loud -- lovely moderator in the panel that just preceded dinner the with that i'm going to turn to bob franken and ask that he cuck the discussion on has the financial crisis changed the nature of economic news in bob? >> governor balile, commissioner kaplan, president jefferson, other slightly less notable lights who are here, first of all i'll make a deal with you, no jokes about tiger woods or the salahis. but they do make a point and the point is that people are almost desperate to want to pay attention to that type of thing and they are encouraged to do so by my medium, television. but there is so much that is of probably much greater consequence these days and what we have when it comes to financial reporting is as dickens would say, the best of times and the worst of times. when what we've here are people i admire because of that are built to take these very arcain principles and issues and explain them in language that people can understand. unfortunately people often don't take the time to understand them so we have media coverage that is feeding the self-feeding media frenzy. i will

and with that, i'll turn to bob franken and ask him to conduct the discussions among our panel members on the question, has the financial crisis change the nature of economic news? bob? >> president jefferson, other slightly less notable whites who are here, first of all, i will make a deal with you. no jokes about tiger woods or the salahis'. but they do make a point, in that people are desperate to pay attention to that type of thing. they are encouraged to do so by certainly are medium, television, but there is so much that is probably of much greater consequence these days, and what we have when it comes to financial reporting is the best of times in the worst of times. what we have here are the best of times, people i admire because of their ability to take these very complex principles and explain them in language that people can understand. unfortunately people often do not take the time to understand, and so we have oftentimes is media coverage that is feeding the self-defeating media frenzy. bob, do you feel that you are singing to the death as you were writing? >> y? >> singi

we have a panel moderated by bob franken, an emmy award winning journalist, syndicated columnist andst. he served as a correspondent for cnn and ms nbc. bob franken who i have known for a number of years was recently inducted into the society for professional journalists in washington's hall of fame. our second panelist is margaret brennan, and anchor and reporter for bloomberg television news in new york. she was a general assignment reporter for nbc and a contributor to nbc's today show and nightly news as well as an best nbc. she is also a graduate of mr. jefferson's university of virginia. alan murray is managing editor and executive editor on line for the wall street journal. he was previously managing editor of a wall street journal and author of the weekly business column. he has served as washington d.c. bureau chief for nbc and the wall street journal. we are very fortunate to have alan on our governing council at the madison of public affairs at the university. a member of distinction for many years. next we have robert sanders, contributing editor of newsweek and the washi