captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i' woouff. on the newshour tonight: heeding the call of the white house. more republican lawmakers attack the impeachment process, but steer clear of declaring the president innocent of claims that he tied military aid to political gain. then, prisoner of conscience. a conversation with pastor andrew brunson, who was held captive in turkey for two years on false charges. and, by the numbers. as creative industries rely ever more on consumer-generated data, concerns over privacy grow, and the line between artist and algorithm begins to blur. >> the author is now not

bringing something out of nothing, the author is kind of conjuring all of our preferences, taking them into account and in a sense reflecting ourselves back on us. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> bnsf railway. >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in education, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security.

at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: taking on the impeachment process: more republican lawmakers are speaking up against how the impeachment inquiry in the house of representatives is being conducted. this follows testimony from the top u.s. diplomat to ukraine, who on tuesday directly linked president trump to the withholding of u.s. military aid in return for political favors.

here to report on where it all stands today , our own lisa desjardins and yamiche alcindor. hello to breath of you. lisa, i'm going to start with you. i know you were talking to a lot of folks on the hill today. publicans saying as they push back against this impeachment inquiry, and too you get a sen of how much pressure they are feeling to defend the president? >> it's tremendous pressure, and what a difference a day makes, because we saw i think republicans especially in the senate yesterday struggling to understand that testimony of that top diplomat from ukraine, bill taylor. today we heard the sound of a resounding defense of the president. part of that came from a white house lunch that the president had with a few republican senators, including senator lindsey graham. at that lunch, graham told us reporters at the capitol today that the president said he feels in his bones this process is unfair. he wants, urges, demands republicans push back. here's how ken graham -- lindsey graham described where he is in the process. >> when you're talking about the president of the united states,

it seems to me you'd want to have a process that is consistent with who we are as americans and consistent with what bill clinton was allowed to do, richard nixon was allowed to do, and the process in the house today i think is a danger to the future of the presidency, because if you can drive down a president's poll numbers by having proceedings where you selectively leave information where the president who is the subject of all of this is pretty much shut out, god help future presidents. >> he's saying quite a lot in that sound bite. when he talked about bill clinton and president nixon, what he's asking for in part is the chance to basically the president should be able to object to testimony, see the testimony against him, have his own counsel, his own witnesses. now, democrats say that's coming. they're saying this closed-door process so far is the initial investigation phase. now, when lindsey graham talks about poll numbers and leaks,

he's talking about the testimony we've seen, the opening staimghts especially from so witnesses, you know, lindsey graham amitted to mes not exactly sure where he's coming from. he suspects house democrats are putting that out there. but a bigger picture here, judy, when i talk to house republicans in particular, they say they feel such pressure to fight for this president because their base is telling them they have to fight for this president. they have been told by statistics, this president is not just the one controlling the republican message, he is the republican message. so they have to storm committee hearing rooms to show they're behind this president, and one source told me today they think that isn't going far enough. they want to tell their base they're fighting for the president. >> woodruff: so yamiche, you're talking to folks on the white house. republicans on the hill feeling pressure from their base, but clearly they're also getting signals from the white house? >> will, the white house and president trump are pushing republicans to defend him both privately and publicly. as lisa mentioned, there was a

lunch at the white house today. the president was essentially walking republicans through what he wants them to say about him. he wants them to say that i did nothing wrong. he wants them to make sure that they're making it clear that he feels like the process is awed. mick mulvaney also told lawmakers the white house is trying the get its plan together on impeachment. so you see the white house trying to tell republicans, we'll eventually get handle on this and please bear with us while we do this. and then publicly the president has been making staimghts. on monday we saw the president really lash out at republicans and say, you need to get stronger. the democrats here have their stuff together. they're sticking together. and i'm having to deal with senator mittomney of utah, who is tweeting and going on tv basically really criticizing me, and that's not what i want to see. i want the see more people getting on tv and defending me, and then we saw the republicans storm the capitol and go into that secured facility and basically do what the president says. that's what he saw as getting tougher and really the kind of loyalty he's been seeking. >> woodruff: so lisa, what are you hearing about the

president's attitude toward all, this anger, frustration, i mean, where do they put it on a scale of whatever? >> well, the president is very, very angry about this impeachment inquiry. this issue of ukraine has really been something that's stuck to this presidency and has been a headline for so long, for the last four to five weeks have been filled with this. we've seen this president really go away from all sorts of scandal and controversy, and this wasn't isn't going away in the same way. i also want to walk through the president's own responses to this impeachment inquiry, because it's really something that's been something we should be beholding. so let's look at what the president has said and what the white house has said. they said there was no pressure applied the ukraine on this call. then they said aid was delayed to ukraine but that it wasn't about the investigations into the biden or into joe biden or hunter biden. they then said the aid was tied to the investigations of democrats, but ukrainians were unaware of that. what we've seen the white house's responses have been pushed back and have been

proving to be untrue at least time after time after time. we've seen with the no-pressure campaign, we saw the call where he says, i need you do me favor, though, joe biden needs to be investigated. they also said the aid wasn't delayed because of the bidens. there have been multiple people at least that have come to capitol hill to say that aid was tied to the bidens. and then you have the fact that they say ukraine wasn't aware, and, in fact, there are multiple reports that say ukraine knew as early as may that the president wanted them to try to really influence the 2020 election. >> lindsey graham was asked about that today. the white house has had multiple messages. he said, you noticed that, huh? republicans know. >> woodruff: lisa, getting back to the process, which is what the republicans have been focused on, what do we know about how the normal, regular process is for these kinds of investigations compared the what's happening right now? >> i think is so important, there is so much going on right now. the closed-door hearings going on right now, first of all, right now republicans on three

committee, that's 47 different house committee, do have access to all of this testimony if they want. now, that does include about a dozen of those members who protested yesterday. they didn't need to so-called storm the facility. they had access as it was. most republicans don't have access, but many do. democrats say this is a regular practice. they point to a few things, judy. let's talk about the benghazi investigation run by the house oversight committee under republican trey gowdy. they also had closed-door hearings and they kicked out republicans, as well. kenlindsey graham is saying this higher stakes and i think this needs to go public sooner. he thinks this is the a derailment of the impeachment process, but impeachment is how you define it, and democrats say they are moving to a public kind of scenario soon, but the pressure of course to do that is mounting, and republican wants to put that pressure on them. they also want to make this process look like a circus, which is one of the reasons they did that yesterday. democrats are trying to make it look serious. so watch those two different >> woodruff: two forces heading in each other's

direction. we'll see where this all ends up. lisa desjardins, yamiche alor, thk you both. >> thas. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, congress put aside its divisions over impeachment to join in honoring the late representative elijah cummings. the baltimore democrat died last week. today, an honor guard brought his flag-covered coffin to statuary hall in the u.s. capitol. fellow lawmakers, friends and family looked on as leaders from both parties remembered cummings as a moral compass. >> elijah was truly a "master of the house." he respected its history and in it he helped shape america's future. i have called him our north star, a guide to a better future for our children. >> he is defined by the character of his heart, the

honesty of his dialogue, and the man that... the man that we will miss. >> woodruff: cummings lay in state at the capitol into early evening. his funeral is tomorrow in baltimore. a new wildfire spread new fear in northern california's wine country. flames raced across 15 square miles in sonoma county, pushed by winds gusting to 70 miles an hour. some 2,000 were ordered to evacuate. meanwhile pacific gas and electric imposed new blackouts to prevent downed lines from igniting fires. governor gavin newsom condemned the outages. >> it is infuriating beyond words to live in a state as innovative and extraordinarily entrepreneurial and capable as the state of california to be living in an environment where we are seeing this kind of disruption and these kinds of blackouts.

it's about corporate greed meeting climate change. it's about decades of mismanagement. >> woodruff: pg&e filed for bankruptcy in january, facing billions of dollars in damages from fires in recent years. in northeastern syria, both the syrian government and kurdish- led forces accused turkish troops of cease-fire violations. but ankara made no apologies. instead, turkish president recep tayyip erdogan warned kurdish fighters to leave a border zone or else. >> ( translated ): now, our soldiers and the syrian national army are patrolling the area of the operation inch by inch. if any of these terrorists come across us there, it is our natural right to crush them. >> woodruff: under a turkish- russian plan, the kurds must withdraw nearly 20 miles from the turkish border. the president of lebanon today urged protesters to accept a promise of economic forms and

end days of mass demonstrations. crowds in beirut listened to the appeal on speakers and rejected it. protesters closed roads and lit fires for an eighth day in an ongoing revolt over economic collapse and official corruption. chile's government has offered new concessions after a week of unrest there that has left 18 dead. president sebastian pinera announced today he will freeze a hike in electricity rates. but protesters in santiago were back on the streets anyway, angered over living costs and inequality. others returned to work, a day after the latest demonstrations and riots. >> ( translated ): this is a tragedy for chile. i think that the majority of the people, the ones who do not go out and protest and destroy everything, i think they feel differently. these types of things don't do anything good for chile.

>> woodruff: meanwhile, protests turned len in chile. hundreds d.ed the president step down over allegations he aided his brother in drug trafficking. >> woodruff: british police confirmed today that all 39 people found dead in a container truck were chinese citizens. the truck was discovered early yesterday in an industrial park, about 25 miles east of london. the victims included 31 men and eight women. the 25-year-old driver is being held on suspicion of attempted murder. and in spain, the remains of the dictator francisco franco were exhumed from a state mausoleum and reburied in a private crypt. franco's family carried the coffin away as supporters gave the fascist salute. others said the man who overthrew a democratic government and persecuted his opponents did not deserve a place of honor. >> ( translated ): this decision puts an end to a moral affront, the exaltation of the figure of a dictator in a public place and takes another step in the reconciliation which can only rest in the freedom and

democracy. >> woodruff: general franco took power after the spanish civil war in the 1930s that killed half a million people. he ruled until his death in 1975. back in this country, ohio congressman tim ryan dropped out of the 2020 democratic presidential race. he said he will run for re-election instead. ryan's departure leaves 17 democrats vying for the nomination. former president jimmy carter went home from a georgia hospital today. he fell monday night and fractured his pelvis. it was his third fall and injury since last spring. mr. carter is 95 and has lived longer than any other american president. the u.s. census bureau is out with new projections of dramatic change. they show a population of 400 million people by 2058, up from the current 326 million. it will also be more diverse, with non-hispanic whites dipping

below 50% of the population. and there will be more senior citizens than children in just 15 years. and, on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average lost 28 points to close at 26,805. the nasdaq rose 66 points, and the s&p-500 added five. and the houston astros have fired an executive who shouted abusive language at female reporters. "sports illustrated" had reported that brandon taubman used profanity, yelling about player who was once suspended over domestic violence. the firing came as houston trails the washington nationals in the world series 2-0. still to come on the newshour: captive in turkey. pastor andrew brunson on his two years imprisoned on false charges. cambodia cracks down on the growing orphanage industry. plus, privacy versus precision.

how data is driving creative breakthroughs and novel legal challenges. >> woodruff: we had hoped to have a conversation with vice president mike pence tonight, but that has now been moved to monday. now, we want to hear from lawmakers who have access to the secure room for the interviews at the heart of the impeachment inquiry. we reached out to all the republican members on the three committees involved. none are able to join us. we turn to representative jackie speier, a democrat from california. she sits on both the intelligence and oversight committees, both involved in this phase of the impeachment inquiry.

congresswoman speier, thank you for joining us again. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: we appreciate it. i want to ask you first tact pushback from republicans who are focusing, as we've heard, not so much in defending the president and what he did, although some of them say they're sure it doesn't amount to anything, but on the process. they're saying it's unfair, that it damages the presidency. >> well, first of all, when you can't speak to the merits of an issue, you then direct yourself to something less, and that's why they're looking at process. the interesting thing is that during the benghazi committee meetings, there were over 107 interviews that were held privately before there was any public hearings. the committee was created and operational for four months before there was the first public hearing. so if you're comparing the two efforts, we are far and away going to see open hearings happen much sooner than four months and much fewer than 107

private interviews. >> woodruff: one of the most vocal opponents today or critics was senator lindsey graham of south carolina. i want to play for our audience and for you just part of what he said at a news conference this afternoon. this is senator graham of south carolina. >> what they're doing is selectively leaking information to drive the president's poll numbers down and to drive the momentum for impeachment up. everything coming out of this dark chamber process is being leaked by democrats. they said, you heard bill taylor, i was breathless. the point is, you don't know what bill taylor was asked. we don't know if he was cross-examined and what unfolded. so what you have here is a hearing, a process that is to me not sufficient for due process. it's being used in a politically dangerous fashion. >> woodruff: so congresswoman speier, he's calling it a star

chamber. he's saying it is not due process. >> well, i would say first of all that's a reckless description. he has not ventured into those committee rooms, but i can tell you and tell him that those interviews that take place are very fair. the democrats have one hour to ask questions, the republicans have one hour to ask questions, and then we alternate back and forth for the duration of the interview. secondly, the -- most of the transcripts will become public. third, the statements that have been released for the most part have been released by the individuals who were being interviewed. so i don't quite understand why mr. graham or senator graham is suggesting such vitriolic language. >> woodruff: why are the hearings being held in private now? >> they're not really hearings. they're interviews. it's fact finding. so when you're trying to develop

your facts, you don't necessarily want persons to corroborate their testimony before coming in. so if we did, fact, make them public at the outset, we would not find thenconsistencies that frankly we have already found. >> woodruff: because that is an essential point republicans keep making, that this is so critical, we're talking about the survival of the president himself, and the public needs to know what is going on in this room. >> they do need to know, and they will get to know that. the transcripts are going to be made public, and there are going to be a series of public hearings, as well, where many of these witnesses will come back and testify before an open committee so that everyone can hear their testimony. >> woodruff: how does the public have confidence, congresswoman speier, that the estions... that what these individuals who come before the committee are telling the truth? >> well, they swear under oath,

so by doing so, if they perjure themselves, they would be subject to a criminal tria >> woodruff: and what would happen? i mean, how would you -- >> that's how michael cohen is spending time in prison. he swore under oath and he was lying. he's now in prison. >> woodruff: so, for example, when senator graham and other republicans compare this to the process leading up to the impeachment of president bill clinton and even recalling what happened under president nixon and saying this doesn't follow the process back then, how does it compare? >> so there aren't any specific rules, but in those case, there was a special prosecutor who was identified. in this situation, the department of justice under attorney general barr declined to pursue the whistleblower complaint because they did not think that there was y evidence there. soe have to do the evidence collection at this point, because the department of justice declined to do so.

>> woodruff: one of the other criticis we're hearing from republicans is that you didn't have a special prosecutor. maybe it's connected to the point you just made, but they're saying, wait a minute, robert mueller spent all that time investigating russia connections. he ended up not finding anything. and democrats are disappointed they couldn't impeach the president over that, so they're turning to this, but in this case there has been no special prosecutor. >> well, i guess i woulding we to differ with the conclusion. in the mueller report there were ten incidents of obstruction of justice, but robert mueller believed he could not file any because there is this this department of justice rule that you cannot charge a seated president. and i would argue even volume one where they looked at the intervention by the russians and to what extent the campaign of donald trump was engaged with them, there were over 250 contacts by the trump campaign and russian operatives and 32 in-person meetings.

>> woodruff: look ahead for us, if you will, congresswoman. where do you see this process moving? how long is it going to take to interview all the people you want to interview, and we're now hearing that there will be public hearings next month. when do you see that beginning and what will it look like? >> so i can't give you a specific date when those hearings will begin. i would be confident that we will be having public hearings within a month, and i think they will be run like any other hearing where the democrats will ask questions and the republicans will ask questions. it will be very fair, much like all of the depositions that we've taken. and let me underscore once again that the benghazi committee had over 107 behind-closed-door interviews before they completed their work and four months before they went to their first public hearing. so we're way ahead of their schedule. >> woodruff: and do you know finally at this point how many

more witnesses you're going to be hearing from? >> i can't tell you a specific number, but i think we probably have another two weeks or so of interviews to undertake. >> woodruff: congresswoman jackie speier of california who serves both on the intelligence committee and the oversight committee. thank you. >> thank you for having me. >> woodruff: american evangelical pastor andrew brunson spent two years imprisoned in turkey on what the u.s. calls bogus charges. his case created a crisis between the u.s. and its nato ally. for brunson, it caused a crisis of faith--and a battle with depression. and a warning, there will be a brief mention of suicide in the upcoming segment. brunson has written a new book about his ordeal titled "god's hostage."

our nick schifrin sat down with him and senator jeanne shaheen, who played a key role in his release, and in brunson's story. >> schifrin: before pastor andrew brunson became an unwilling mea sensation and then flash point of u.s.-turkish hostility, he lived a quiet life in turkey for 25 years. he built a small christian conggation near the aegean sea, and with his wife noreen helped refugees from neighboring syria. but in july 2016, elements of the turkish military launched a failed coup. president recep tayyip erdogan cracked down on the military and all aspects of society. he rallied supporters and arrested hundreds of thousands he accused of terrorism. the brunsons were also both arrested. in turkey they spent every day together. but when noreen was released, andrew was isolated and shuttled between prisons for two years. noreen visited the prison every day and kept a vigil. >> turkish tv

kept brunson in the news, accusing him of being a c.i.a. agent and supporting an exiled cleric living in pennsylvania who turkey blames for the coup attempt. turkey wanted to trade goulan for brunson. >> release pastor andrew brunson now or be prepared to face the consequences. >> reporter: the trump administration refused and imposed sanctions, and congress maintained bipartisan pressure. north carolina republican senator thom tillis. >> the charges that we've seen to me are specious, and i think we've got to continue to support the family. >> schifrin: new hampshire democratic senator jeanne shaheen pushed erdogan for brunson's release. on october 12, 2018, he was released almost two years to the day after his arrest. last week i sat down with brunson and sheheen together in washington. >> we were arrested to be deported, and somebody decided to hold us, and i think that was to intimidate other missionaries so they would self-deport.

at some point i became obviously a use for leverage to try to gain concessions from the u.s. >> schifrin: there is a human story and the god story. >> i was a hostaging but when god had completed what he wanted to through my imprisonment, then he caused my release. >> schifrin: the first night you describe being locked up behind a big metal door if a foreign country, hearing the keys turn and the bolt slam for the first time is sobering. it's a sudden loss of control and plunge into uncertainty. can you describe what that felt like? >> a total loss of control. it was very scary. i think, god, you're the one keeping me here when i'm i'm full of fear. and you're the one who could release me and you're not doing it, and you're doing this to toughen me up. and so i was having -- it was taking me into crisis of faith. >> schifrin: do you think you lost your faith? >> i didn't lose my faith.

i was desperate toold on to it. i wasn't wanting to walk away from it, but i was afraid that i was going insane at times. >> schifrin: did you feel forsaken? >> at tes i did. i was very surprised. many of the biographies i've rad of what i would call christian hero, my heroes, they show very strong people. i expected that when i was suffering i would also have that strength, and instead i felt very broken and weak. >> schifrin: and you write very honestly about not only your crisis of faith, but your crisis of depression, how deep was your despair at one point? >> at one point the turkish government wanted to give me three life sentences and solitary confinement with no parole. i thought i could waste away here. and i would much rather be in heaven than spend the rest of my life in a turkish prison. that's what was leading me to

think-of-suiciden i'm glad i didn't do it. thcombion despair and anxiety is very dangerous. when i think i may ever get out, i wanted to escape the situation. it's not that i wanted to die. it's that i didn't want the live. i couldn't imagine living in these circumstances for a listening period of time. >> schifrin: nor sheheen, we turn to you. how important is this case to you and how did it feel like? >> when andrew describes what it feels like to be blocked in that cell is an experience no american citizen should ever have to deal with in a foreign country, especially someone who is trying to do good, who has lived there, whose family has lived there, who then is taken into custody for no reason. i mean, those were totally trumped up charges. there was no spying. it clearly was not due process. >> the charges against me were just ridiculous and had no

basis -- i knew i could be released through a judicial process, but this was not being driven by the courts. >> schifrin: meaning it was being driven by the top? >> sure. i knew there was one person in the end who would make the decision to release me or not. >> schifrin: the president? >> yes. >> schifrin: during the trial when you had to defend yourself, you described how you found your voice. can you describe what and what that trial was like? >> i chose to forgive people, which i have to forgive them anyway, because that's what i'm required to do as a christian. jesus said we're supposed to rejoice when we're persecuted for his sake, but i'm blessed to actually be suffering for his sake. and that's when i felt almost a holy defiance i would say. we didn't know we went to the final court session, it ended up being the final court seconds. i didn't know i would be released. i packed two bags, one to come to the states and the other to return to prison.

so in the court session, they declared me guilty of terrorism, but then they said, we're suspending that for time served and whi you appeal it, and your travel ban is lifted, and that basically means please leave as soon as you can. so it was such a roller coaster to go from being convicted of terror, thinking i'm going back to prison, and then we're rushing to the airport to get on an air force plane and leave turkish air space as soon as possible in case they change their minds. so within 24 hours i go from being convicted of terror to visiting the white house. >> lord god, i ask that -- >> overwhelming feeling of gratefulnesso all the people who are involved in both congress and the administration and how wonderful to be back with my children and with my wife. >> schifrin: do you also give president trump some credit? >> i do. this is the way government is supposed to work.

people areupposed to work together, both houses of congress, with the administration to accomplish whatever the goal is and the interests of the american people. we should be able to weigh in for every american who is falsely imprisoned around the world to try and make sure we can get them released. >> schifrin: was the president's personal involvement important? >> oh, i think so. clearly he has a relationship with president erdogan. and i think the more pressure we could put on turkey, the better. >> schifrin: after everything he's been through, how do you feel about turkey today? >> we still love the turks. i don't really like the turkish government, but i feel like they stole two years from me, but god has reem. and i believe that what i went through,hat i suffered is actually going to bring blessing to turkey. so we have no regrets.

my faith deepened as i went through this. i would say it was severely tested and because it was tested and i came out of it, it's proven now. it's tested and proven. >> schifrin: senator sheheen, andrew brunson, thank you very much to you both. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: the concept of orphanages has long been considered outdated in developed countries. and yet these institutions still house hundreds of thousands of children in the developing world. and surprisingly, most of these children are actually not orphans. special correspondent fred de sam lazaro reports from cambodia as part of his series, "agents for change." >> reporter: six year old makara rith spent three months in an

orphanage in battambang, cambodia. fingprmade it official: her's was going home there, a counselor waited in welcome with toys for makara and his siblings. >> ( translated ): i'm happy that i can see my mom, my auntie, my sister, and my brother, >> reporter: makara was one of thousands of cambodian children who live in facilities commonly called orphanages here. like him, the vast majority are not orphans. neither parents nor the facilities are looking to offer the children for adoption. parents, many in dire poverty are easily convinced to place their children in these residential facilities, says jedtha pon, counder of a nonprofit called the cambodian children's trust. >> ( translated ): most of them think that in the orphanage, the child will have a better life with access to food, education

and medical care. >> reporter: now, makara and his mother minear norn are part of an effort by several aid agencies working with cambodia's government to return children to their families. >> ( translated ): i feel like i have my child closer to me, now i feel happy. >> reporter: happy that she now has all three children together. but this was a day of mixed emotions--guilt for sending her son away, worry about the future. she's single and has no formal education. >> ( translated ): my life has been very difficult. we just survive day to day. >> reporter: under the new campaign, she'll have help. for at least two years, cambodia children's trust provides a safety net for the families it serves. >> ( translated ): if they have domestic violence, if they have mental health issues, or any children who are not going to school, we work with the social worker. we also provide support in terms of food. >> reporter: the challenges for this family and for the broader campaign are daunting. it begins with the image

cambodia cannot seem to shake: of the khmer rouge genocide, its two million victims displayed in museums, immortalized by hollywood. >> cambodia in 2019 has nothing to do with cambodia in 1979. >> reporter: sebastien marot founded a vocational training charity 25 years ago that's helped thousands of marginalized children and their parents. >> the movie "killing fields," and all the movies that came out about cambodia about this. so, when people think cambodia, they think that all the children are being victims of destruction, and everyone is an orphan, which is far from the truth. >> reporter: with the civil strife over, he says there are far fewer orphans now. many children still live in poverty but their number has also dropped amid robust economic growth, notably in tourism to cambodia's world famous temples. there may be fewer orphans, but

orphanages have also become a growth industry. there were about 150 in 2005; today there are more than 400, housing more than 16,000 children. often, they are put on display, dancing for tourists who are then coaxed to leave a donation. >> ( translated ): we learn to dance, we performed for foreign visitors. it's not fun, it's so exhausting. >> reporter: 14 year old dara and his sister dary, who's nine, were recently reunited with their mother after six years in an orphanage. they recalled lives of physical abuse and insufficient food. >> ( translated ): it wasn't fun. >> reporter: there's profit, marot says, in pity. >> it's an easy sell. a child in a terrible situation, fly on the eye, give me $5 a month. if it were that easy, it would be fantastic, but it's not.

>> reporter: then there's" voluntourism"-- a thriving industry in which college or gap year students pay agencies to place them in orphanages. >> each year, tens of thousands of young australians, europeans and north americans come to cambodia to volunteer. they'll spend a few days, sometimes weeks, in orphanages, mostly teaching english to the children. child development experts say not only does this not help the children, it actually harms them. >> it comes from a very good feeling that i'm helping, but realistically would you like to have your teacher change every week? >> reporter: is that how short >> reporter: children thrive on nurturing long term relationships with adults, the kind usually foundnly in a family. >> the development of a child, especially a young child, is hindered dramatically by being in an orphanage, by the lack of personal attention, by not being in a family. >> reporter: but to ted olbrich, it depends on the family and the orphanage.

olbrich is an american evangelical pastor who, with his wife sou, founded four-square children of promise, the largest of several faith-based operators of residential ce facilities or as he calls them, church homes. some older, religion-based groups have joined the campaign to de-institutionalize children. but others, like four square, have resisted. the olbrichs say they opened their first church home in the early 90s, because there was a pressing need. >> we didn't come here intending to take care of orphans, we came here to build a church, and we wound up having these kids >> reporter: and that need has only grown, he says, to 106 homes, driven by family dysfunction that's widespread-- and social mores. >> our biggest source of children is children that had mothers who died in childbirth. now, those children are

considered cursed. >> reporter: widows are also marginalized in cambodia, he adds, and they are brought in to staff their facilities. each home has about 25 children. >> these widows, they live with the kids, and they're there with the kids their entire life that they're growing up in the orphan homes. >> reporter: many then profess their christianity, not a requirement, he says, but a good outcome. >> i'm a proselytizer. >> reporter: unapologetically? >> unapologetic proselytizer. >> reporter: sebastien marot says olbrich is exaggerating cambodia's social ills and says his mission would be intolerable if the tables were turned. >> i'm sure they would be very upset if a muslim organization opened centers in the u.s., or in france, and started taking children from communities, put them there to turn them into nice little muslims. and this is what they're doing here.

it's a buddhist country. >> reporter: he says orphanages are an outdated concept, closed long ago in france and the u.s. in favor of placing children in foster families and adoption. that's the goal in cambodia, but it's not easy, given the poverty that keeps life fragile for many families and limited resources for family reintegration, which, ironically, is the cheaper option. >> ( translated ): it's about 10 to 15 times cheaper to support a child living in the community, or with their family, rather than to bring them into an institution. >> reporter: the olbrichs say their institutions are family. and they have no plans to scale them back. the cambodian government's goal is to reduce the number of children in orphanages by a third by next year. for the pbs newshour, this is fred de sam lazaro in battambang, cambodia. >> woodruff: fred's reporting is a partnership with the undertold

stories project at the university of st thomas in minnesota. >> woodruff: one major transformation profoundly affecting the global economy is the way big data and artificial intelligence a being used in commerce and business. what's gotten less attention: how this is driving changes in the creative industries. in the second of two pieces, special correspondent and washington post columnist catherine rampell looks at some of the fundamental questions this is raising for artists, designers and creators. it's part of our regular series, "making sense." >> reporter: this bright, cheerful clothing line is a hot commodity, worn by the likes of michelle obama, aidy bryant, taylor swift, beyonce. >> people wear us to be happy.

>> reporter: tanya taylor is undoubtedly creative, an artist who paints original prints for her clothes. but she's in demand partly because she gives customers what they want. >> to me the biggest part about being a successful designer is absolutely listening to a customer and knowing who they are. >> reporter: and she knows what they want because they tell her. quite explicitly, thanks to the detailed feedback she receives from rent the runway. it's a platform that allows customers to rent rather than buy designer clothes. >> we basically have harnessed millions of data points over the last decade. >> reporter: sarah tam is rent the runway's chief merchant officer. >> every item of clothing that we have on our site is tagged with over 60 attributes. things like color, fabric, silhouette, length. we also have millions of customer interactions that we collect and millions of photo reviews. >> reporter: the data help rent

the runway refine its inventory and predict what its typical customer will want next season. >> so last fall, we noticed that blazers, performing extremely well. she loves color and pattern so we sourced brands like veronica beard that we launched on site. she loves fitted, she likes to outfit in suit sets. so we brought in this veronica beard set here. >> so when we think about the rent the runway customer... >> reporter: the data also get fed back to designers like taylor, who use it to nip the hips or let out the bust. or choose a different color or fabric. or mash up elements of different designs that are working well. >> so this was our inez dress and it was definitely the most rented dress of our last spring season. and what we learned is that people love the stretch linen, but they didn't love the snap at the neckline. the next step we learned, was that people love jumpsuits from rent the runway. so we're like, let's combine that information. but what we did, is we took away the snap, and then it's a little jumpsuit shape. >> reporter: in a dark neutral print, because that's what the

data advised. access to this kind of feedback significantly improves the chances that a creation will succeed. >> the biggest risk for most creators is the risk that what they create will fail. >> reporter: law professors christopher sprigman and kal raustiala have researched how the harvesting of vast troves of data is changing creative industries, and what it might mean for their legal protections and economic rewards. >> human creativity has always been an incredibly risky endeavor as a business. if data can lower that risk, it makes creative endeavors easier to invest in, potentially more rewarding. >> it's not a guarantee but they're going to place better bet. >> reporter: creative industries have traditionally had difficulty predicting what will sell and what won't. as screenwriter william goldman memorably put it in his 1983 memoir: "nobody knows anything"" >> people go to see hits because they want to see that movie. they don't go to see flops because they don't want to see that movie. it's as simple as that and the problem hollywood has is they

can't figure out why. >> it's one of the many reasons we see so many sequels. what's worked before will probably work again. >> reporter: big data has allowed companies to figure out what works with more precision. which of course can mean more precise pandering to the mses. >> reporter: the processes that we're talking about tend not to give you something wildly different. they tend to give you more of what you already watched or listened to or liked. >> keep in mind: there's a bunch of literature on how much novelty people want, and the answer is a relatively modest amount. people like paintings that look somewhat like the paintings they've seen, people like movies that are somewhat like the movies they've seen. >> reporter: that said, data has been used to overturn at least some of the conventional wisdom about what -- and who -- audiences want to see. >> an example is netflix, which not too long ago produced a film with sandra bullock called "bird box." they cast an older female lead, a relatively diverse cast in this horror film. that's a relatively adventurous choice that turned out to pay

off for them. and the talk among netflix people was that they did that in response to data. >> reporter: a ton of data, pulled from more than 100 million users' viewing habits. >> size, scale is very important here. to make use of data you've got to collect a lot of it. >> reporter: how replicable is what you do? could an upstart produce the high quality data and analytics that you have? >> it's not so easily replicable. we have a decade worth of data. along with a lot of the technology that we employ to analyze the data. >> reporter: this hunger for data might be driving consolidation in creative industries. take the merger of time warner and at&t. >> they went to the judge and they said, look. time warner is a programmer. at&t is a platform. what we need to do is we need to link these things up so that we can get the data to time warner that allows them to produce better content. >> reporter: that might be good for the newly merged company. but, says sprigman, >> if the returns to data keep

growing and growing and growing as you get bigger, we could have a pretty strong impetus toward monopoly or at least significant market power and that's a concern. >> reporter: also a concern: privacy. consumers may not know their netflix-watching habits, for example, are being closely monitored. >> most people don't realize how much data about their activities-- when they're stopping, when they're starting, that's being in a sense just gathered up and then spit back at them in different ways, or maybe sold to third parties, which is a concern that a lot of people increasingly have about their data in other contexts. >> reporter: on the other hand, some customers willingly turn over this information. >> our customers-- 98% of them-- give us item level feedback after every time they rent something so we can understand if our customer loves an item, how it's fitting her, how many times she's wearing it and where she's wearing it to. >> reporter: and the customers just provide all of this information to you voluntarily. >> yes, believe it or not we have built this incredible brand community. >> reporter: there are other legal questions that arise from

this use of big data. like whether we shouldhi copyright law, which exists in create. incentives artists to >> copyright is a way of lowering the risk of investing in creative enterprises. if data driven creativity is lowering that risk then. it will kind of be a helpmate to or even a stand-in for copyright protection. >> reporter: and who even deserves to own the copyright to a work, if it's created by algorithm rather than artist? >> the author is now not bringing something out of nothing, the author is kind of conjuring all of our preferences, taking them into account and in a sense reflecting ourselves back on us. if this shifts people's views of who's responsible for the creative work where it's more of a community project, then this might shift some of the moral supports that undergird copyright protection. >> reporter: yeah, do i own my consumer preferences or do the companies whose stuff i buy own my preferences. >> that is a very current debate

over whether you and i own the data that we in a sense produce through our activities and that we transmit to these companies. >> reporter: artists will argue that they're still running the show. >> the algorithm isn't really telling them how to create the art. i think it's just optimizing the art they create. >> reporter: it wasn't like the data was plugged, fed into a computer and boop, boop, boop, boop, boop now like the algorithm spit out this. >> i don't think women's minds work in algorithms, unfortunately. i wish it could be that straightforward and easy. it's more intuition and you have to read between the lines with the data and understand kind of where women are going next is hard to predict. >> reporter: at least for now. for the pbs newshour, i'm catherine rampell, in new york. >> woodruff: as many as 2.5 billion people around the world need eyeglasses but don't

have them. untreated poor vision keeps people from reaching their full potential. tonight's "brief but spectacular" features an eye doctor looking for new ways to solve the problem. >> when i was 12 years old, i was told by my teachers that i was a bit slow and that i wasn't paying attention, and then i was taken for an eye test where they found that i have really poor vision. and when i put on a pair of glasses, i saw that trees have leaves on for the first time. and myife took a very different course as a consequence of something so simple. i was aware that the thing that happen to me with a pair of glasses may not have been true if i've lived somewhere else. and so i wanted to become a doctor, which i then became and then i became an eye surgeon and with this burning desire to change this injustice. worldwide, there's 2.5 billion people. so, one in three in need a pair of glasses and can't get them. there's 36 million people who are blind, four in every five of whom shouldn't be because their

cause of blindness is curable. in 2011, i left my job as an eye surgeon in the u.k. and my wife and our one-year-old son packed our bags and moved to kenya. we went there because we wanted to really understand the needs of a large population. and to do it, we have to establish a hundred eye clinics. and in the course of doing so, just realized how big the scale of the problem was. but also how much potential there was to change lives if this were done differently. when i was working in the field in kenya, i was taking £100,000 worth of eye equipment and a team of 15 people to understand why people couldn't see and what the causes were. what we then started doing with peek was creating mobile technology that could do the same assessments but in the hands of non-specialists. so, the first thing that we built was a vision test that could measure somebody's vision in any language. and then we built a tool that would sit on the phone which should allow you to see inside the eye, so you could see the back of the eye and then understand why somebody can't see. when i was working in kenya it became apparent how many people have access to a mobile device. i would go to places that have no roads, no electricity and no water. but in those same places, people

have a mobile phone. an incredible doctor said to m"" in the community that i work, there are children in the schools who can't see." and when i send my nurse from the hospital to go and see them, she finds them. but she spends all day in one school to find around 5% of the children with a problem. and i can no longer afford to send thebecause the clinic is too busy. so we said, "why don't we train teachers to do the same thing?" and so teachers started using our peek acuity app to measure vision to get a simulation of what that child could see, and then it would automate a message to that child's parents, to the head teacher and to the hospit. so suddenly everybody knew that child existed with a solvable problem. the first me we trialed it, 25 teachers screened 21,000 children in just nine days. we then went on to scale up to 300,000 children covering the entire district. the government of botswana has shown incredible leadership and have committed to screen and treat every single school child in the country, making them the first country inhe world where an entire generation no longer have to suffer this problem. my name is dr. andrew bastawrous

and this is my "brief but spectacular" take on eradicating avoidable blindness. >> woodruff: so good to hear about that. you can find more episodes of our brief but spectacular series at www.pbs.org/newshour/brief. >> woodruff: also online, a new study finds that hospitals that have experienced a data breach, the death rate among heart attack patients increased in the months and years afterward. we explain the connection on our web site, www.pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us line and again here tomorrow evening. for als u at the pbs newshour, thank you and see you soon. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and with the ongoing support

of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> you're watching pbs.

hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & company." this week we are dipping into the archives and looking bac at some of our favorite interviews of the year. and here's what's coming up. winter at the very top of the fashion industry surveys her cultural kingdom for us in a rare interview.. she tells me why her magazine takes a stand. plus. >> we weren't back in mississippi for longer than a week when you smashed me across the face with a heel because i talkedack. >> this author exposes his mother as a brutal disciplinarian growing up in ssissippi and the reasons behind it. then we zoom out to the cycle of progress and cklash