your president and to run like hell away there the him. away from him. and as a general rule, that doesn't work real well. at the same time, do you want to embrace him and identify yourself more closely with him? heck no, of course not. but there is something that's in between. and it's, you know, i don't agree with the president. i agree with him on some things, i don't agree with him on others and, you know, i've got some real misgivings about x, y and z. you know, where you sort of diplomatically put a distance. and sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. but the thing is one of the things -- what happens if you just trash a president from your party is among the people that normally come hell or high water are going to vote for you, you're going to turn some of them off by doing that. and they're some of the few people you can actually rely on.

and so that approach generally, generally doesn't work, but you, you know, you could establish distance without trashing, you know, an incumbent for your side. and there was a famous election, it was bush -- 1990. george h.w. bush, his midterm election. and ed rollins who had managed one of president reagan's campaigns had top staff job at the national republican congressional committee. and he wrote a memo that went out to all the republican house members saying, um, you know, effectively, you know, we all love president bush and he's a great guy and all like that, but your most important job right now is to get reelected and do whatever you need to do to get

reelected, and feel prix to put distance -- free to put distance between yourself and the president. not surprisingly, the white house went crazy. and i'm trying to remember whether ed had to resign or not. do you remember if he did or not? i remember they were calling for his resignation. i don't remember whether he actually did or not. but anyway, you know, so that's what -- it's creating distance but not trashing is generally the best thing. yeah, go ahead. >> [inaudible] about how democrats can distance themselves from obama, but for some of the races sup as all the vulnerable -- such as all the vulnerable democratic seats do you expect them to try and also distance themselves from the gop, or is that going to be an internal debate within the party? because there could be comments about, like, republican candidates having to make firm statements about whether they would, like, shut down the government or, no, i would never do that. >> well, one of the good things for republicans about this upcoming election is that at least in the senate most of the

prime races are in states that romney won and that where president obama's job approval ratings would be significantly below average. in other words, alaska, arkansas, louisiana, to a lesser extent georgia, a lesser extent north carolina. and michigan and -- wow, you can tell i've been on vacation for three weeks. [laughter] michigan and iowa are the only two where there are really, really key senate races that are in states that obama carried. now there are gradations in all of these. for example, obama lost georgia but only by eight points. there were southern states where he lost by 25 points. eight is losing, but it's not getting destroyed.

north carolina obama lost but only by two percentage points, and he had carried it four years earlier. but at the same time, you know, arkansas, louisiana, kentucky where mitch mcconnell is up, you know, obama, you know, lost by disastrous -- so each -- there -- where republicans need to do well in the u.s. senate they don't have to put as much, if any, distance between themselves and the national republican party. certainly in alaska, arkansas, louisiana, kentucky absolutely for sure. so it depends, you know, and that's the answer to almost any question is it depends on the circumstances. but in the senate there's a lot his of that -- less of that that has to take place. yeah. >> i guess since we've, since you highlighted 2006 and 2010 as

being the last couple of midterms of that have happened and one thing that our distinguished professor, dr. thurber has pointed out there's been a decreased polarization within the legislative branch, does that translate to more of a wave effect given the increased polarization from these different midterms? i know it throws off a little bit different within the presidential lengths, but, you know, in -- elections, but, you know, in midterms especially the last two, there's such a swing. do you see that as being one of the catalyst ares because -- where i think i follow what you're saying, and if i do understand it, i would say what's been going on the last 20, 30 be years -- 30 years tends to amplify these kinds of wave elections and makes them more likely. back when i moved to washington in this 1973 as a freshman in college, this there were a ton f

conservative moderate democrats from the south and and elsewhere. there were a ton of liberal moderate republicans from new england, northeast, midwest so that the parties if, um, this is your left, this is the democrat party, this is the republican party, there was a pretty substantial overp lap between the parties -- overlap between the parties. so was the republican party a right of center party? yeah. but there were a lot of people on the right this the democrat party too. yeah, they had actually some awfully conservative, people that were a lot more conservative than some of the republicans. and the conservative-moderate democrats acted as a ballast that sort of kept the democratic party from going off into a ditch on the left just as the liberal-moderate republicans kept the republican party from going off into a ditch on the right. now there's effectively no overlap whatsoever. and so i think it does make, um,

there is a, um -- i think to the extent -- this is -- maybe it's a slight exaggeration but not too much, instead of having a left-of-center party and right-of-center party, we now have a very right party. and so, you know, people are angry at something. it's a lot easier for them to pick out the red jerseys and the blue jerseys now that there's more ideological cohesion there. but also, but at the same time the force the opposite direction is that so few of them are in districts that are really enemy territory kind of districts that that tends to be an offsetting factor. so i'm not sure how to answer that. yeah. i mean, i tell you what, the

thing is a lot of this stuff is a lot more complicated than it sounds on cable. you know? [laughter] it's, the world is a lot simpler in the high-digit networks. yeah. >> i had, speaking on to that to a certain extent, my question is, and i hold the unpopular view that primaries have only increased polarization. can you speak to the idea that the democratization has led to more conservative and more liberal candidates? >> let me address it slightly differently. um, if i could wave a magic wand and do two major political reforms in this country, the first would be for redistricting reform, and the second would be for primary nomination reform. and on the former, you know,

there are lots of, lots of different ways to do it. iowa has a terrific system where they basically have a room full of statisticians sitting in a basement that sort of do it, and it's kind of as close to an absolute honest redistricting as humans can do, but then again, it's not hard in iowa because you've got a state that's very, very white, and all the counties are square. and so, you know, it's sort of like, you know -- [laughter] it's not a heavy lift doing that when you don't have to worry about voting rights act considerations and things like that. california just in 2012 went to a new system, and it's this very, very elaborate, complicated process of selecting these commissioners that in turn select the people that draw -- can you know, whatever. and someone said that if you diagrammed it out, it looked like the old diagrams of the

hillarycare, you know, it looked like a pile of spaghetti in terms of lines of authority, but it worked very, very well. and you saw as much competition in congressional races in california in 2012 than you'd seen in probably the last two decades combined. so that would be one. the other side -- and, again, each state decides its own election laws, and each side has, you know, no two states are identical. and some states have party registration, some don't. but, for example, in maryland my wife is a registered democrat, i'm a registered independent. so i can't vote this any primaries at all. she can only vote in democrat primaries. you know, if the next door neighbor's republican, he or she can only vote in a republican primary. i think if you allowed independents to choose on election day either a democratic ballot or republican ballot on primary day and vote in each one, i think it would help sort of bring things back towards the

center as would redistricting reform. i don't think either of these things are a silver bullet. i don't think either one will solve the problem, but could address things. i think some of the bad things that have happened, i think having nomination conventions for races below president, i think, is really, really bad. i mean, in utah, for example, you know, you remember senator robert bennett who was by any rational definition a very conservative incumbent senator and hard working and very highly regarded who couldn't even get on the primary ballot because of the rise of the tea party movement, and he had voted for t.a.r.p., and that was back in 2008. and so he couldn't even get on the primary ballot this 2010. polling i saw he would have won a primary if he could have gotten on the ballot. you know, virginia has these

goofy conventions. you know, where they allow -- nominate some pretty exotic people -- [laughter] you know, particularly lieutenant governor and above, things like that so that even a pretty mainstream, relatively mainstream candidate for attorney general can't even win. you know, that kind of environment. so i would do that. you know, after that it's a lot harder to do things. i mean, i think the increase ingly ideologically-polarized nature of certain elements of the nudes media -- news media with sort of very clear left, very clear right, i think that's sort of poured gasoline on the fire as well, talk radio, certain blog sites, that sort of thing. i mean, there are a lot of moving parts here. yeah. >> [inaudible] >> hang on one second.

>> another reform that i believe's been done in california and louisiana is, i just wanted to ask for your view on it, is the idea that there's a primary with the top two candidates of either party makes it and those are the two candidates for the november election. i just wanted to ask you your view on whether you think that would help as well. >> i think it might. the louisiana and california systems are not identical, but they're pretty close. it certainly hasn't done anything to moderate anything in louisiana, but in california i think it's sort of contributes to that. and where you saw cases where, you know, two democratic incumbents thrown in together by redistricting and they're competing but in a general election environment so that you had fairly liberal democratic members going out and trying to get republican votes. moderate independent votes. i mean, a vote's a vote, get it wherever you can.

and i think that probably reduces some of the ideological, some of the rhetoric and breaks it back down. so i think that's something. you know, there are lots of different ways to fix things, and, you know, you never know which ones are going to work and which don't, and a lot of times you have a law of unintended consequences where, you know, you set out to do something that may be an admirable objective, and sometimes it just actually makes it worse. you know, for example, mccain-feingold campaign finance reform actually made things worse than it was before. so anyway, so you always have to be careful with that. anybody that hasn't asked a question yet first, and then we'll double back. yeah, pack there. >> -- back there. >> there's been a lot of discussion in recent years about the political opinions of young people. have you actually seen an increase in turnout among young people, or is it just that a small amount of us are more vocal with social media? >> it's picked up some. maybe not as much as a lot of the popular press would suggest, but '08 picked up some and the

proportion picked up some. the thing that i've noticed, um, with millennial voters and the institute of politics at harvard's done a lot of survey work in this area, but, um, i've spent a decent amount of time on campuses the last three or four years, and my impression looking at the data as well as anecdotal is that the millennial generation's kind of an interesting group. that unlike conservatives, they don't hate government. but up like liberals -- unlike liberals, they don't love government. and that their experience with government has been it doesn't work very well. it's not very effective. and so this is a generation that at least on economic role of government in that narrow sense is more jump ball open to private sector solutions,

alternative to traditional government solutions. however, they are also a very libertarian generation. and that libertarian aspect, including abortion, gay rights among other issues is cut absolutely against the grain of where the republican party has been and is one of the major barriers to the republican party doing better with younger voters. and that, you know, you just look at the data on same-sex marriage. you know, it's kind of a no-brainer. and i was talking to a conservative leader who has been visiting campuses in a southern state meeting with people that are in the individual chapters of an extremely conservative organization. okay? and she was, had just come back

from a couple of campuses, and she asked these conservative student leaders what they thought about same-sex marriage. and none of them had a problem with it. and these were kids that were, like, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really conservative. laugh and it's like, wow finish. [laughter] obviously, there's some people who don't hold that view. and i'm not suggesting the republican party changed their positions or anything, but i think they eight to look at sort of -- look at how they sort of weight the issues and turning the volume and frequency down on certain issues they could be more marketable to this newer generation of voters. yep, harry. hang on one second. okay, you're live. >> so you mentioned a couple of times there's not a lot of flexibility, especially in the house. do you see that as a more

permanent thing or in 20 years' time there'll be much more flexibility and we could be ready for another wave election? >> well, i don't often throw around terms like permanent and ever. because they sort of -- that's a really long time. and, you know, stuff happens. and so, you know, that's sort of one of the advantages of doing this for a really long time is you've heard people make these grand statements of permanent this or that, and then it's sort of not so much. and i've heard, you know, the demise of each of the parties predicted several times in my career. so i'm not going to say. i think this is, it's a very real trend. it's showing some durability. but it's not to say that you couldn't have events or circumstances that could reverse it. you know, in terms of the bitter nature of the partisanship of politics, i think that -- i have

a theory. i mean, no way to quantify this or prove it or not, but to me 9/11 was an event that could have been a real game changer in terms of the political environment. and that the day after the 9/11 attacks members of congress, house members, senators, gathered on the steps of the capitol building, and they sang "god bless america." and i remember thinking, well, you know, maybe possibly something good can come out of this horrific tragedy where people sort of learn to work together and stuff. and, but after that sort of brief "kumbaya" moment -- and i don't blame either side exclusively for this because i think pote sides were at fault -- but the controversy should we invade iraq, yes or no, broke out.

and that fight over iraq -- not afghanistan, but iraq -- is what sort of tore the two sides back apart to the point where, you know, it's worse than it was before. and so you just think, wow. if an event like 9/11 can't effectively change the dynamics, wow, what would it take, you know? that's pretty scary. but, you know, a lot of, a lot of what's happened, it's been coming a long way. and to quote tom mann and norm be ornstein another time, they have another book that's it's as bad as you think, it's worse -- i always butcher the title, but basically it's worse than you think. which i agree that things actually in washington are probably even worse than most people think. but tom and norm, who are good

friends of mine and i respect e nor or mousily, but they put a disproportionate level of the blame on republicans. and while if you were just talking about the last year or two or three, you know, maybe. but when i step back and go back to the '80s and sort of look at how did we get to this poisonous environment, i think there is plenty of blame on both sides, a lot of blame on both sides. and i can actually point to just as many examples of democrats doing things that contributed to the environment getting to where it is as republicans. and just to throw two out, there was a house race in indiana back in 1984. it was first year i started my newsletter. between -- eighth district between frank mccloskey and rick mcintyre, two people there's no need for you to

remember who they were. but it was, the rex result was -- election result was sort of like florida 2000. it was basically a tie. god only knows who really won that race. and different counts had mccloskey ahead, mcintyre ahead, back and forth. and what they probably should have done is what new hampshire had p done in a senate race in the previous decade and what louisiana did in a house race previous decade. be basically, just say rerun the damn thing. we can't tell. there are too many screwed-up ballots and things. we can't tell who won. but the democratic leadership -- and to kneel was the speaker, jim wright was the majority leader then, and by understanding is that jim wright urged and convinced o'neill to basically gavel it through. basically say, you know, the house constitutionally is the final judge of its members, we're the majority, bang, we're seating our guy. and the thing is up until that

point the republican minority in the house had been, they'd been in the minority for 30 years, 15 consecutive elections at that point. they were a pretty docile group. i mean, they just basically lived off the crumbs that the majority threw them -- [laughter] and that with very but of them having any realistic hope of ever being in a majority unless they changed parties. this seating of mccloskey over mcintyre and sort of the brazen, arrogant approach to it, it so enraged republicans that some of the most moderate, mild-mannered republicans in the house went crazy. good example, nancy johnson, a moderate-liberal republican from connecticut. and that led to the rise of newt gingrich, kind of pushing aside bob michael who was kind of the get-along, go-along old school republican leader. you know, newt gets in. by then jim wright becomes

speaker. he goes after jim wright on some ethics stuff, pushes wright out. democrats come back -- i mean, just sort of warfare develops. but i don't want the blame, put all the blame on democrats, but that's where, um, sooner or later maybe this would have happened, but i think that triggered it. and it was mostly in the house of representatives and where you had this bitter partisanship. and the senate really wasn't like that at all. but gradually, you started seeing house members, democrat and republican, coming over the senate. and, you know, in the house it's majority rules, you know? it's -- and if the minority doesn't like the how things are going, well, that's tough. but in the senate, you know, with filibusters, unanimous concept, all -- a lot more -- the senate can't really deal with that kind of partisanship and still function appropriately. and so as you saw these, some of

these house members moving over to the senate, it was like a contagion coming into a new body and contaminating it. and so oneover the first signs -- one of the first signs was the bork nomination for supreme court. now, up until that point judicial nominations, if you were rejected, it was for one of two reasons. either, a, ethical or, b, you weren't qualified. but the idea of being rejected because people didn't agree with you, that had never happened before. and so when democrats basically rejected the bork nomination, forced it to be withdrawn, that sort of was the first sign that that contamination had started to enter into the senate. and now the senate's just as, probably is even worse than the house because its rules, it can't move -- you know, it was a body designed by the founding father ors to not move easily, quickly, you know?

it was supposed to be a very deliberate body by design and does that really, really well. but you inject that kind of bitter partisanship and hatred and then -- particularly now where you basically have leaders on each side, harry reid and mitch mcconnell, who despise each other and despise the other side on top of a very partisan body that's not designed to function like that, and wow, you have a pretty disfunctional situation. i don't remember your question. [laughter] who else? jack, you've asked a question. let's go to jeffrey first. >> you said how earlier most of these elections mid cycle, you know, usually they vote their pocketbooks. but we also talked about young people and their social view, do you see social views becoming more important this how people vote in some of these elections? >> um, i think voters do not --

americans used to vote their economic self-interest much more than they do today. or to put it differently, they now vote on issues that are completely aside from their economic self-interest. so that's why you see, um, a pretty large number of high, very high income people, highly educated people, people who this very high tax brackets who are voting democratic. why are they voting democratic? maybe they're pro-choice. maybe they're green on the environment. maybe they support same-sex marriage, i mean, you know, whatever reasons. and at the same time, you see a fairly large number of down scale whites who at least theoretically, historically you would have said would be better off with democrats who are

voting more and more republican and are getting be more and more conservative. and again, they may or may not be voting against their self-interests, but they're voting on social issues, cultural issues than along sort of straight economic class lines. and so, yeah, i think we really have moved away from that to large extent. not totally, but to a large extent, absolutely. and so it's made, it's made things, you know, very, very complicated so that, you know, a very poor state like west virginia is becoming a very red republican state at least on federal issues despite the fact that it's a state that used to be as democrat as any. yeah, david. hang on. we're going to give this guy a workout. >> so you mentioned ticket splitting in terms of house, senate and the presidency. could you speak a little bit on how having an active and especially a competitive

governor's race could affect that? specifically, we have competitive races in florida and georgia as well as a lot of house seats, so how does an active governor's race affect -- >> it's hard to quantify these things but, you know, i think active, high visibility races, races that really sort of engage people, um, they obviously draw a lot of attention and help increase turnout. how much? you know, one of my beefs with political scientists is sometimes they try to quantify the unquantifiable. but, sure, it happens. how much? who the hell knows. but of course it happens. i mean, you know, theoretically if you had, you know, a knockdown, drag-out fight, high visibility, a lot of engagement on a mayor's race, it could drive up turnout in that city. but as opposed to, you know,

really blah, you know, no real -- then why vote? i -- we hear a little bit less about it now than we used to, but a lot about why americans don't vote much compared to other countries. and i've always thought that, you know, if you talk to a european, for example be, and you ask them how many opportunities do you have to vote over four years, and generally they'll come up with like two. three. you know, there might be a state election, a federal election and maybe one for e.u. but that's basically it. and only generally like one thing on the ballot for each one. think of that here. think of federal elections, sometimes state elections, sometimes municipal elections, bond issues, special elections. all these things so that over a

four-year period of time i'm guessing if a lot of states -- in a lot of states you could vote 10, 12 times, be asked to vote 10 to, 12 times over four years. now, does that devalue the importance of voting some? yeah, i think so. particularly in states like virginia, kentucky, louisiana, new jersey, mississippi that have odd-year state elections plus a lot of municipalities have odd-year state elections, it devalues it. but the second thing is we elect jobs in this country that for the life of me i do not know why we vote on 'em. [laughter] and, i mean, i consider myself a relatively politically-sophisticated person. the maryland special court of appeals, who are they? [laughter] what do they do? why are they special? [laughter]

you're looking at a bunch of names where it could say elmer f be udd. nobody knows who these people are. or, you know, in my home state, louisiana. you know, we elect parish coroners. who the hell here is of qualified to judge who would be a good coroner? [laughter] or sheriff? or one of my favorite is the in south carolina. i think they still do this. they elect the agitant general, the head of the state national guard. really? and so to me, if we just sort of consolidated elections and pruned ballots and, you know, why are secretaries of state for any state, why are those elected? there's no -- or state treasurer or, you know, commissioner of agriculture. you know?

who's from texas? respect there, what, 11 -- i think there's something like 11 statewide office holders in texas. what? and so i think that, you know, i think americans probably vote more than anybody else in the world, but it's just sort of spread out over a lot of things. but i think if we consolidated it, you know, it would raise the value of voting, and our turnout levels would go back up. okay, who else? who has not asked a question? you? you have not. >> my question is you're opposing narratives in both parties, do you think there's a possibility of more third party candidates entering the field, and if they do enter the field, more likelihood that they would be elected? >> okay. do you have, like, a grandfather that was a big lobbyist here in washington? anyway or there was a big ag lobbyist years ago, bill taggert. first of all, i think it's important to make a distinct

between third party and independents. because a lot of time we sort of use it as a generic term. and third party, you know, libertarian natural law, green party, whatever versus just pure independents. yeah, i think we're probably going to have more independent candidates running for various things. and to be honest, actually, let me approach this a different way. one time -- trying to figure out how to say this. one time there was, um, the mayor of an extremely large city who was very wealthy who thought about running as an independent for president. [laughter] and he sat down with lots of people to just sort of talk about can an independent win, you know, that sort of thing. and i -- my view was at the time

was that an independent, you know, had a -- i mean, people were really sick and tire of both parties. they were quick to say they were sick and tired of both parties. but there was a real openness to this. this would have been in about 2006 or '7. and this mayor proceeded to in the course of the conversation basically convince me that there was no way in hell an independent candidate could win a competitive three-way race for the presidency where there's a democratic nominee and the republican nominee. and the argument want like this. let's say you were the richest perp in the world, you were the smartest person in the world, you were a fab house candidate with a great story to tell, and you never made mistakes. assume that. and let's say you run as an independent for president. there's a democrat over here, a republican over here.

what would happen? presumably, you would win a plurality of popular vote which would usually bring -- give you a plurality of the electoral college vote. but nobody got a majority. so the election gets thrown into house of representatives where each state has one vote, california one vote, wyoming one vote, and at that time i think republicans had, like, 29 dell gairgses -- delegations, something like that. there was no way the independent could win. i mean, just couldn't. and, but at the same time there was this group or a couple years later americans elect that was out trying to get ballot positions in all 50 states for an independent candidate to get on the ballot. and i remember meeting the guy that was the executive director. i sat next to him at a lunch, at a conference in arkansas. and i kind of laid this out and

said tell -- explain to me why it's not impossible, effectively, for an independent to win a three-way race. and, clearly, this had never occurred to him. [laughter] which, you know, prior to this other conversation never occurred to me, so i can't knock him. but it seemed to me if you had a group like that that wanted to do something good, what they would do is try to find really substantial, accomplished people to run as independents for the u.s. senate and the u.s. house because if you had, like, serious, serious people who were accomplished and done things in life and worthy of respect and clearly competent to do these -- you put three or four of them that are legitimately independent, not these faux independents like bernie sanders

or angus king, but i'm talking about the real deal. you put three or four of those in the senate, you put 10, 15 in the house, now, sure, there's some things, how are they going to get committee ape assignments? well, if you want my sport on anything -- support on anything, i would like to have one sort of political assignments for each committee. i think something like that would do a world of good. now, is it ever going to happen? no. no, no. [laughter] you know, for president i just sort of don't see the point. and while with ross perot in 1992 the exit polls showed that half finish first of all, the conventional wisdom is that perot cost george h.w. bush. now, the exit polls actually show that of the people that did vote for ross perot in 1992, half of them if you asked them their second choice or who would

they have voted for if perot were not running, half of them said chipton and half said bush. clinton and half said bush. so that would theoretically suggest that perot actually made no difference. now, as the reality i bet if they had asked a year or two earlier who were you supporting, i bet the vast majority of them had supported president bush and that perot had been so critical so early on of president bush that i think his candidacy acted as a chisel that effect be fly -- effectively chipped a lot of people off supporting president bush, and then had perot dropped out, half of them would have gone back, but half of them wouldn't. so i think, you know, deep down i think he probably did cost bush the election but not necessarily as clear cut as it seems. there's no question in my mind that nader cost gore florida and

the election. and i think that's why we've seen third party candidates get less support sort of since 2000. the idea that not only that you're throwing your vote away, but you're potentially tipping an election towards your least favorite candidate, you know, if you were a relin in '92 -- republican in '92, if you're a democrat in 2000, i think that's sort of settled in. so i would love to see more running for other offices. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] among the speakers, vice president of the office of research, at this occasion -- advocation. that is 930 eastern on c-span 2. jack martin of the federation for american immigration reform

also speaking at the event. 145 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> we bring public affairs of guns from washington directly to you putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, conferences offering complete devil to gobble coverage of the u.s. house as a public service of rabid industry. created by the cable tv industry 34 years ago and funded why your local cable or satellite provider and now you can watch us in hd. up, david barrett and the president of abc news discussing the future of television news. then a look at the state of online privacy. later, the ceo's of linkedin and twitter talk about their companies futures and how they are managed.

abc news president ben sherwood and david barrett talk about the future of television news. topics include new technology, investigative journalism, and copyright roles. this was held in november on the campus of the university of north carolina chapel hill. [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 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. 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 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 partnership 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. we began to 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 knickerbockers 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

tonight, i see a bunch of 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 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 storytelling, 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 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 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 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 are 100% accurate on what everything -- on everything that is portrayed on the page and nobody raises her hand. people go to facebook 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 she hadn't, 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" ran a picture on the front page, if you have seen these people, and

they were not the people involved in the bombing -- 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, 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 pranksters 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 two 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 square 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 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 we 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 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 to acknowledge 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 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. 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 an ostrative problem. >> with strained or limited resources, it is affecting journalism. >> i think it is important as newspapers diminish investigative reporting and

pull back resources. i don't think we do enough of it. 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 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 and 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 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 chronical," 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 newspapers to survive in some form or another going forward. 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 [indiscernible] you have been trying to nail them in courts for quite a while. i know that abc ran they watch

out which is what area 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. 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

of 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. who 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 our 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. >> i 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, incorporate 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-span to invite mr. snowden to do an interview with abc news. >> the whistleblower point? >> the year of the whistleblower. for as long as journalists have been practicing and 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 know that it is always the year of whistleblowing. 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 it is important for management, news management and our ep's to be involved in these kinds of stories.

>> let me be the fourth to thank you for being here. 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 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.

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 range 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 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 abducted, as in syria, may not have networks to help them. 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 qandil 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 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. >> 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 have been in decades. 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 the top of my head.

>> me, too, i'm willing to think about it some more. but not off the top of my head. >> are you conceding -- when i is a poll 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 numbers. 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 pace of shows. 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 instead of the tv station news casting, the first place they go it is the third place they go. 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. >> 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. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]