captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: secretary of state hillary clinton warned russia today that its interests in syria are at risk if it doesn't join the international community to stop the bloodshed. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the "newshour" tonight: we get the latest on the uprising, the humanitarian crisis and the escalating tensions between the u.s. and russia. >> woodruff: plus, we look at the battle for control of the house of representatives this election year. >> brown: then, paul solman reports on today's senate hearing, where j.p. morgan c.e.o. jamie dimon took responsibility for the bank's big losses and said some senior

>> this portfolio morphed into something that, rather than protect the firm, created new and potentially larger risks. as a result, we have let a lot of people down, and we are sorry for it. >> woodruff: and gwen ifill examines the continuing risks to the financial system and the road ahead for regulatory reform. >> brown: we assess causes and effects after one of the nation's oldest dailies-- one that survived hurricane katrina -- lays off half its newsroom staff. >> woodruff: and we talk with author michael lewis, whose thought provoking words to graduates of the class of 2012 created a buzz online. >> you are the lucky few. lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's "newshour." major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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>> brown: washington and moscow waged a war of words today over syria. the sharp exchanges came against the backdrop of an increasingly brutal fight that claimed more lives. ( explosions ) >> brown: the roar of government guns resounded across the syrian landscape today, in president bashar al-assad's escalating campaign to pound rebel cities into submission. amateur video showed explosions from a rain of shells fired into homs, in central syria. and in the east, the wounded filled hospitals in dayr al- zour. the battles on the ground also fueled a new diplomatic confrontation war between the u.s. and russia. russian foreign minister sergei lavrov denied that moscow is supplying damascus with helicopter gunships, as secretary of state hillary clinton charged on tuesday.

lavrov spoke in iran. >> ( translated ): all the contracts we have with syria are about anti-aircraft air defense and we are violating none of the international laws and providing no illegal weapons to syria. >> brown: hours later, in washington, clinton fired back, after meeting with the foreign minister of india. >> russia says it wants peace and stability restored, it says it has no particular love lost for assad and it also claims to have vital interests in the region. and relationship that it wants to continue to keep. they put all of that at risk if they do not move more constructively right now. and i would emphasize that the u.s. has provided no military >> brown: u.s. concerns were underscored by recent massacres in syria, and warnings of a potential new atrocity in haffa near assad's hometown of

kardaha. state t.v. reported government troops captured haffa today. and new video showed u.n. observers being attacked yesterday as they tried in vain to reach the town. and as the fighting grew, so did the suffering. turkey announced that 2000 syrian refugees crossed into turkey in the past two days. nearly 30,000 are now sheltering there. rabab al-rifai of the international red cross. >> now one of our priorities is to be able to reach as many people as possible in as many violent-stricken areas and the shortest delay possible. however, due to the increasing situation in several parts of the country, we are unable to answer to all the needs at the same time. >> it all led the u.n.'s peacekeeping chief to say syria has, in fact, entered into civil war.

syria's foreign minister denied that claim but syria's foreign ministry but france, in turn, rejected the syrian statement. the new foreign minister laurent fabius spoke in paris. >> ( translated ): there is no need to play with words. when groups belonging to the same people massively tear one another apart and kill one another, if you can't call it a civil war, then there are no words to describe it. more now, from michele dunne, director of the atlantic council's center for the middle east. she's served at the state department and on the national security council staff. and dimitri simes, president of the center for the national interest, a foreign policy think tank. michele dunne, let me start with you. what is going on?

how serious is this diplomat conflict between the u.s. and the russians? >> well, there's been a lot of tension, of course, between the united states and for some time now over syria, and i think that the escalating situation within syria itself, even with the past couple of weeks, we've seen the level of brutality, the brutality against women and children, and the weapons being used. i mean, we're seeing now helicopter gunships used against civilian populations, bombardment of civilian populations, accompanied by atrocities by militias. all of this, i think, is putting the united states under extreme pressure and this is one of the reasons i believe secretary clinton called out the russians and said you're contributing to this by giving the syrians these kind of weapons. >> brown: dimitri simes, i see you've joined us. thanks for getting through the traffic to us. what do you make of what's going on with the russians and the u.s.?

what's behind it? >> i completely understand secretary clinton is under a lot of pressure and also the situation on the ground in syria is not just unfortunate unfortunate. it is tragic. the question is what do we want moscow to do and how can we get from moscow what we need? and my concern is that public statements denouncing moscow, just on the eve of a meeting between president obama and president putin, the meeting was supposed to take next monday in mexico, that that may be a good way to embarrass the russians, but not a very effective way to get their cooperation. >> brown: what, dimitri simes, is the objective here? >> i was in moscow about a week ago and i had the chance to talk to several russian officials and my impression was the increasing way of viewing president assad as a liability. they did not like to have president assad to be a major

obstacle in their relations with the united states, the european union, and israel. at the same time, assad for many years, was viewed as a russian client. several russian clients have lost their positions and sometimes in the case of saddam hussein, muammar gaddafi-- the russians are reluctant to allow president assad to be overthrown without some kind of a peaceful arrangement more comprehensive that just his departure. and they, obviously, insist they would be a part of that arrangement. >> brown: so michele dunne, this calling out, as you referred to, it was fairly harsh language. that expresses the some kind of frustration? can the u.s. act without's-- russia's cooperation? >> well, the united states basically can't academy of act in the u.n. security council and get a u.n. security council blessing for international action in syria without russia's cooperation, of course, because russia can use its veto there.

i think know-- look, watching syria is like watching a slow-motion train wreck. you can see this thing releaptlessly moving toward an uglier and uglier situation. it's been going that way for more than a year now. the united states has tried the nice way with rush ahas tried working with russia to come up with some sort of a solution and so forth, and it's just not happening. you know, and the-- as i said, the pressure is building for-- towards some kind of international intervention. >> brown: what do you see? what are the options? >> well, i mean, there are various different options that, you know, would basically create zones of syria in which the syrian government no longer has control and so forth. i think for a long time people were hoping that would act to speak to perhaps others within the syrian regime to bring about some sort of a change. there's been talk of a yemen-type solution in which,s in the regime would displace

placeelassad and there could be a peaceful change leading towards a democratic transition but so far russia hasn't been motivate or maybe it can't do it, but it isn't happening. >> brown: which do you think it is, dimitri simes, from your talks with them? was there talk of any solutions possible that could possibly be accepted by the russians? >> well, i basically agree with everything michele dunne has said, but look at the situation from the russian perspective. the new president, pint, who doesn't view himself as a little puppy who will be treated nicely by president obama, by the american administration, and because of that, he would change all russian policies, and around russian interests as he understands them. they also do feel that the yemeni solution may be a good beginning, and they are prepared to pursue it. mind you, in yemen, however, it was not easy to persuade the

president to leave. he agreed to leave only after he was seriously wounded, went for medical treatment in saudi arabia, and then in the united states. so it's a process to separate somebody like president assad to leave power, particularly if you take into account, as michele dunne has said, the russian leverage is real but limited. the results-- they obviously do not want to see president assad to go. i think what the russians would like to see is some kind of an international process which would lead to president assad's departure but there would be no fundamental change in the regime, exactly as it happened in yemen. let me say, however, again, something michele dunne said, which i find quite interesting, and i don't know whether she had it it in mind, but perhaps she did-- namely, nobody said we're not entitled to act without u.n. security council blessing.

as one official in moscow put it to me, "look, if the united states feels very strongly that force has to be used and is determined to act, let the united states do it without u.n. security council blessing, the way it has happened in the case of kosovo, the way it has happened in iraq--" finish. >> brown: finish, i'm sorry >> way it has happened in iraq. the russians would obviously criticize that. they would not want a decision which does not give-- if that is the only way to resolve the situation, i think they would be prepared to live with that. >> brown: let me ask michele dunne briefly, respond to that. is that what you had in mind? >> well, look, it may come to that. of course, you know, the obama administration is extremely, extremely unwilling to do that. but we just can't exclude that possibility that the situation in syria will get that unbearable, and that's where we

come to russian interests. we may come to that moment where the united states and others in the international community say to rush awe know you have interests in syria. do you want to secure them because you have to act? otherwise, we will. and that day might come, as i said, slow-motion train moving in that direction very, very painfully. >> brown: all right michele dunne, dimitri simes, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> woodruff: still to come on the "newshour": the fight for control of the house; j.p. morgan's c.e.o. on the hot seat; layoffs in southern newspaper news rooms and to college graduates: success comes mostly from luck. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: a wave of car bombings in iraq killed at least 66 people today. more than 200 others were wounded. in all, 16 bombs exploded in baghdad and other cities. the targets were mostly shi-ite pilgrims, marking the eighth-century death of a saint. there was no immediate claim of responsibility, but past attacks have often been the work of

sunni militants. a tense calm came to western myanmar as heavy rains dampened five days of sectarian violence. the clashes pit buddhists against muslims in rakhine state. at least 21 people have died there, and more than 1,600 homes have burned. the fighting has triggered a wave of muslim refugees, with thousands fleeing the area. many are traveling by boat to neighboring bangladesh. >> sreenivasan: the war on wildfires raged on today in the southwest. some 1,000 firefighters worked around the clock against the high park blaze in northern colorado. so far, it's scorched 73 square miles and forced hundreds of people to flee. fire commander bill hahnenberg warned today his crews are in for a long fight. >> the last couple of days have been not great but pretty good, and if we're making progress-- and we are-- that may be the best we can expect. you know, these fires are long duration. this is not the kind of fire we're going to spend a few days on and go home.

you're probably going to see firefighters around this community until you get substantial rain. >> sreenivasan: wildfires are also burning in new mexico, and in at least seven other western states. federal prosecutors announced today they will not re-try former democratic presidential candidate john edwards. he was acquitted last month of taking illegal campaign contributions, allegedly, to hide a mistress. the jury deadlocked on five other counts. also today, the u.s. anti-doping agency accused cyclist lance armstrong of using performance- enhancing drugs. the seven-time winner of the tour de france called the charges baseless. north dakota voters decided they want to dump the university of north dakota's fighting sioux nickname. a proposal to retire the moniker carried easily, in tuesday's referendum. the n.c.a.a. had deemed the name offensive to american indians and imposed sanctions on the university. the state's board of higher education is expected to make the change official, and retire the nickname. wall street was hit by new worries today over europe's debt

troubles. stocks fell after cyprus warned it might become the latest nation to seek a bailout. the dow jones industrial average lost 77 points to close at 12,496. the nasdaq fell 22 points to close at 2818. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: to politics next. democrats held on to a seat in a competitive house district in arizona last night. congressional aide ron barber, who was wounded in the attack on congresswoman gabrielle giffords in 2011, won the special election to serve the remainder of her term. and with the majority of the primaries completed, we took a look at the overall house landscape this november. the battle for control of the house of representatives started on the last election night, 2010, when republicans won a sweeping victory. from that moment, democrats have been plotting to take back the gavel. house minority leader nancy pelosi was asked about her

party's chances during an appearance on a.b.c. last month. >> if the election were held today, do you think the democrats would win? >> yes, i do. i think it would be dead-even, about-- the speaker three-- 30% chance that they would lose or something. but i think it's bigger than that. but what he did say that was correct was that there are about 50 republican seats in play. i would say 75. i feel pretty good about where we are. >> woodruff: that came after house speaker john boehner made this assessment of the g.o.p's prospects in april on fox news. >> i would say that there is a two-in-three chance that we win control of the house again, but there's a one-in-three chance that we could lose, and i'm being myself, frank. we've got a big challenge, and we've got work to do. >> woodruff: a new reuters poll found that voters nationally would pick the democratic candidate in their district 47% to 44% over the republican

choice, giving democrats confidence that winning the majority is at least possible. but the fact is, democrats need 25 more seats to take back power this fall, and both parties know the decennial redistricting process makes that even harder. shira toeplitz covers congressional elections for roll call. >> redistricting has drastically changed a lot of these competitive house seats. places where in the last ten years we've seen competitive house races, they aren't as competitive any more because one party or the other redrew the lines around these house seats to make them more democratic or more republican. on the whole republicans controlled most of the map making processes in a lot of these battleground states, states like north carolina, states like texas, states like florida these key states where we've seen a lot of difficult house races in past cycles. so i would say redistricting tilts in their favor. >> woodruff: already redistricting has claimed four

sitting members, who lost their jobs thanks to being drawn into the same district with a colleague. and there are several more of those contests to come. that's not counting the 27 members who have chosen to retire instead of run for re- election. some had newly drawn districts that would be tougher to win this time around. both parties were affected by all this-- democrats a little harder. but they still see opportunity, especially in states where president obama performed well in 2008. nathan gonzales of the rothenberg political report tracks competitive races. >> when you look at the overall fight for the house, democrats are looking at three key states, california, illinois and florida. they need to win a handful of districts in each of those states if they have any chance of winning the majority nationwide and even though there are opportunities for them, they are going to be difficult.

every single one of them is going to be a fight. republicans were very shrewd in their redistricting moves. they took their freshmen that were elected in 2010 and made a lot of the districts safer and took vital and competitive seats off the map particularly in ohio and pennsylvania. >> woodruff: the "newshour" will continue to track these house races. visit our politics page to learn more about the landscape, and some of the most interesting contests we're watching this election year. also on our website, you can watch a report about the arizona special election to replace congresswoman gabriel giffords from our colleagues at arizona public media. >> brown: and we turn to the j.p. morgan-chase story. the bank's c.e.o., jamie dimon, testified for more than two hours this morning before the senate banking committee. it was his first appearance on capitol hill since the company

reported at least $2 billion and possibly more in trading losses. we begin with a report from our economics correspondent, paul solman, part of his continuing work on "making sense of financial news." >> reporter: jamie dimon had only just arrived to the hearing room when the protests began. >> jamie dimon is a crook! >> reporter: amid a crush of media, hecklers shouted at the c.e.o. as he sat stoically at the witness table. >> stop foreclosures now. >> reporter: they were promptly escorted out and the hearing was called to order. during his opening statement, dimon apologized for the losses that resulted from trades that, he said, were supposed to hedge against risk, made in london by the bank's chief investment office, or c.i.o. >> this portfolio morphed into something that, rather than protect the firm, created new and potentially larger risks. as a result, we have let a lot of people down, and we are sorry for it.

>> reporter: democratic chair tim johnson, who underwent brain surgery six year ago, asked why dimon had dismissed concerns about these trades as a tempest in a teapot in april. >> why were you willing to be so definitive a month before publicly... publicly announcing their losses when it appears you did not have a full understanding of the trading strategy? >> let me first say, when i made that statement, i was dead wrong. i called-- i had been on the road, i called ina drewren, c.i.o. i had spoken to our risk officers, our c.f.o. they were looking in to it. there were some issues with c.i.o. before april 13 we announced earnings. i was assured by them, and i have the right to rely on them, that they thought this was an isolated small issue and that... that it wasn't a big problem. >> reporter: johnson also wondered if the bank would recoup the pay of those responsible for the losses.

>> you can expect we'll take proper corrective action. and i would say it's likely, though this is subject to board, but it's likely there'll be claw backs. >> reporter: the committee's ranking republican, richard shelby, pursued a key line of this morning's questioning: were trades in question really hedges, intended to reduce risk. >> were you investing or were you hedging? or is it a combination of both? >> this was hedging the risk of the company. they would protect the company in the event things got really bad. >> reporter: but then, as dimon had acknowledged in his opening statement, the hedge morphed into its opposite: a bet. democrat bob menendez of new jersey pressed the point. >> when you reduce a hedge or hedge a hedge, isn't that really gambling? >> i don't believe so, no. >> so this transaction that you said morphed, what did it morph into? russian roulette? >> it morphed into something i can't justify. it was just too risky for our company.

>> reporter: and that's when the hemorrhaging began at the bank. dimon said the losses in question do not threaten j.p. morgan chase, however, or the taxpayers who guarantee its deposits. but democrat jack reed was worried about the implicit taxpayer guarantee of a bank like jp morgan that's too big to fail and asked whether the so- called volcker rule, which would bar banks from making certain trades for their own profit would have prevented j.p. morgan's losses. >> the irony to me is that if there was a good volcker rule in place, they might not have been able to do this because it clearly doesn't seem to be hedging customer risk or even the overall exposure to the bank's portfolio. >> i don't know what the volcker is. it hasn't been written yet. it's very complicated. it may very well have stopped parts of what this portfolio morphed into. >> so there is the possibility, in fact, if it's done correctly as proposed, which we-- i hope it is, that it would have-- could have avoided this situation.

>> it's possible. i just don't know. a too big to fail bank, dimon >> reporter: as for the risks of a too big to fail bank, dimon said that confers key advantages, but brings baggage as well. >> greed, arrogance, hubris, lack of attention to detail. >> reporter: that prompted republican jerry moran to ask. >> how... how do you manage a company the size of j.p. morgan and overcome those-- that... that list of adjectives that you described are just a natural occurrence within a large organization? >> well... well they could occur in smaller organizations, too. you know, i -- look we hope we have very good people and... >> you... you aren't talking about the senate, surely? >> no. >> okay. >> definitely not... not now. >> reporter: next week, dimon heads to the house for questioning. we'll see if his sense of humor remains intact. >> brown: and gwen ifill takes up some of those questions now on today's testimony and risk on wall street. >> ifill: and for that, we get two views. dennis kelleher is the president of better markets, a not for profit organization pushing for

tougher financial regulation and transparency of wall street. and bert ely heads his own consulting firm specializing in banking, monetary policy and financial regulation. dennis kelleher, in the end, after all the grilling back and forth today on capitol hill about dwe learn anything we didn't know about what happened at j.p. morgan chase? >> unfortunately, we didn't learn enough. one of the things we have learned over time is jamie dimon often talks quite a bit but says very little. and he wasn't pressed very hard on what the trades really were about or what the risks were or how the volcker rule was implicated and why it's so important to protect our financial system in light of what happened just a few years ago. >> ifill: bert ely, one thing we did not know today was how much was ultimately lost. we heard figures ranging from $2 billion to $5 billion. does it matter what the number is? >> well, first of all, jamie indicated that they haven't been able to quantify the loss yet. they have to work things out

totally. supposedly, we will learn more about the possible, ultimate cost of the this event when they file their second-quarter earnings report. >> ifill: in july. >> in july, and they will explain more then. i think while this is a very large loss in absolute terms, there's no question about that, what i think is important is to keep it in proportion, relative to the size of j.p. morgan chase. it may potentially equal a quarter's worth of earnings, b but-- and maybe equal roughly 1%, 1.5% of thing bank's capital, but it is a loss they can handle. >> ifill: explain for our viewers, the difference between, as some of the senators were seeming to get at today, hedging one's bets to protect oneself, and placing beg with other people's money. >> there are two points. to the amount of money we do and don't know-- between $two billion and $5 billion-- it's

not right to have that type of measurement to determine how important it is. we know it's $2-5 billion. we know it could have been $15, 20, 25 billion if the bet had really gone wrong. we don't know that yet. the report reports are several d billion dollars were spent in the unit responsible for dealing with $357 billion. the number should not make people relax and think things are good and things are fine. the activities that generated the losses -- and that goes to your question, gwen-- if it's hedging over time, basically losses should offset gains, and gains should offset losses. hedging means to reluc risk. and the volcker rule doesn't allow hedging. proprietary trading is when the banks use their money and swing for the fences with big bets, very high risk, with potential for very big revenue coming in or very big losses. and we know that that's very dangerous because in the 2008

crisis, for example, that type of proprietary trading is what caused many of these banks to either fail or almost fail. >> ifill: but there is no volcker rule, as we've heard. it's not actually been written fully, and it's certainly not in effect. what difference would government regulation make in this kind of case that internal regulation didn't catch? >> well, i think that's an excellent question. i think the-- there's a good chance that the volcker rule upon turn out to be unworkable. i think there are some conceptual flaws in it. >> ifill: certainly jamie dimon has said that before, not today but he has. >> and many,s have said the same thing, too, questions how well the legislation is written. it's vague in many ways, and the regulators are having a tremendously difficult time of trying to come up with a rule. but even if they come up with a rule, then the question is how well will the examiners and supervisors out in the banks even be able to monitor what's going on, much less enforce the rule. the fundamental problem there is

there is not a bright-line distinction between what is hedging and what is proprietary trading. and this particularly is true where a bank is making a market in securities for its customers. it has to buy and sell to maintain an inventory to serve the customers and this is something the volcker rule and its advocates don't appreciate. >> ifill: let's talk about jamie dimon's responsibilities. he said it was a tempest in a tea pot. he said they were too complacent, but didn't verify. in the end, is what happened, a blip on the radar, i guess as senator cocker described it, or is it a sign of something systemic that the c.e.o. should have known about it? >> fundamentally, he should have known about it and there's no question about it. one of the interesting facts not asked at today's hearing,a april 1 and april 8, the bloomberg had articles on the losses it was

facing including multibillion-dollar lasses. it took jamie dimon until the tenth to find that out. why did the "wall street journal" know what was happening inside his bank before jamie dimon did? >> it took them a while to finally figure out what was going on. again, i think taimen has been very clear in admitting that they blew it on that. and that he shouldn't have used the temptest in a tea pot phrase-- >> ifill: and you believe he did know about it before the newspaper reports? >> i think the big problem he seemed to have had is really getting a full understanding of what was going on and the risks that were taken. they put a lot-- once they started to appreciate how bad a problem was they put a lot of folks on-- not only in terms of trying to quantify what the problem was but equally important trying to figure out how to work out of the situation. >> ifill: continue with jamie dimon him. he's is-- makes a fair bit of money himself.

we heard him talking about claw-backs, repayments from people who have since been fired or whose jobs have somehow gone away. do we expect anything to happen to him? is there going to be pressure for him to step down? >> things should happen to him and most important he he should be held accountable for what happened at the c.i.o.office in london. it used to be a relatively low-risk, liquid operation. and it was transformed into a high-risk proprietary trading operation by jamie dimon and at jamie dimon's direction and the direction included turning it into a profit center. that's not a hedging operation. he should not be allowed to blame and fire other people. he should be investigated, as they've said. he also should not be able to sit with a conflict of interest, a glaring conflict of interest on the board of the new york fed. the problem-- you know, the american people coming out of the crisis are looking at their government and what they're doing and saying, "wait a minute. is there an unfair playing

field? are there conflicts of interest? how can people get special treatment?" they need to not have people like that on the new york fed because the american people are not going to have any confidence in them. >> ifill: but j.p. morgan chase said they have a balanced sheet, they didn't lose taxpayer money on this. they didn't lose depositor money on this, shareholder values, certainly. judgey is this the government's business? >> i think it's the government's business because it is a highly regulated institution and if a bank fails, potentially the rest of the banking industry, through the f.d.i.c., is going to be on the hook for the losses. and we have had substantial losses in bank failures, about $100 billion in the current situation from 2007 to a few years from now. the banking industry is going to pay for those losses. so i think there's a legitimate government concern there. i think one of the problems is people place excessive faith in the ability of government to regulate financial institutions, and that's why we need to have

more situations like this where it's the stockholders taking the loz and who are going to insist on changes. and dimon indicated they are making changes within the bank, and i'm sure many other banks are going through and relooking at how they conduct these types of operations. >> ifill: we'll see if that's true. bert ely, and dennis kelleher, thank you both very much. >> thanks, gwen. >> thanks, glad to be here. >> woodruff: now, newspapers are shrinking staffs and making major changes to cope with the shrinking revenues of the digital age. the latest papers to take a hit are in the south. one of the nation's oldest daily newspapers is now the latest to fall prey to sweeping cuts in the digital era. the new orleans "times-picayune" announced tuesday that 200 staff members would lose their jobs this fall. after 175 years, the paper is shifting to focus on online news and scaling back

to publishing only three days a week. that means new orleans will be the largest u.s. metro area without a daily newspaper. editor jim amoss acknowledged tuesday the change would be hard in a video posted on nola.com-- the paper's website. >> many readers can't imagine a morning without our newspaper in their hands. i understand that; i'm a print guy, i grew up in this business. >> woodruff: "the times- picayune's" parent company advance publications also announced layoffs at three alabama newspapers: "the birmingham news," the "press-register" in mobile and "the huntsville times." together, they will lose 400 employees. news of the impending reductions >> woodruff: the cuts and the

changes are all a far cry from 2005, when hurricane "katrina" ravaged new orleans. "the times-picayune" became a lifeline to those trying to recover and rebuild. seven months later, loyola university communications professor larry lorenz underscored that vital role, in a conversation with the "newshour's" jeffery brown. >> in the civil war, oliver wendell holmes, the father of the later supreme court justice, wrote an essay called "bread and the newspaper." and in it, he said, "bread and the newspapers we must have." >> brown: so you've got to eat and people need information? >> you bet. the information that's in the newspaper feeds us as much as the bread feeds us. >> woodruff: but now, like a growing number of newspapers nationwide, "the times-picayune" faces a fight for survival. for a closer look at the impact of these changes and the reasons behind it, we're joined by jim amoss, whom you just saw, the editor of the "the times-picayune." he will continue to oversee content at nola.com. and david carr, who writes about the media business for the "new

york times." and we thank you both for being with us. jim amoss, first to you. what is the reaction there in the newsroom and in the new orleans community? >> well, the reaction to radical change, especially in a community that's as devoted to its rituals as new orleans is, is strong, and i understand the passion that's behind it. but i think new orleaneans also want their daily news report in a way that we will promise to deliver it. i know those are words now, and people will have to see it to believe it. but that's our commitment to them. >> woodruff: what do you think, jim amoss, this is going to mean? can you deliver the same quality news with, what, half the people? >> oh, that's a misleading figure. we had severances, layoffs yesterday, and we are losing

somewhere in the 40%-plus realm, but we also will be rehiring so that when all is said and done, we'll have a news operation that overall is about 14% to 15% smaller than now. that still has an impact, although we'll be saving a lot in going from-- on the production side from seven days a week to three days' week. but we are very much focused on having reporting strength in the field. we think that that is-- that is what drives our readers, and our audience to the web site. and that's a commitment that-- that and the commitment to serious journalism, to investigative journalism, which has been our hallmark, is something that will be undiminished. >> woodruff: david carr, why is advanced cublications, the parent company doing this? >> i think regional papers, ones

of the size that jim runs and others are run are hit especially hard by secular broader changes in the newspaper industry that have been going on for five to 10 years. there's been a steady decline to the point where the newspaper industry as a whole in revenue terms is about half again as big as it was in 2005. so people are getting shoved up against walls and having to come up with, you know, very breathtaking answers to tough questions including laying off almost half their staff-- and jim may rehire back to somewhere near the strength he has, but he's losing a lot of institutional memory, a lot of reporters who have relationships out in the community. it's not just print that is disappearing. it's expertise. >> woodruff: and david carr, what about in alabama, where i guess across the state in three of the largest four cities, they're losing 400 news people? >> again, judy, i think it goes

to the issue of capacity, of horsepower in the newsroom. people are very focused on the fact that the print product is going away four days a week. but there is a lot of muscle, muscle memory being lost. and in new orleans, there's-- there are some other ways that people might be able to piece together their news day. in some of the town in alabama, they're losing, as you point out, 400 journalists. there aren't these alternative source of news and i just don't think those people in the communities are going to be as aware of, in touch with what is going on. we're talking about the loss of a kind of civic common in each of these communities. >> woodruff: add aim, about what. that, losing a civic common or memory muscle as david carr just put it? >> well, david is absolutely right pathat newspapers in the united states, outside of the "new york times," especially, are all wrestling with this problem and, yes, we would all love to be back in 2001 and have

twice the circulation we have now and twice the ad revenue we have now. and so everybody is confronting the same problem and everybody is trying to come up with something other than idly watching us dwindle and watching our own demise. but i strongly disagree with his contention that we will-- that we will lose the kind of civic common that we have, that we will lose the institutional context that we bring to the news report. if i believed that, i wouldn't be sitting here. and everything that i will be focused on will be geared toward preserving that and ensuring that our readers don't have to look elsewhere to piece together that kind of understanding of their community and the context we bring to it. we will, continue to vby far, the most it's most complete and the most formidable news

gathering muscle in this community, and readers will just have to hold us accountable to that promise that i'm making. >> woodruff: david carr, why won't that-- if not suffice, at least work as a quality substitute for what's now? >> well, let's begin with the fact that there's a lot of people in new orleans that don't have internet access as a community. they've had a special relationship with-- which jim and i have talked about in the past with their daily papers. you can still go there in the coffee shop and see the paper passed back and forth. it warms the heartave newsman like these. some of these cuts, you have sports columnist that's been there for 45 years that's going to part time. two women that put together an eight-part series on prisons in louisiana that have been demoted. a restaurant person that has won

awards far and wide out of a job. you can't lose those kind of assets-- and i'm sure jim-- jim is a great newsman and he's prove than over the length of time. but you cannot take less and do more. you cannot-- i think part of what's gone on is historically advanced publications, and jim in particular, very good at putting out a daily paper. i and others find their web site a lot less impressive, and maybe some of these hires are going to help him turn it around, but it isn't really what they're good at. not in economic terms but in terms of their skills i think they're pivoting from their strength to their weakness. >> woodruff:ed can aim, up to the respond to that, to all that? >> yes, and i do appreciate david's compliments and he's written some very nice things about us. i don't know when he was last in the coffee shop that he wrote about, but if he went there tomorrow morning, he would see an awful lot of tablets and

laptops where a mere three years ago, there were printed "times-picayunes" in people's hands. as for the diminishiments, his factual basis is off and i realize it was based on some of the reports circulating yesterday. several of the people he mention read continuing with us, are continuing undiminished with us. yes, they will be digitally focused as well. the sports columnist, for example, will be writing for us with the same frequency with which he writes for us now on a correspondent freelance basis. i just don't accept these eye mean tfits into a nice storyline, a neat narrative about the sudden weakening. the changes are indeed dramatic, but overall intention-- and we will follow through with it-- is that we will be a strong and accepted, deep news report that

has both immediacy and depth to it. >> woodruff: gentlemen, i know this is a subject we're going to be coming back to. we're going to leave it here for now. but we thank youing both, jim amoss, david carr. >> pleasure to be with you. >> nice being with you, judy, thanks. >> brown: finally tonight, how much do the most successful in our society deserve the fortune cookies that have come their way? and how much of it is about luck and accident-- things we choose not to see or credit? that was the theme of a speech to the graduating class at princeton university given earlier this month by michael lewis-- himself a graduate of princeton, class of 1982. lewis went on to become, briefly, a wall street derivatives trader. and then a best-selling author of numerous books, from "liars poker" to "the blind side" to "moneyball." here's a brief excerpt from his talk. >> my case illustrates how success is always rationalized.

people really tonight like to hear success explained away as luck, especially successful people. as they age and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. they don't want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives. there's a reason for this-- the word doesn't want to acknowledge it, either. . >> don't be deceived by life's outcomes. life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. above all, recognize if husuccess, you've also had luck. and with luck comes obligation. you owe a debt, and not just to your gods-- you owe a debt to the unlucky. i make this point because, along with this speech, is something you're very likely to forget. >> brown: the speech generated wide interest, especially online. it was the most-read story on

"dow jones financial news "last week and generated thousands of comments on facebook and mentions on twitter. michael lewis, a contributor to "vanity fair" joins us now from the journalism school at u.c. gberkly. beside hoping to come up with a memorable graduation speech, why did you feel the need to say some part of their success is due to luck? >> well, you know, i-- when you're asked to give one of these speeches, your first goal is really not to embarrass yourself. so that's where i started. and i started thinking about, you know, where they sit and how they think about their lives. i listened to this very speech 30 years ago at princeton. i don't remember a word of it. i thought, tell them something that speaks from my heart and tell them something they might not expect to hear. and i think that-- you know, i think if you're sitting-- coming out of an ivy league school

today, you're encouraged to believe that you're very special, that you've passed through all these very fine filters our society has created, and you got this road ahead of you that's deserved and earned. and i do think it's very easy for people sitting in those seats to forget that they're lucky, that there's a huge amount of chance in life, and accident plays a very big role in life. and they ought to dwell on that a minute. they ought to dwell on just how fortunate they are. >> brown: do you take it further that they're fortunate and, therefore, they develop a sense of-- well, almost of entitlement? >> well, i can't speak-- you know, it's not-- it's not fair to accuse of poor graduates of princeton of any kind kind of general sentiment bike that, but i do think that there has been kind of sapped out of the culture an idea that used to be pretty robust, and it's the idea

that to whom much is given, much is expected from. and it's an idea that-- it's-- you know, it's the heart of the princeton education. you get there, they tell you, the moto is in the nation's service. it's easy and convenient to forget. so it wasn't that hard to settle a topic for a speech because in addition, i was-- the assignment in part was to start with my own life experiences. and when i look at my own life i think, but for a turn here or a turn there, things could have turned out very differently and i-- >> brown: we didn't play this part, but you actually tell a nice story of yourself about you're an art history major coming out of princeton and you happened to sit at a dinner, right, next to the wife of a very powerful person on wall street, who basically gets her husband to give you a job and she the rest-- the rest is

history. >> yeah, but the mere fact that i'm even a writer. that's an accident in a lot of ways, and that i got an opportunity to write. and then i got this wonderful material tossed in my lap when i started my writing career. there was a huge amount of chance involved in all of it, and nobody honestly looking at my path could attribute it all to skill, talent, and hard work. there is baked into this an awful lot of luck. and when you realize that, you think, well, it's not-- how do you respond to that? and i think the way to respond to that is with this-- wherew a kind of updated sentiment that you were the one that chance visited-- paid this visit upon. there are others who didn't have that kind of luck. you owe them something. think about that. think about the responsibility of being lucky almost is what i would say. >> brown: i wonder how far you push that idea of the obligation? one thing that's been noted

widely-- and i think you've talked about it-- a lot of ivy league graduates on into the financial world, on to wall street air, very high percentage over a number of years. when you say a kind of responsibility and obligation, how do you define that? what exactly do you ask of young people who have had a certain amount of luck thrown at them? >> well, you can float the idea in the accept theiment, and you can keep it alive. it's very hard to put your finger on exactly what they should be doing. i'd push it even further. i'd say that, look, the successful in our society owe so much of their success to things outside of themselves. they at the on it-- they owe it to the society. they're born into this affluent and peaceful and-- society that not of their making. that they should acknowledge that obligation. and i think you see a lot of-- a

lot of fight-back on that subject. and you see-- you mean, you see it in the tax code. you see it in the way private equity managers manage to construe their income as capital gains so they don't have to pay taxes on it. you see it in c.e.o. pay. you see it in-- you see it in the way wall street people pay themselves. so i think that-- that even-- even to put the question into the mind of young people of what they owe is maybe a novel concept because there are an awful lot of people who sit on top of this society who don't feel that way. having said, that you know, i do think that one of the things that distinguishes our country from, say, greece, is that we do have this notion that you give back. you look at greek culture and why-- and why they're crumbling right now, part of the problem is the elites feel they owe the

placing nothing. they don't pay taxes. they don't-- they have no real organic relationship with the ret of the place, and it's sort of winner take all. and that's something i think we need to really fight hard to avoid here because when we get to that point, i do think society starts to crumble. so this was on my mind when i wrote this talk. and i confess i'm a little surprised you're interested because to me it'st just seems obvious. >> brown: well, okay, maybe obvious, but maybe we thought of interest to a wider audience. michael lewis, thanks so much for that. >> thanks for having me. >> brown: there's much more on line. you can watch the full speech by michael lewis as well as another recent address to high school students that's also generating discussion. plus you can weigh in with your own views on our home page. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: secretary of state clinton warned russia that its interests in syria are at risk if it blocks efforts to stop the bloodshed.

car bombings in iraq killed at least 66 people and wounded 200 others. and at a senate hearing, the head of j.p. morganchase jamie dimon apologized for a $2 billion trading loss. he said those responsible may have to give back some of their pay. online, we have the details on a new telescope that was sent into space today. hari sreenivasan has the details. >> sreenivasan: you can view our coverage of the nustar space telescope's launch into orbit on our science page. the instrument relies on high- energy x-rays to hunt for black holes and exploding stars. all that and more is on our web site: newshour.pbs.org. judy? >> woodruff: and that's the "newshour" for tonight. on thursday, we'll talk with arizona senator john mccain about presidential politics, national security leaks and u.s. foreign policy. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by:

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