however, put it this way -- outrageous an individual might be in their actions, if they are on the other side and control an outcome, then you have to find a way to talk to them, and you may be right in your suggestion or question, that using indirect channels, unofficial people, can always play a useful role. the second piece is also very much along that line. years ago, when i was at the united nations, i urged the secretary-general to keep a list of individuals, former prime minister said he or maybe someday she can call upon. as unofficial or official representatives. that list now needs to have leading religious figures added to it. i go back to secretary kerry and

just say, "we are thinking about those people like certain muslim religious leaders in this country, the wonderful imam from catholic university -- that is certainly not meant to be an oxymoron -- but others who could serve as individuals, who could relate messages, create understanding, build bridges, be part of what we would call the unofficial, but now much more employment -- put it this way -- universe of diplomacy that we could use in that particular fashion. i think it makes a lot of sense. retiree's are fine, but maybe active individuals in their own area who know the problem very well from a religious angle want to now be part of the official quotient in moving the question ahead. >> thank you. thank you very much. [applause] [captions copyright national

cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up on c-span, a look at the government and the media. first, a discussion from the national association of black journalists conference. and then, the future of news. startups.edia >> coming up on next "washington on his," terry jeffrey views of the obama administration's fiscal policies. then a discussion on the 45th anniversary of the woodstock

music festival with william greider. jennifer and richard on the changing demographics of the 65 and older population, the so-called baby boomers. is liveton journal" every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. >> friday, a look at the continuing conflict between russia and ukraine. the center for the national interest will host a discussion starting at 12:30 p.m. eastern here on c-span. >> here is a great read to add to your summer reading list. c-span's latest book, "sundays at eight." >> there is a risk in the bohemian lifestyle and i decided to take it. whether it is delusional or not

-- i do not think it is. it helped my concentration and stopped me from being bored. it would keep me awake and maybe even want the evening to go on longer. friends asked, would i do it again? the answer is probably yes. easy for me to say, of course. is, it would be hypocritical for me to say no because i did not know. no one knows. union, the soviet system in eastern europe, contained the seeds of its own destruction. many of the problems we saw at the end were there at the beginning. allattempt to control institutions and all parts of the economy and political and

social life. when you do that, when you try to control everything, you create opposition and potential dissidents everywhere. if you tell all artists they have to paint the same way and one artist says i want to paint another way, you have made him into a political dissident. >> if we want to talk about housing in this country and the populace agrees that it is something we should subsidize, put it on the ballot sheet and make it clear and evident and make everyone aware. through deliver it these third-party enterprises, fannie mae and freddie mac, when you deliver subsidies through a private company with -- a public company with private shareholders, that is not a very good way of subsidizing homeownership. the 41 engaging

stories in c-span's "sundays at eight." >> friday night on c-span, stories from the civil war, including the battle of chattanooga. medicine civil war era and propaganda promoting the southern cause in europe. here is a preview. scene latearkable that day, the union penetrated the confederate line at multiple simultaneously and sent the confederate army retreating to the east and back down to georgia. with that union success on november 25 and a brief pursuit chattanooga is7,

now firmly in union hands. it will be turned by the union army that coming winter into a giant supply base. and it is from chattanooga that following spring that they would take a combined union army group and advance southward towards militarynd into the -industrial heartland and disrupted and destroyed most of it to bring the war to a close in the spring of 1865. observers at the time believed that the unions success in chattanooga was a signal of ultimate union success. some have said that this was the death knell of the confederacy. american history tour of the civil war. friday night on c-span, starting

at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> now, from this year's national association of black journalists conference, a discussion about the government and the free press. executives from the "new york times," the associated press, and reuters took part in this hour-long event. uters took artes hour-long event. -- took part. >> good afternoon, everyone. here to post and moderate the w eb devoid session-- w.e.b. dubois session, 2012 journalist of the year and senior justice correspondent for abc news. he joined in 2000 and reports for summer programs including world news, "good morning america," and "timeline." he was a key member that one of the -- won the edward r. murrow

awards for the capturing of osama bin laden, gabby giffords, and the newton school massacre. he's a k member covering the terrorist attacks of 9/11 -- he's a key member. dupont,on a peabody, a and an emmy. he has received an emmy for his coverage of president barack obama's inauguration. please welcome peer, s. thomas.e welcome pierre >> welcome tothe national association of black journalists conference. this year, focusing on equipping members for the shifts taking place in newsrooms across the country. you can look forward to some andt panels, workshops, seminars including today's session, government and the media. we will address some of the

challenges facing our industry specifically actions by the government which appear to in print -- in french on the truly free press. journalists subpoenaed to reveal sources, the justice department looking at months of records from the ap, the white house restricting access from presidential events. how do we operate going forward? challenges that stress the heart of what we do. today, we have some of the nation's top journalists here to discuss the challenges. they have confronted these issues first hand. we will have time for questions audience, but first i would like to introduce our panel. first, steve adler. before joining reuters, he was editor-in-chief at "is this week," were during the five-year tenure they won more than 100

awards. he is a graduate of harvard law school and served as editor of "the american lawyer." please welcome stephen adler. ♪ dean, the first african-american executive editor of "the new york times. after graduating from columbia university in 1978, the new orleans native who went to work for his hometown newspaper. in 1988, he won a pulitzer for his work leading a trio of reporters who uncovered corruption in the chicago city council. our final panelist is the vice president and managing director for u.s. news at the associated press. he oversees cover jump operation -- he oversees coverage and

operation. he served as the asia-pacific news director. he led the ap coverage of the 2011 earthquake-tsunami in the nuclear crisis in japan. please welcome brian. we're going to get right to it. thank you everyone for coming. we will try to move it along quickly. in 2006, a "the new york times" reporter released a book called "the class of war." subpoena issued a for his sources. he says he will not reveal his sources. they have sided with the

government and he faces possible contempt of court, possible fines if he will not testify. of howive us a sense james is doing in the impact on him and his family. jim. had a huge impact on network oft a anonymous sources. that is his bread and butter. it's been a lot harder from him. it's been harder for him to make new sources. his current sources are nervous about talking to him. things get slowed down because it's not like you can exchange e-mails or have phone conversations. jim whod, a plaudit to is a particularly tenacious reporter, if you look at over the last year while he has

worked up against this problem of the government going after broken big stories one or the two or three lead when "the new york times" had to catch up with the post and others with the snowden issue. that is his bread and butter. -he's nervous. i don't think is nervous because he is worried about going to jail. he's nervous because if you andine covering a beat suddenly all the people are nervous about dealing with you in particular, this is the beat iu have covered for a decade, think that throws you off your game. what is at the heart of we do. how was the paper going to support him and keep him aggressive? >> we have help support him in

the legal arena. i talked to him a lot. that he issure deeply involved in washington coverage and he's in all of the national security meetings. mainly, i'm a pain in the but to make sure that he's is working on snowden. andhrow big stories at him give him big assignments. himould be too easy to tell to chill out for a year while it plays out that i would not be good for him or the paper. mainly, we make sure to throw assignments at him and that they get good play. that's been helpful to him. iandean, i want steve and br to jump in. when you have a reporter asked by the government to give up sources, what is at stake for our entire industry? first off, the answer to any

self-respecting news organization is a strenuous "no." what is at stake is not only that particular story but our very relationship with the relationshipd our with the government should be adversarial. i guess that some old way of thinking but it really should be. in society is to ask hard questions and tried to find out things government does not want us to find out. of moment you get the names your sources to government, you wipe out one of the primary missions of the press which is to find out things you don't want to find out. one example from yesterday in what is happening. you go out there and you do a story on the government does not like it.

story about the securities and exchange commission and we were in the room when they made the decision involving the verdict. they did not like the story. from somethingme inside. think about what they did and what impact that has. they went to our reporters and ask over the course of the story. then they got their inspector general to do a multi-month investigation were they interviewed 53 employees at the sec. they went through the e-mails of 39 employees and checked all of the visitor logs and at the end of it, they could not figure out who our sources were so i felt good about that. the message was sent to never talk to a reporter because your job is in jeopardy. we don't want reporters to know these things. the poisoning of the potential of getting transparency in government just from that one event, you see that everywhere

in the government. it impinges on our ability which is sharing on with the public what's going on. >> in the case that steve just described with the phone records situation with the department of justice is part of a really troubling trend. i'm not super awesome it -- ought to mystic it's going to superat are -- i'm not optimistic it's going to get better. our primary function is to hold the government accountable. war on terror and the covert actions we see our government taking, has it ever been more important for journalists to be digging in finding out what is going on? >> it's never been more important. if you think about the state of foreign policy, for instance, the u.s. is engaged in at least

two possibly three undeclared relatively secret wars in running where it is extensive drone operations. in yemen and some could make the case for parts of africa, too. these are dangerous missions that have large applications for those countries, large implications for foreign policy in the united states and they were embarked upon with no debate. there was no debate in congress, no discussion about how the u.s. should manage a war in yemen. what'sr job to find out going on in yemen. it's more important than ever that we find out what's going on in places like yemen to the country can have its own debate even if government chooses not to have it. seems like we've reached a point where national security concerns whether they exist or not trumps the first amendment.

in many cases the first amendment does not even part of the conversation. we are talking about it amongst ourselves. a storyt to move onto that really struck me as well. ap gets the scoop in may 2012 about terrorist in yemen wanting to blow up a plane using a new kind of underwear bomb. the government wants to know how you did it. the justice department goes out, goes through a court and secretly obtains two months of telephone records from the associated press. your reaction when you found out the government had done this? >> outrage. the justice department violated its own guidelines. they were guidelines that existed governing these types of .nvestigations for decades the two primary ways in which

this particular investigation violated them was these kind of subpoenas are supposed to be as narrowly drawn as possible. this was a hoover operation where phone records for 21 including her former washington bureau that the ap had not even occupied and he harvard connecticut bureau where one reporter worked seven years before he transferred to the washington bureau and was involved in the story. insight into hundreds of ap reporters, far from any stories that had anything to do with this particular scope and the government had no conceivable right to know any of that stuff. the second way it violated the guideline was there was no prior notification and we found out a year after it had broken that at some point i had got these phone records spanning 40 days and there was no opportunity for us to challenge that, no process of judicial review in they cited a

loophole that had always existed but turned out to be very gigantic loophole that prior notice was required unless doing so would substantially impair the integrity of the investigation and it took a very broad interpretation of that which was to say that the leaker would know if it had been made public but after they announce the investigation, about two days actually the story broke, it was already widely known. confronted doj officials with what they did, did you get an audience with the attorney general? what was their reaction to your outrage? very highnvened a level group of media representatives and government officials. the justice department changed those guidelines. we think we have changed them for the better so the exception for prior notification requires the attorney general to sign off and instead of a presumption

violating the integrity of the investigation, they have to prove that it will. the guidelines are stricter but they have not been tested yet. >> how striking was it that something like that could happen? looking at your phone records down the most senior levels of the justice department not signing off, it sounds like that's what happened. >> that's exactly what happened in this case. some ways, the revelations of the nsa and snowden, the ap case seems a sort of quaint now because we now know the government is able to access everything for everyone, journalists or not. i think journalists who have operated in more restrict did countries have always sort of assumed they were being watched and now we should assume that the united states is one of those countries and we have to take december cautions as if we were operating in china, north korea, tehran. [applause] -- [no audio]

abroadcus on violations and now they have gotten very focused on the u.s. and they are starting a campaign called the right to report where they will be [no audio] are the kinds of problems that reuters we see everywhere in the world. there is way more issues in te urkey, tehran, everywhere else. that we are now thinking about the u.s. in the same category as troubling. >> when you pick up your phone, do you now wonder? >> sure. we should all would wonder if we were in the office or any other journalism shop. >> i'd like the reaction of the

other two panelists. when you heard about this, what was your reaction? >> i find this case more this case, then most troublesome. reasons, first the sheer audacity and scope of the efforts of the investigation. but secondly, as he said, the fact that it's sort of did not even have to get approval at the highest levels shows that, i would argue -- and i would attribute this to the post-9/11 -- i think the view of thatnment after 9/11 secrecy was so important, especially on national security so pervasive,came so powerful, so ingrained in a

generation of government officials that they felt comfortable doing something that 25 years ago even would have required a real discussion. we are going to go after the records of a major american news organization. i think the fact it can be done at the mid-level and even surprise eric holder says a lot about how entrenched that secrecy is in the government. >> the white house has been restricting access and distributing its own photographs and then giving access to the media, not letting us do the work ourselves. we just had a case recently involving some former astronauts that got some coverage. steve, took about why this is a particular problem. the photographs. we take photographs and it's important. you don't want the record of

what's going on in your administration to essentially be pr. about what isng independent journalism and what is an institution going directly to the public with their own message and in some level, that's fine. people are using twitter to disclose things and up to a point, that's ok, but on the other hand, you do have to worry there is not a value placed on independent journalism. we were involved in lobbying with the white house to give us more access. we have gotten a little more, but it is not much. >> did they understand why? >> i think only partly. one of the troubling things we are all facing is this is the administration that said they would be the transparency administration and there's been a lot of language around the importance of transparency.

we all believe that the government belongs to the people and we are representatives of the people and we are all idealistic about that. we think the government works better when it is transparent. fresh air is the best disinfectant. this does not like the government feels that way and you see that in the white house and all of the executive agencies. to get press passes, harder to get into meetings. you get handlers who sit with you more. part of the problem is this is a symbolic problem because we do not want to be a society that believes it's important for the public to know what's going on and it's important for independent journalism to exist in a really robust way. it does not feel like the administration feels that way. is this administration more restrictive or less restrictive than past? bureauked the washington

for i came what they thought. they do feel its more restrictive than it has been in the past. they are little bit more upset about it perhaps than they might have and because this administration bills itself as being more transparent and they feel deceived. there has been an increasing desire to control the news. look, we accept that. m isn't for the faint of heart. there's a constant back and forth and that's fine. we also believe that a democratic government should believe that a free press is important and should at least try to facilitate that in a general way and that's the kind of place where we end up taking that. a trendnk it's part of that began before obama was elected but i certainly think it's a gotten more dramatic.

the trend has gotten worse. social media has given the obama administration is a lot of elected officials the plausibility that they're going straight to the people but they can manage the message. there's no reason to believe it is an honest presentation of information. i also think that the way the obama administration has handled access has given other governments, state and local governments, a roadmap for how they can "handle the media." we saw with the bill de blasio administration, who also said he was going to run the most transparent administration that he tried to close his swearing in to the press. many protested and they eventually opened it but in the first 100 days of his administration he held 53 event closed to the press around his schedule and 30 others with restricted access and that was just in the first 100 days. i think the obama

administration is more secretive, but i think i agree that it is part of a continuum. i think there was an amazing confluence of events starting with and more forcefully led by 9/11. i think 9/11, i think the bush administration was more philosophically secret and i think 9/11 told them that it was ok. i think the press did not challenge it enough. along came a whole new way of covering candidates, social media making it easier for candidates and politicians to sort of communicate with people without going through the mainstream media. i think all of these things came toether the ability communicate with people. the constant campaign that

politicians go into. i think all of those things came together and they reached the full flowering in the obama administration but they began overtime and built. >> we are not without our own resources. for thehould feel sorry media. we have more ways to get information. there are way more players. the so-called mainstream media may be somewhat in the client but you have blogs, "the digital, alcause of jazeera because of digital and television. you have all of the smaller organizations. if you are out there trying to get information and you are working hard to get it out, you have more ways than you did in

the past. in some ways, it's an arms race. >> and more outlets to publish it if you buy the argument, which i think everyone now buys that the press was not aggressive enough in the buildup to the gulf war. i think today there would be a lot more places, including the guardian, which is more activist news organization, more blogs, more places were questions would have been raised. i agree with steve as well here. >> i want to get to edward snowden and a moment. as news executives, how are you trying to manage and deal with social media and the fact that people can go around and talk directly to the public selves? how do you try to use the social media to your advantage? [laughter] well, there are so many different ways where social

media factors into the way we work. it's interesting when a public official takes social media, often that is the news themselves in the reaction to that is news itself. we all use social media to develop new audiences and develop content -- and publish content. in terms of finding people who may have something to say about a specific event or topic. it is just part of the daily journalism now. less about the ability of politicians to get around us and use social media because what's different than the secrecy issues we are talking about, i think that is us,uch as it is vexing for i think it's probably ok.

it's a little weird for the media to make the case that politicians should have to engage with us to get to the public. i'm not sure that would be a winning argument that i would be willing to make. fan of handoutg journalism. the most productive work we do is when we ask hard questions and try to get under the surface to find out what's really going on. they hand out press releases and it's not our job just to take stenography and provide them to the public and go deeper. a there have always been whistle stop tours and a fireside chats to engage directly with the electorate. this is just a way to do it from the comfort of your chair. did invitenabj members of the administration to participate in this panel and as

far as we can tell they chose not to. i think everyone in the audience t edward snowden is responsible for releasing a boatload of information on the nation's covert activities. there are those who say, not withstanding, what he did whether it was right or wrong but the notion that one person was responsible for releasing this information, a relatively young person, they make the argument that it should not happen. question to the panel. is he a criminal or a whistleblower? i'm going to choose to answer this and a bit of a different way. provoked an he important discussion that the country was not having and could

only have had with his disclosures. athink snowden gets tremendous amount of credit. country barely knew the extent of the nsa spying. there had been stories over the years but he provoked a significant discussion and debate that we should have had. i actually think the nsa position in this case is a .ittle bit untenable somebody should have said, i would argue, is the country ready for the giant amount of spying that the nsa can do? without even going to the nitty-gritty of it -- i don't know what the result of that debate would have been. it might have been even more intrusive spying, but i'm not sure -- it does not answer the

question. in a weird way, i don't think that is my question to answer. they took advantage of some of the things leaked and they were really important. they have sworn not to release information and sign the government and its reasonable for the government to consider and potentially criminal if they do. it's a very different question from our responsibility in my view is we have not stolen or paid someone to steal the information, our job is to inform the public. we are in a different role. it may be very job to protect information like this, but it's our job to release it. we aren't careful about not putting any additional people in jeopardy if we get it. being a lawyer, i do not convict without a trial but in these

situations, sometimes it is civil disobedience and they choose knowing their penalties but more important for our discussion, it is our responsibility if something is newsworthy and we did not steal it to presented to the public and let it be part of the public beta. >> it's not my place to say, but think of what we know now because of the his disclosures? is reallyow now important. people had to write another government was doing it. the disclosures helped or hurt our cause in terms of trying to get more information? >> i would argue they help our for two reasons. the government has yet to offer substantial proof that they ,ruly hurt national security which helps our cause because that is always the argument. the second thing, i think in the

case of wiki leaks and snowden, the press behaved aggressively and responsively. worked, i have looked at the snowden disclosures in the course of our coverage of it. there are things that everyone, including glenn greenwald, has not disclosed. i think it shows the press can be very responsible and is not upking to just throw things that jeopardizes lives. i would make the case that we were doing what we were supposed to do but we were careful. in the media, we will never win any popularity contests.

. think that's ok the real resistance to powerful institutions in our society right now, we are often lumped together and it's kind of a populist resistance. the fact is that the media does. i would say that it's our job to do it well and responsibly. not worry too much about whether we are popular as we're doing and as long as we think we are performing a public service. >> i do worry about the chilling effect depending on what happens up happening -- what ends up happening to snowden anti-chelsea manning case, it certainly must discourage people who would be tempted to disclose the type of information from doing it in the future. the media has credited itself with the way they have happened,

but i worry about this like i do jamesames rise in case -- rime risen case. >> you hear that a lot now, i'm going to lose my job. i think it's a very serious concern. to take advantage of the years of experience and your thoughts on this here to give some of the young journalist out here a sense of some best actresses. what advice do you have for organizations or individuals who come under fire of the government, be it city hall, state, or federal government in terms of protecting sources? >> i'll start. aearly, we are living in world where you have to assume that your work is being watched. you have to the very careful about the use of e-mail. there are encrypted e-mails. careful to be very

about phone calls, particularly in going places where you think you are being watched or followed. at the very least, turn off your phone. very often you don't want to have your phone on you. when we travel globally, we take a burner phone, electronic device with no sensitive material on it. there are lots you need to do in terms of basic self protection. there was a report done on the aclu talking about how you are being deterred. the main thing they said is they feel like they are in the espionage business now more than the news business. you do have to be careful about all of those things. we way over use e-mail and there is someone looking whether it is a foreign government, federal, or local. being careful about all of those things is really important. to exercise best practices in be very clear with your source about whether you are protecting them and under

what circumstances. you need to be clear with your editors under what rules you are operating under. will your organization back you up? it's important to work in an organization that will back you up. one of the virtues of the large mainstream media, although we all have our faults, is that they really do support journalists when they are in trouble and it becomes important in a world where that happens more often. >> steve made two really key points. i would hope anyone in that situation could rely on the organization they work for. i think this is more important than ever, but to make sure in negotiating the terms of disclosure with your source that they understand the risk they are taking on as well as being aware of the risk. neednk those conversations to have a much more detailed conversation about those types of disclosure and they have gone up to radically. and are risking jail time

other penalties. they should know that. it's part of a journalist's responsibility to make sure your source is aware of the risk they are taking. i think i would agree with both of you in best practices, making sure your editors are behind you in more of a cheerleader point which is to keep doing it. het inspires me about jim is did not come to me and say he would actually like to cover the agriculture department or just do something different. he remained in the realm of national security and he continues to break stories. he's hampered, but he is still in the game and i think that sends a tremendous signal to the people who want to chill is reporting but also a signal to those who do that kind of reporting. >> there are dozens if not subpoenas and not

everyone of these cases end up with the potential for jail time which i think is an important point. and very rarely gets to this point. >> one thing that's really encouraging is the younger journalists and those coming into the business that i have been meeting are amazingly have tools that we don't have. they're really good at social media, searching on the web. there are people working for are feed, vice, and they all doing a really exciting work and that's a positive indication of where the world is heading. even if you can stifle, there are so many people out there trying to get information that it's a real positive. >> of this sort of plays on something steve said earlier,

especially for international investigative stories, some of the best investigative work of any news organization over the last couple of years have been international investigative reporting some based on public record. cover whatng to amounts to war in yemen and pakistan, there are ways to report inside this country. you can behave safely if you keep finding stuff out. there will still be ways. let's not forget for all the i would include the two news organizations on my left and right, there have been some remarkable disclosures in thatast couple of years show the press is still in the game in the big way. >> this is been terrific and i want to thank you all again. i think we have time for questions from the audience. please step up to the microphone and ask your question.

can someone help her to see if that song? their radio. -- can someone help her to see if that is on? there we go. >> from the university of the virgin islands. research is hard, expensive, and it requires copious amounts of in-depth work and i have a question in regards to that a little bit more. you are talking about burn ph ones, but if you are really in to a story, is there a way for you to be as careful as you can possibly be? what would you advise? if someone is out to find, most likely they will do everything in their power and sometimes that's a lot of power.

it's a dangerous case. espionage is what it seems like because there are connections with cops, government officials and you want to protect yourself as well as your sources. can you elaborate a little bit more on that? i'm a little intrigued. [laughter] sorts of toolsl to encrypt things but i think your point is very often they won't work, right? are you talking about being in a physical danger? you said before, as we excel in technology, we also excel in ways we can be caught. we are getting better at social media, there are more ways to be caught through social media. they can track your e-mails, your facebook account.

whatever you post on facebook, anyone else can go in there and peruse. >> i operate under the assumption that everything i say , somebody is listening to it. i think that's a worthwhile assumption. on television, i know i'm being looked down but on the phone, i assume that, too. are 91 askedts who me what i did this week, i say i cannot really tell you on the phone because literally, i'm fairly competent --confident whether it's this. government, someone in china or iran, there is someone listening. a lot of it is changing our habits and thinking about the fact that there is someone listening. if you are doing journalism, we don't want to over scare people. to my knowledge there's one person in jail in the united states for doing journalism so it's very rare that it ends up that you get thrown in jail.

i want to write about it when someone is giving you a hard time. make public what the problem is. if you're being investigated, write about it. we have a lot of power. we have tools. we have the ability to distribute. that threat becomes newsworthy and we report the threat. that's just a couple of thoughts. >> hello. i'm a producer for the department of defense, specifically covering intelligence. >> that's interesting. [laughter] >> i want to talk to you when this is over. [laughter] how do you decide when covering a story when to release a report or not if the government says this could

potentially put someone's life in jeopardy? how do you make that determination of is this legitimate or should we run this story anyway? have there been moments when you have held off on an investigation or a report because of those concerns? my standard has become you have to give me absolute detail of what you mean. it used to be the government you publish this story it violates national security and someone will die." that's not good enough for me. i want to hear who. .mma to hear the specifics obviously i don't mean tell me how they are going to get killed. tell me what you mean. you cannot give me they'd. you mean a case officer in tehran -- you cannot give me vague.

i demand that a request a hold something back, from someone very high on the government. if the press person asks for it, i won't even take the call. it has to come from someone in the white house, the head of the cia, the head of the nsa. it cannot come from a press person. byally when you say that, the way, half of all requests go away because they're not quite willing to ratcheted up that high. i always insist they ratchet it with offering a very, very specific proof. still, most of the time we go with the story. are there stories we have held over the years? yes. you a classic one that has now been written about.

most news organizations did not write extensively about corporal bowe bergdahl and his disappearance. we know a lot about it. there was a tremendous amount of information about it in the wiki leaks documents, which i was involved in. awkward position because right around the same time, a reporter from the new york times emma david robe -- from "the new york times" had disappeared, david rogue. casemade an interesting that if we wrote stories about him that it would endanger his life. i can think of a lot of cases where a made a mistake and i was too cautious. by and large, those are the standards. it has to come from someone high up. it has to be as specific. i don't want to hear that i will

have blood on my hands. i don't want to hear the vague that this will help the terrorists. i want very, very specific stuff. foiledhe case of the terror plot that led to the justice department sweeping up as ap records, that story was held for five days at the government's request. it was based on the fact that the operation was still ongoing and they were hunting these guys down. it was only after the government said that it would not jeopardize the operation that the story was public which makes what happened next even more outrageous. >> if it's an ongoing investigation and they make the case and they are very specific and it comes from somebody high up, that's a harder one to refuse. >> thank you. libby lewis from ucla, former news reporter for cbs and nbc.

i have a general question for each of the panelists. i'm wondering should we, as journalists, educators, etc., be concerned about relationships between the government and journalists when we see more and hear about news, we journalists covering stories in other countries being held as potential spies, being accused othering for the u.s. and things? should we be concerned that the have recruiting booths here at various journalism organizations? not just any bj, but doesn't that sort of bag the question -- but doesn't that beg the question? these are journalism conferences

and why are they interested? in theave journalists 200 locations, almost 3000. it is a not uncommon problem where foreign governments accuse journalists in for being spies often for the u.s. ambiguity, and we'll we say we have no association with any government and we are entirely independent. whatever accusation is entirely untrue, but any ambiguity about their using people who purport to be journalists as spies really puts lives in danger. cia's not to say that the does not need people with journalistic skills to do things that they need to do so i'm not saying recruiting people for other things is a problem, but any time and intelligence

organization uses the journalistic cover, it puts our people and journalists around the world an enormous jeopardy. countries, thehe fact that we are independent does not resonate because the notion of independence does not translate. particularly for news agencies, the standard definition is that it is something tied to the government. the type of agency that ap and reuters are, it's hard for people to comprehend. when i was in asia, often had to explain that it does not stand for american press and we had no connection to the government. the conversation can be very difficult to have because intellectually we all understand that there are countries in which every entity is controlled by the government of whether it is industry, education, media.

>> thank you. detroit, humphrey, michigan, and cofounder of the digital task force for nabj. what other loopholes exist and the law that you can enlighten us on? on the patriot act, can electronic equipment can be confiscated at borders by customs and be searched without warrant? things that sort. sort.ngs of that >> to be honest, i'm not familiar with that enough to sort of go through the list. >> i think we would need a media lawyer. there's not one on this panel. >> that's the next animal. >> i can speak specifically to the guidelines about seizure of fun records and the rest of the loophole that the attorney general needs to sign off if

it poses a threat or compromise the integrity of the investigation and they can still do what they did to the ap. the loophole a smaller but it still exists. >> federal laws broadly in the sometimesrveillance are wildly overused. there was an internet entrepreneur who downloaded a bunch of documents from m.i.t. and he ended up being indicted on very, very serious felony charges and ultimately suicide.d -- committed he was operating in ways that would be parallel to ways operate.ts there are some pretty draconian laws that are still on the books. i'm from world policy journal. something unnoticed in the last

few months buzzing around social media, especially more recently around the conflict in israel and taza is this impression among the general public that somehow the u.s. government or other governments are putting pressure on your organizations to color coverage in general. i'm not speaking about classified documents or operations but in general the state department or the u.s. military or the obama thenistration is pressuring new york times or the associated press to run certain stories, not run certain stories, to cover a hospital that was hit or not hit for a u.n. compound. can you guys speak to that specifically? this is something i try to correct with my colleagues, but may be coming from your mouth it may or may not be more

persuasive. can you talk about what contact you guys have from the administration or other governments about your general coverage of certain issues, topics, or conflict? describedu'd just does not happen. -- i was ar had washington bureau chief, editor, i have had many complaints about coverage, usually complaints about profiles that people thought were too negative. the obama administration is very sensitive, but in terms of how to cover things, how to place photos, i've never had a conversation like that. none at all with anyone in the government. i would bet these guys have not either. >> if that were to happen, the obvious answer would be no because we are subject to our

own editorial decisions. >> views are so hardened on israel and palestine that both think they are biased sooner we or miss increases in complaints when that story is flaring up from people on both sides leading to some conspiracy theories about who is influencing the coverage but we have not experienced any pressure on that. the e-mails from each side, i wish i could just send them to each other because they are completely, on both sides, they andcompletely unrelenting not at all understanding the difficulty of it or the fact sides -- have -- very hard views and don't see the other side out all. i wish i could just sort of

exchange nasty e-mails with others and just get out of the way and watch the discussion. today, we discussed a lot of issues facing our industry. a question for each of you. have journalists done a good enough job of explaining to the public what it is we do and why we do it? argue that we have not. i think we are much better now than we ever were but i come from a tradition when i worked in a regional paper in the days when newspapers made so much money that you did not have to court readers. if a reader called up and hung up the phone. i think we are much better at it . i try to answer e-mails and we

invite people into our page-one meetings and we talk more about how we make decisions, but sometimes i think we take for granted. i think people are always stunned at the fact that the federal government does not call up and say, isn't it time to use a gaza teacher? re?hink -- pictu i can do a better job explaining how we make decisions. >> i agree. it's probably pretty hard to get an audience for it. there is so much information flying at them that the ideal role of the media is not to talk to people outside of our industry. inwe're much more interested the topic and by and large, the best thing we can do is to do our job vigorously and well. there is a humbling that has occurred as our industry has

moved in there was an arrogance where we felt we could go out there and just do what we wanted. i do share the view that if we could be more transparent that it would be consistent with who we want to be as an organization. like we wrap up, i would for each of you, some of the journalists out there, give a sense of how you try to inspire the people who work with you, for theleagues, difficult stories and why it's important. we will just go from left to right, please. overve done a lot of work the last three and half years at reuters to try and encourage more excitement about the bigger, more investigative stories. be chasingtempted to every story that occurs, but there's enormous satisfaction in trying to get to the bottom of a

news and find out why things happen, what's really going on, what's going to happen next. as people do more of that, they discover it's tremendously challenging but also there is a big appetite out there for it. when i talk to customers, whether they are financial customers, news organizations, or individuals, we have so much information and we are flooded. they always say, help me make sense of the world. journalists get excited when they are helping people make sense of the world and when they see the results. a lot of the best journalism we do has positive results in society. freed from forced labor camps. you see good things happening in the world. it's up to us to encourage it, talk about it, incentivize it, and share the excitement on doing a job really well. encourage the bigger, more probing pieces, i'm

deeply involved myself in them. i think the best way to send the signal to the newspaper, to your staff, that you really care about in a story discussions about the biggest stories. to play a role in line editing. , i wantdo big stories to be in on them from the beginning. i want to play on the editing of them. people walk away with the sense that this is important. you get time with the executive editor. >> think about the cases we have talked about today from snowden to the fcc case, all the revelations were really andrtant for people to now are hugely competitive stories. there is an imperative to do that. doingrnalists had been that work we would have known about it. these are disclosures that are

important for the public to know about. spoke earlier about how many different media outlets there are out there now. they are all covering the same story. the things that are exclusive and distinctive are important. there is no better way to set yourself apart. to become somebody who breaks news that editors can get from any other source. was a great conversation. . want to thank each of you we are going to take a short break. we have the newsmaker with the dnc chair scholz. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. >> it was a pleasure. ♪

>> coming up, journalists discuss the role of race in congressional elections and how communities of color are being portrayed by the media. asianbe live from the american journalist association convention at 11:00 a.m. eastern c-span. and at 3:00 p.m. eastern, we'll have more from the convention covering asian communities. .lso live on c-span sarah.i'm >> i'm shelly and we're marketing representatives on the c-span bus. c-span bus is an interactive multimedia education center, and along with your provider we bring c-span's public affairs coverage to you and your community. visit schools and book festivals, political and historical events throughout the

country. >> to learn more about the bus and to see our tour schedule, go to c-span.org/about/community. for questions and comments you e-mail us or send us a tweet. to see you in your community. cnn president tom johnson moderates a discussion on the future of news. the atlanta press club's 50th anniversary luncheon, this is an hour. [indiscernible chatt] >> ok. let me remind you. this program is being taped. taped is not the right description in this world of technology.

this is being taped for c-span. don't embarrass yourselves. microphones for questions for the program, in the center of the room. i regret that. those of you on the side of the room will need to come up. it will create a short line. this is being done primarily for technological reasons. do not let it discourage you from coming over when we get to the q&a time. i should've introduced to you the person who has been the mover and shaker in getting this together. that is a person who move -- who worked with me at cnn. she is the executive director at the atlanta press club. lauri strauss. [applause] the elbow of the master on how to get things to

happen. her grandfather was, is the legendary bob strauss who probably was one of the legends of politics in america. the book is dedicated to bill moyers. there is a quote at the beginning that says this is a crisis for journalism that is also a crisis for american democracy. you are experiencing it now. >> thank you. great to be here. i have met so many wonderful people already in this room. thank you to tom for encouraging me to come, and to you for being here.

i might have been oversold a little bit in the sense that i cannot tell you what the future of news is. i guess i would challenge anyone in this world to say what the future of news is. it is in flux. there is a thinker about kie, whosm, clay sher wrote a blog post several years ago in which he says memorably, given thewe're in now great digital -- digital changes in the world, in terms of the scope, to the changes that occurred when the printing press was coming into its own. that complete upheaval that was happening at that time.

we are going. change like that now. because we are in the middle of it we can't know what the to bel effects are going because we are living through it. we can't really get a handle on how it is going to play out. however, i think we can identify some things that are happening. one of them is, as much as i might not want it to be the case, and many don't, we can in serious and probably terminal decline. have been in the newspaper business for a long time. i love the sound of the presses and the smell of think. -- smell of ink. but we are not going back to that heyday in which newspapers profits, to make vast

were able to hire at will, and be comfortable. life is no longer comfortable in the world of newspaper journalism at all. we are scrambling to figure out a way to survive and thrive, in what is an uncertain future. the present is uncertain. some interesting things going on. one of them is happening at the place i work, "new york times." has successfully instituted a pay wall. there are 800,000 digital only subscribers.

it is bringing in lots of money. in fact, an interesting milestone occurred about a year and a half ago in which, traditionally as many of you know, advertising revenue was the way the whole thing was powered. circulation was much smaller part of where the money came from. because ofk times" the decline of print, and the cause of success of the digital subscriptions, that was flipped on its head about a year ago. both in revenue it has surpassed circulation revenue.

-- advertising revenue. let me restate it. consumer revenue has now surpassed advertising revenue. that is upside down of what it used to be. it is a big change and a heartening change. it means something is working. we all want something to be working. the thing that i would say in terms of looking forward is that think is values that i very important the values don't change as the business changes. the values i hold dear and tried ourrite about and encourage those of fairness, accuracy, and accuracy has gotten trickier in the digital world. we are so fast, and can put things up immediately. there is so much competition we feel pressure to do so.

accuracy and fairness, and integrity. there is a discussion about whether the news business should be adversarial. withd we be adversarial government, with business. a distinction and editor whom i admire much made recently is not necessarily adversarial, but independent, so that we are not in anyone's pocket, and we keep our independence, and represent what is best for our readership. as the business changes, i hold fast to those values because i think they are the things that ultimately are going to enter. -- endure. they will make what we do worth paying for. i do think that quality fornalism is worth paying

and people are finding it to be so in all kinds of forms. the other thing i would say is that we are trying experiments now. some are working, some aren't. we have to be quick to try them and abandon them when they don't work. it is a very unusual time in our business. there is a lot of great things happening. it is scary. when i came out of graduate school and went to work for my i hadwn paper in buffalo, reason to think i could stay there for a long time. i did and became editor of the paper. but i don't think that happens very much for students these days and young people. but you can come to an institution and stick around for 30 years. probably it is not part of the model anymore. overview.

i would love to delve into the subject more deeply. >> because it is timely. tiesis an article, it directly. it is not just jill abramson. women everywhere are getting pushed out of journalism. true or false? >> i don't know where that is from. i have not seen it. abrahmson, she was until recently the editor, executive editor at "new york times." she was fired. it has been a great deal of discussion since then about whether this was propelled by sexism or something else, or if there were gender issues. it did notis

represent some kind of institutional sexism. i don't think that is the case. but, i think you can't say about it that there are no gender related issues here whatsoever. , someone coined the expression recently editing while female. [laughter] a dangerous thing to do. some tricky things about editing while female. number ofw a wonderful strong women editors and think the future is bright for women going into journalism. they are going into journalism in droves. i teach at columbia univer sity. the classes are much more

male.y female than i guess that speaks to the pipeline. >> editing while mel can be a dangerous thing. male can be ae dangerous thing. i appreciate comments. i have a few of my own. thank tom foro putting this together. a couple of comments in the same vein of margaret. i'm looking forward to the questions. don't be shy. when i think about the future of news, i think about it through different lenses. one is the business model, the most on down -- the most unknown one yet. content of all forms is breaking up from bundles to individual pieces.

newspaper,ness, the it was always sacrosanct. you paid $.50 for it. we will put on your doorstep. you pay what you pay for it. today there is a growing trend of people reading through the morning package on the internet and picking and choosing the articles they like, e-mailing providingfriend, and their color commentary. sometimes you will send an they will respond. that is interesting change. you would get the institutional opinion of the day's news. that opinion comes from your friends and family, story by story. , the much more targeted articles that are specifically related to you or picked out of the bundle and sent to you. we still make most of our money from print. the bundle is still king.

more and more it is going digital. oddlylecom business is the same. we sell a package of video, the majority of our business. you pay cable for a bundle. more and more there is talk ofàa la carte pricing and people not wanting specific channels. like -- y they would >> please keep cnn. [laughter] >> currently the way things are priced if you broke up the bundle and paid just for the stations you want, the number of cnn or espn subs would go down because it is subsidized by selling the bundle. they would have to pay more to make up for the revenues. .t would be more expensive

certainly there is a model going towards all a card and breaking up the bundle. the consumer sentiments when over time. -- win over time. less and less people watch the 90 minute news broadcast from the beginning to end than they used to. higher a legacy of ratings during the news than the network programming on either side of it. we do that in our company. the ratings go down during the news and then back up. but we drive a strong news product. we continue doing that. it is harder and harder with people picking and choosing pieces. >> wsb. strongly recommended.

and the cultural model. i don't know how the business model is going to turn out. it used to be well-known how you make money and how you are going to make money in the long range plan. now it is unclear. we do plan on sticking with it. it is what gets us up in the morning. we love our hometown and the business of news. the second thing is the cultural model. if you look at the cultural model, what does news mean to society? for me that goes back to the beginnings of our company. our first business ever in 1898 was a small newspaper in dayton, ohio, the number five horse and a five horse race. my great-grandfather purchased $26,000 and said he would rather have a failing business and have to work for somebody else. he stuck with it and found over the years that accuracy,

integrity, balance wins out in the end. not pandering to the people in money andcan make you make the world a better place. >> he was also a politician. he became governor. he ran for president with roosevelt. >> roosevelt was his vice presidential ticket. that gets to the point of this. he believes in public service. that is what news is all about. it is a service. it made a lot of money over the years, which we use to diversify over the years. that gets to the fourth estate. a lot of you have heard that. there are three branches of government that are supposed to provide checks and balances. a famous justice said that actually is not enough.

it does not do it. you still get too much corruption. there has to be a fourth estate that watches the watchers. what we have found is that through the changes in our business model, and through everything that was previously known and unknown, will people politicalmost are the .ruth meter >> on behalf of the journalists impetus h hc is putting on reporting is essential to this community. if you need a great example, the type of reporting you did on our school boards in atlanta. i just want to tell you from that perspective. [applause] think it is that type of

indispensable reporting that is so critical to us as readers and citizens of our various communities. thank you for that. going over to my grandmother's house every weekend. i always remember her on sunday, she would put the paper in her arm and see how heavy it was. that was an indication of how things were going. chambers. >> she gave it a field. over the years as advertising began to go digital and things lightened up we were forced to make changes. made questionss about what is truly important, and what is going to keep us here in the long run? all the research and obvious arrows pointed to local watchdog

investigative journalist. there are things we are going to have to take out of the paper. one is not watchdog investigative journalism. transparency, telling people what is going on, and empowering them to make better decisions is the core of the business. i was thinking about this this morning. my great-grandfather has in his will written gems of information that he left for the rest of us. i wanted to read a little passage i wrote down this morning. newspapers which i have taken pride in developing should make themselves champions of the rights of the people. such power should not be used as an encroachment on the rights of individuals. i asked my children and trustees to recognize these obligations."

whether we make money at it or not, one thing we don't forget is the legacy that was left to us, the fourth estate accuracy, and championing the best interest of our community where we live. hopefully we will continue doing that. in some ways the future of news has never been brighter. toyou think about the access information, people are not dependent upon the one newspaper at their local newsstand. whether it be in a revolutionary state into ran or somewhere else. the technology and the access to aggregate data, cookies and google, and apple, all the data as creepy as it sounds, is being accumulated. there is different ways to bundle it and look at anomalies and trends. it gives us information that we

used to have. the atlanta public school story started out as a discovery that test scores had dramatically turned around in a short time. data discovered it was statistically impossible for that to happen. that was what the team uncovered. putting those scores together paint a picture that was impossible. had dated different from the date of others that you recall. i would say something about families. owns therg her family "new york times." have maintained their commitment to quality. that is an exception in an america today. so many families, for many

reasons, tax reasons, so their companies. thank god for the sulzberger's and the cox's. fewn't tell you how many owners would make the statement that alex just made. role of thed the watchdog in our newspapers and journalism. we are profitable and other areas of our company and we can support excellence in our newspapers. 5% ind say there are there are some, like jeff bezos, and there is some hope that he will restore that in "the washington post." we don't know what will happen

to my old newspaper, " the los angeles times." a once great american paper is in a precarious state. tell us to what extent, what is the future? [laughter] >> um. >> i started with a lot of praise. >> going back to the public school story, and recent stories about our elected officials, charging personal expenses, ,redit cards to the taxpayers things like that would not get uncovered if our folks weren't there to uncover it. i can tell you we have a large business. the atlanta newspaper part of it is a couple of percentage points . it is 90% of what we hear from

jim kennedy every day. he reads every word of the paper no matter where he is. the phone rings and you know he is calling to talk about something he read in the paper. it has to do with the politicians that think they can charge their cell phone bill to the taxpayers. the passion around watchdog journalism has never been greater in our company. we intend to stay committed to it. we believe that news and business can make the world a better place, if you don't focus solely on profit, if you have a where youed culture, spend the money on the right things and are willing to take a hit on some things in order to do it right. inintend to invest heavily watchdog journalism. we hope over time as print the clients we are able to make the switch to digital effectively. our digital subscribers are up

25%, which is a huge growth rate. we need to see that continue. we need to see people do what they are doing at the "new york times." you can build a business off that for the future. there be 80 printer version of "new york times?" >> i think there will be. i don't think there will always be. that it will be around in 10 years. there are those, and i am not sure how accurate this is, but there are certainly those that dailyat some point some papers will be eliminated and the sunday will live on, the lucrative one with the advertising and it and the biggest editorial effort.

there is no discussion of anything like that that i am aware of. but, there is no question that is the trend. we have no way of knowing exactly how quickly that will happen. you don't have to go back far to realize, 10 years ago things were very different in the newspaper business. it is difficult to look out 10 years. past, most newspapers generated 85% of revenue from advertising. 15% from circulation. you can imagine the tremendous difference. for those of you who have questions, and we take questions on all topics, i want you to work your way over to this microphone if you will. i will ask you to identify yourself and your organization if you are proud of it. [laughter]

if not just give us your name. >> him i the only one? this is a wonderful event. i admire your contributions to our industry. i'm a working journalist. i have been guilty of editing while female many times. this is a great conversation about the future of news. i am particularly interested in a journalist as a broadcaster, what is the future of the news consumer? of the service of news? >> i will take a crack at it. nice to see you here. i think you can't make a sweeping statement about what consumers want. consumers wantnt different things. they will find those things. they are all available. but i do think that if you are

going to ask people to pay for news, you have to have it at a very high quality. as things begin to settle out and differentiate those organizations that can provide the values that i was talking about, and the attributes, those will be an absolute necessity. individuals want to read pretty much about foreign affairs, and some people want to read about jennifer aniston's baby. there are different audiences. you can't really generalize completely. >> it is tough when during my era, we would want to do straight news, hard news, and then comes o.j. simpson. the audience levels went absolutely --

we would try to shift back. an important speech by president clinton at columbine. whend total meltdown people wanted to continue on the o.j. story. i don't think public television has ever been better than it is. [applause] i take rate pride -- i take great pride. i am just delighted. >> if i might ask a follow-up question. question is about the balance between what the audience, giving them what they want to know, and giving people what they need to know. what is the expectation of americans about first amendment

and what they want to know? >> we did a study about people's changing perceptions of the news, where it falls in their daily needs. it was fascinating. is a few pieces of it. one of the things that stuck out with me, what do i need? it isounds funny but true. people said their cell phones ranked higher than water. they didn't think of it as something they needed to get on about their day. so, obviously it is not true but it is what they think. a lot of people said they believe news was an inherent right as an american. you are entitled to news. it should not be cap from you. it should not be edited. facts are in the public domain. what people don't know is the

difficulty it is to uncover facts. there are people in power who hide them, and left unchecked they will hide a lot of them. it gets rampantly out of control without some kind of a good for the state. grand scheme the of things we are in the early years of the internet. if you look back through the emerging technology, electricity, transportation, most of the money and business models were solidified in the last half of that era. not in the beginning. right now we live in the wild west and people don't think about where information comes from. you just pick and choose. if you want good, reliable research information yet the thing about who is giving it to you, and not trust everything you read. google doesn't do that for you. organizations like ours go thr

take and this team will any big investigative story and talk it over. are we sure we are right? they go through a discussions about where did you get your facts, how did you research this? are your sources accurate? are they telling you the truth? google does not do that for you. >> without an owner like this [indiscernible] >> thank you. hello. i'm glad you are here. they key for having this conversation. i am lisa calhoun. i'm the founder of right to market what i founded after i was fired as the managing editor. best thing that happened to me. my question is in the "new york ," mozilla is building a

platform of reader contributions. i was curious about your comment on this platform that is uniting amazon, the new york times, and mozilla. thank you. the specifics of that project. i do know things are far different now than they were " wasthe "new york times competing with these organizations. now there are partnerships. it is all part of this experimentation. many of these things don't work out. someday. it is a question of trying different things and seeing what will work. sensek in the general that is what is happening. i can't give you chapter and

verse on that particular experiment. >> david? >> i'm a former cnn journalist. there is a deep and growing cynicism in the news consumers, that the very standards that you profess to have don't really exist. maybe it is best personified now by the glenn greenwald. let's just admit we have biases, and we act on them. it is impossible to be fair. what are your thoughts? >> i would love to start. i very much disagree with the idea that no one can be fair. ere's a debate, thr

happening about the extent to which it is important ot to come off as if you have no beliefs. can you let your stripes show, or do you need to be neutral observer? that is a valid and interesting debate going on. a deeper value is fairness. that goes without saying. glennn be greenwald, or a reporter who would never vote, and there are people like that. glenn greenwald is the workalist who did the and allg edward snowden the revelations concerning the

national security agency, and the surveillance. he has done a great deal of butl liberties journalism, most prominently he was one of the chief contacts for snowden. set, a believer that you stand for something and you can know exactly what it is but i can still do journalism. i think there is -- i could argue both sides. i position has moved a little bit from know the journalist must be completely neutral to feelings, ok to have beliefs, and to let them show. you need to be transparent about them. the catchphrase on that is that transparency is the new objectivity. [indiscernible]

every human has bias. your experiences are your bias. i can say at our news operations, when bias comes up at a table of discussion around news it sticks out like a sore thumb. you are looked at as an abnormality if you're sitting there saying i don't like republicans or democrats and we should cover this angle of the story. you would never see that in a newsroom. it is so completely improper. >> critics to believe that. >> a lot of that comes from a long history of opinion writing. a lot of influential and powerful opinion writers that .ur brands with legacies

the journal and constitution used to be two separate papers. combined. all the legacies tie into your perceptions of the newspaper. the "new york times" is no exception. they have a brand of bias. it should never get involved in their news coverage on the front page. i will say, however, people who have biases, and i know what they are, and they share facts that are well researched, i don't find a problem with it. transparency is the new objectivity. economist" is biased economists. [laughter] 's is like your old wife uncle telling you things. you know what he thinks. >> the history of opinion

migratesas readership online it is very difficult to tell what is an opinion piece, what is an analysis, what is a reported piece? it doesn't come with signifiers print did. this is on the front page. this is on the opinion page. this has a tag with a logo that tells me it is someone's column. these things have blended in. with that these traditional differences have started to go away as well. >> the next questioner is anita shaw, the president of the atlanta press club. she coordinates investigative reporting for bloomberg. >> thank you. quick question. what new technologies are you both watching closely and think will potentially be the most disruptive?

>> this is not a new technology become al say i have heavy user and a fan of twitter. i find it an indispensable source of news and information. i haven't seen anything that is as useful to me as twitter. twitter has only existed for less than 10 years. well under 10 years. i watch what is happening, that is something i am weighing against. the impactng to have of facebook? what is going to have the impact of twitter? i have seen interesting things, but i haven't seen anything that looks like it is as dominant as that. monitoringedia allows you to see trending,

stories trending that sounds pop-culture-ish. but in the old days, it was an editor's job to find out what people had on their mind. what story should you put in front of people is what they wanted to know. it's easier to know that now because he you can put out a package of information and by the end of the day everybody is tweeting or chatting about a particular croup of stories. it gives you good direction on what to follow up on. your news tomorrow will be more relevant than it was today. are you worried about apple roku. wrote to - -r- know, itse who don't allows people to stream television without going through a dbs provider. they don't have as much content.

netflix is an example of a company investing in countenance -- in content. "house of cards." but they don't have espn, cnn, fox. news.n't get current it is part of the changing technology. we have our own product called ntour, which allows you to stream it to your tablet. you can slip through the channels and like a particular show. are trying to get our user interface out there now. apple has lots of billions of dollars to spend. whereover-the-top video, video is trending. >> the power that comes from being a moderator.

i would like to bring maria up for a moment. there's a reason. in washington there were reporters who were the stakeout reporters. away.uldn't get they were standing outside the door, and ice, rain, sleet. good example.as a one of those. they can't get out that door without maria being there. i have had tremendous admiration for her enterprise, please. >> what you are saying is i'm a

pain in the ass. [laughter] website. own supporterreport.com. i have a foot in both doors. you talked about it being the wild west. i think it is an apt description. i'm on the board of the atlantic press club. one of the things we wrestled there is a lower barrier to entry, what can we do, and this is more traditional news world, to help the consumer be able to differentiate what is credible news, and what is either made-up or not substantiated? i keep thinking, get it first, but get it right. i think there are certain

standards not everybody plays by the rules. what can we do to help the public understand there is a difference between solid journalism and all the clutter? >> i would just say having these discussions is good. i don't know if you can have enough of them to reach enough people. but telling people that you go through great lengths to fact check stories will allow them to see the difference between that check and not fact checked. it isk talking about important. for us, i know i have great faith in our news organizations. i have watched the discussions that go on. if they didn't go on that would be of great concern to us. we internally know when it is happening and when it isn't. i get -- we get phone calls and

e-mails, bombarded with them. people will send you an article from some source. , blank. you blank i have no idea where that came from. who is saying it. there is no editorial judgment going on. but it is out there and people are reading it. that is dangerous. that is why it is the wild west. in time people will want less static and more signal. >> it may be the biggest issue. , thinking about our granddaughters, will they realize the importance of the new york times feed? option, all the other information streaming into them, and realize this is fact

checked, and they were to get accuracy? tremendous need of our educational system, and our parenting. here is more garbage coming at you then there is solid information. >> i would like to see schools bear down on teaching news literacy. to the extent that an organization can support the and foster it, it would be very helpful. when i was in buffalo we had a publication called next. what we found was geared towards teens. those preteens and teens who likelyxt were much more to become subscribers to the

paper. they understood from an early age that what this was, so get them early and teach them, and support the programs that do that. >> i hope you will take a copy of her article which is outside. you will find one of the best. more. going to take one i asked the aba question and not a commentary. >> i'm going to take two minutes of your time. and tell you who i am. why i came here 45 years ago, title of this gathering is the future of the news, i feel i have mora