide. we look at these things and say can republicans in 2014 repair minority voters, young voters, women voters and moderate voters? to me, that is a critical question. then we get to the sick -- second question. that is going to be a traditional second midterm election. ,ne of the things we have seen first of all, midterm elections in general tend to be much more often than not that are bad for the party of the white house. people are unhappy for any reason, they tend to take it out on the president's party. if they are happy, they vote on another issue but if they are unhappy they will take it out on the president's party.

in the post-world war ii era, we have had 6 of them. at thet of six the party white house got hammered in the second term midterm election with enormous losses in either the house or the senate or usually both. the one exception, the one out of six that that did not happen was back in 1998. though clinton second midterm election when there was a backlash against the republican in peach mint of clinton in the house in trying him in the senate where the american people, they were not really happy with president clinton but thought the country was doing ok and did not want to throw him out, even though they did not necessarily approve of his behavior. so there was a clash