transformation moment in many ways, but also in the media in terms of how we think about communication and what fdr data obviously with the fireside chats and kennedy with his press conferences reagan and even trump with twitter. i think that we all need to think about most effective ways to kind of for government and elected officials and others to communicate and reach out to younger people on a regular basis. thank you. thank you and with that we need to wrap up our session, but i'd like everyone to join me in thanking john for coming and spending time with us. and we're headed over to the activity building where he'll be available to sign copies of fight. th our speaker is a political reporter? and an editor and a foreign

correspondent and a television news analyst and has been over the course of a five decade career with organizations like the new york times and cbs news and pbs newshour clearly couldn't hold a job couldn't hold a job and yet he kept landing on his feet of you may recognize his distinctive voice from the many times that he hosted the diane rehm show. he he is a member of the society of professional journalists hall of fame and emmy award winner and he lives here in annapolis on spa creek where he sails his 36-foot sloop winsome, excuse me, follow the bed forty-foot it grows good by the end of our show will be 42 feet. now 45 sorry. sorry, sorry, sorry and he has been the chairman of the board of churches of the chesapeake bay trust and contributed a great deal to our community as

you'll in a moment. please tell us about your book for wars five presidents a reporters journey from jerusalem to saigon to the white house. thank you. thank you stephen. he's also my boat partners. so you'd think he would i would get this sort of thing, right but you know. we'll compromise 38. yeah can't count on anything these days. anyway, i'm happy to tell you something about the book. i will show some images up there on that giant screen that so you all have very stiff necks. but they sort of illustrate some of the stories. i'll tell from the book and stephen can interject any time he thinks we're leaving something out or getting something wrong or and then we'll certainly want to hear from you and have a conversation a little bit about the news

business about the news. about the way it's covered the way it has changed. and all those things should we should you be interested in getting into it the book was just is just out a few months ago and is as you say is the title for wars five presidents reporters journey from jerusalem to saigon to the white house. so that's the basic. pattern and and of the book journalists, as you know are very shy modest time. what's the matter who hate to talk about themselves, but i'm going to overcome that this afternoon just to tell you some stories about how this all evolved. and is this okay sound pretty

good? all right. the the book basically recounts a career as you said that went from print print that was published and printed with so-called hot lead through a line of type machine with articles written by typewriters. remember typewriters anybody who has a typewriter? there's one two, maybe three typewriters in existence in this in the people in this room. and evolved to a broadcast television and then to public television and i've retired from daily journalism, but i do write a blog and do some speaking on some of these issues the the

book opens in let me show you. that place that beautiful magical city jerusalem i think it's magical. unfortunately a lot of people think it's theirs and tend to fight over it in the history. the city of jerusalem has been taken and retaken 44 times in its in its long history, so there's nothing really new about that the book opens there because i had i went into the newspaper covered politics and things like that and new york state and city politics which were vintage. in the 60s, but i wanted to go overseas. that was my ambition. was to be a foreign correspondent. and so finally i moved from the

stanford advocate to the new york herald tribune. excellent paper long gone to the new york times and that's where i got my opportunity to go overseas in the first assignment was jerusalem. i got there. 10 days before the six day war i was a mere boy you understand at the time. but it's astonishing to me to remember how little i knew or understood but under circumstances like that you learn fast. and so i covered in the end the what was absolutely the battle of jerusalem itself maybe that was the 44th or 45th time as it changed hands in the sense that the city had been divided since 1948 to 1967.

the eastern portion controlled by jordan the western portion controlled by israel, which was just a teenager of a country at that point only 19 years old. and we i observed it from this hotel, which king david hotel in jerusalem which many of you may have may have visited sometime and i on the opposites this backside here. you see some of those balconies i had one of those rooms. i think it was a third floor and it looks this way across towards us. in the picture across the no man's land in those days rubble that led to the that seperated the two's halves of the city and from there and from my balcony, i could see a jordanian gun position directly across on the balcony up or actually parapet

of the walled, old city built by suleman the magnificent in the 16th century so the war began i watched it. you know with my mouth open the way the way i learned about it. i have a true confessions here. i learned about it with a phone call from a friend and a hangover. and the hangover was the result of a party the night before quite a good party. which we geniuses in the foreign press had decided to believe moshe diane than the famous defense minister of israel when he held a news conference on sunday afternoon, june 4th 1967 and he said israel was going to give diplomacy. more time anytime you hear a

military official particularly in israeli say that i recommend you go to the shelters because well what we do know we had a party and so the next morning i could feel it as the phone rang from a friend who had exceptional sources. in the israeli intelligence, and he said after the three and four weeks of build up to the war. this is it. this is the real thing. it's underway or about to be underway in the in egypt in the sinai. and in effect what he was saying to me was get your -- out of bed smith and get going. and so that's exactly what i did. i covered the battle for jerusalem. over the next 48 hours and the israelis encircled the eastern part of the city and they took control of it and that's believe it or not.

as someone cruel he said many martinis ago. that is me in shakira on the morning of which is a portion of of east jerusalem on the morning of january of june 7th 1967 as the israelis are coming around to the eastern side and going into the old city and once you see there are palestinian men who have been taken into custody by israeli troops and compelled to sit down and face face the wall and be quiet. and so we went around to the eastern side of the city. there were jets overhead night and day. that were attacking they didn't strike the old city the instructions not to but all around it.

and there was a vivid image. i still have i don't have a picture of it of the first night of the war when those jets came overhead from the west. struck and ignited the dry fields that led up to the wall of the old city. and it was an extraordinary almost hollywood like seen and then one weapon struck the conical tower of the dormition abbey and it lit and burned all night in this perfect conical shape, and i thought this is about as theatrical as it could possibly be. and i was dumbstruck watching it from them from the hotel. and today of course if all i could do then was take some notes in a few pictures and and

watch what happened? today i would. put it up online. i would tweet it. i would you know. file video online and the communication will be instantaneous. but it was not. and in fact it took me i put in a phone call that first morning took three hours. to get a phone call to new york. and with the time difference that meant it was after. the last edition of the paper of that day was the middle of the night. two three o'clock, and i remember describing. to the night man on the foreign desk. i said, you know, this is a little odd. there's a full-blown war going on in the down by the suez canal and in egypt, and it's

absolutely quiet here on this side, and i had no sooner said that to the guy on the desk when i could hear the first. and the first mortar's land on one side and then the thing opened up. so i had to say al check that a piece of information not quite not quite we seem to have a two-front soon soon to be three fun war. anyway, the battle of jerusalem was fought this way with soldiers were right up. that's the old the old city the wall in the distance. these are israelis closing in. and there they were in the sinai. so things were underway tanks moving all around jerusalem as you can see. and a huge crowd of celebrating

soldiers and then this scene as the israeli troops came around to the east side and entered the old city and came up to what is called the noble sanctuary or temple mount. and there is the retaining wall so-called. then was referred to as a wailing wall. it's more commonly today describes the western wall. it is the western wall of an a wall an abutment really of the second temple. and the holiest place in judaism and israel was suddenly uncontrol of it and -- were in control control of the entire city. though jerusalem for the first time in 2000 years. so it was obviously historic moment. and these young man this famous photograph taken by my friend david rubinger.

a photographer for time shows these young men at the at the wall, and there are obviously aware of the moment and impressed some dance the horror like this. that was the story. i wrote israelis. we've been prayed beside the wailing wall. they continued it was it was quite a scene really pressing messages into the cracks in the in the wall. and then this famous photograph as the commanders came in. i just want to share with you the back story to this picture because it's fun behind them is the lion's gate. on the eastern side of the old city and you can see in the distance the garden of gethsemane. the mount of olives is just to the right. and these three leaders from the left using our keys the

commander of the jerusalem area. in the middle the famous moshe diane with his eye patch. and on the right yeshakrabeen a younger robyn then the chief of staff of the armed forces. he they the three of them arrived about two three hours after. the old city had been taken. and they waited. their pr people knew what they were doing. they had them wait just outside the lions gate. and this picture that you see of them striding forcefully into the old city to take it over. they the pr guys gotten to wait until the cameraman could be in position. particularly the television cameras and then the three of them came in and strode in and the picture. literally went around the world and symbolized israel taking over.

the the not only the entirety of jerusalem, but over the next 48 hours all of the west bank. what's interesting today? is that the lines that were drawn in those six days? on the west bank are essentially the lines that exist today. people did not think that would be the case. at the time the victory had been so total. that they thought surely there would be a peace treaty surely. these lines will be reconstructed and as a result israelis poured into the west bank. and and some palestinians came into israel look around. they hadn't seen any of this for

19 years. and so they came in and i learned that the greatest human impulse is the sense of a bargain the opportunity of a bargain because things were cheaper on the jordanian side and you could go into a suit like that. in the old city and get things that were either not available or much more expensive and israel. so people's got to know each other the two people's palestinians and israelis. in a way that they hadn't before and they discovered. naturally that the israelis discovered palestinians were not all out to get them. not all cutthroats in there mind. and the palestinians discovered the israelis. we're not 10 feet tall. there were just people and and so there was a great deal of

that. unfortunately, it only lasted that interchange a number of months. until the diplomatic process froze and and as i say much of it. is the same today? so that well. the one change is right there represented by that picture that's taken at camp david and that's some years later 1979. that's anwar saddot on the left of course menachembegin on the right jimmy carter between them reaching the camp david accords that led to the formal piece between israel and egypt that exists to this day. so it may be a cold piece, but it was. it is still in place. so switching gears here i

covered this campaign before i went overseas and i'll explain why i'm mentioning it now. i had been a little skeptical of bobby kennedy at the beginning of the campaign, but i became persuaded. after the campaign that his commitment to civil rights and human rights was the real deal? and i was quite impressed. and so i was shocked as everyone was. in 1968 on june 5th the same day one year to the day after the start of the six day war when as he finished his speech. and the hotel ambassador in los angeles on the i think it was close to midnight that night. that's ethel his wife on the right his right? and he is shot and ultimately killed in the kitchen of the

hotel by sirhan sirhan jr. so maya introduction to all this was of course shocked to learn about it the next day i went down to a reception at the home of the american ambassador and herzalia. and he drew me aside into his study and close the door and said he had just learned that sirhan sirhan. a senior father of the assassin lived in a little village just outside of jerusalem and that he was there. he seemed to know that. and so i thanked him very much. and left the party immediately returned to jerusalem. got organized and by the time i got to this house that you see in the lower picture it was dark. it was about 10:00 at night. and i went to and knocked on the

door and sirhan sirhan's senior seen in the upper, right? came to the door. and he must have he was in his pajamas the house was dark. i explained who i was and i went in and palestinian hospitality insisted on making coffee 10:30 at night and i sat down good coffee, too and we started to talk about this and i said had heard. that robert kennedy had been shot and killed. yes. yes. he said he'd heard that on the radio and that it was terrible news. he could have been a great president. i said did you know that they caught the assassin? on the spot yes, he said i i heard too on the radio. no other reaction.

so i said did you get the name of the person that captured the assassin? no, he said no. i didn't i went to bed before that. so i took my reporters notebook and pushed it across the kitchen table where we were sitting and i said, i understand you have five sons. would you write down their names for me? and he did in the fourth one sirhan sirhan jr. so i put my finger on that. name and i said that's the name of the assassin. that's the person they caught. he's now in jail. and he looked at me he could see i was serious. and he said absolutely not possible. he was the best of the boys. had the best grades i had the highest hopes for him.

and then he could switch you could. you could see it in his face. he would switch and say. if he did it, he should hang. terrible terrible crime back to this, but it's not possible because of who he was he was about back and forth. he would go. and there's a very as i learned later unstable fellow. and back and forth he went. so i wrote that story of course for the paper and using the the time difference i was able to make that same day's paper. that's a closer shot of him of the father. there's actually a great physical resemblance. and that's sirhan sirhan jr. the younger man. and that's him today 53 years later in jail. 54 i guess now who?

spent up for parole. 16 times just recently was to clear an eligible for parole by the california parole board, but then the governor gavin newsom as governors are empowered to do reverse that decision and he remains in in prison. the story is not over california law requires that the parole question of parole be reviewed within 18 months that's already been several now. so within the year this whole question will come up again. but that was my exposure to them i headed east from there and i can stop this anytime. but cambodia i went to cambodia. yeah later in 1968 and i had become the southeast asian

correspondent for the new york times. and i went over there when they opened it up to the western press it. hadn't been up to that that point. and we were ushered in by the then head of. the country that's the hotel royale and nam pen where i stayed very nice place the back of the hotel. is is this whole garden? in the evening was a fascinating place to sit. with people at different tables, i they were spies and rogues and con men and characters all keeping an eye on each other while they sit there cure il and and enjoy the evening because man prince nordome. was our host and he had a sort

of 30 day running news conference and tour where he took us to hank our watt and down to see in a and all around. and he had these 11 americans sailors. in prison, they had blundered up the mekong into cambodia and captured and so he he puts them. they were in prison for five months, but this is independence day and he's decided that he's going to use them as leverage against the united states to get the us to stop bombing the ho chi minh trail, which ran down the eastern portion of his country. and so he used them as leverage and had negotiations and decided that was the best he could do. so on independence day. november 15th 1968. he he dresses them all up in these white suits.

and quite smart looking brings them to the water festival the annual big celebration. and shakes their hands and introduces some announces to everyone they're going to be released. in a few days and then he takes that has them all taken. for lunch at one of numpens' excellent french restaurants. they had to find lunch they were then taken to one of nam pens better brothels where they were able to enjoy themselves in the afternoon all on prince sean oaks tab and they then were ultimately released. he was quite a character. but the reason i bring him up. is something he told me in an interview as i was wrapping up there? and i want to get i want to find his words because i think they're worth recalling and you have to remember this is

november 17 1968 this is what is it seven years before? the end of the american involvement in the war in vietnam and here's what he said just a couple of sentences. he said you will be forced to take your troops and leave vietnam. you cannot block the majority. will you cannot stop the reunification? and yes the communization? of vietnam you would be wise to withdraw and let the vietnamese settle their own problems themselves. we'll now put that. change the name vietnam. to cambodia, i mean to afghanistan. iraq you you have to wonder do we ever learn anything? i don't know.

we seem to repeat it. we certainly did in afghanistan over two decades. 10 years in vietnam led to 20 years in afghanistan you know extraordinary extraordinary business. i'll move along that saigon. i was then named the new york times saigon bureau. chief was a large bureau at that time. saigon was a beautiful city. as you can see in that that's the presidential palace i decided that i should bring my wife and then seven month old daughter with me most journalists had put their families in hong kong or bangkok, but security system situation seemed to be better. and we rented a house on wednesday street directly across from this palace. and just down the street from

the famous twinspires of the saigon cathedral. i thought that was pretty smart because i'd have the presidential palace with its security detail and i'd had the lord just down the block. well, it wasn't so smart. it turned out that. the viet cong would set up their mortars. they usually just couple of cross bamboo sticks believe it or not across the saigon river and they would fire into central. a central saigon and what did they use discoverers for kentucky windage? the presidential palace that big antenna and of course the twinspires of the saigon cathedral so they tended to land in the street in front of our house and made a big loud noise and we would bundle up. baby, elizabeth and take her

under the concrete steps. she loved it. she'd say. she did the mortar would land in chico boom. boom. i think they were first words actually and but we were fine. we weren't we weren't harmed and and i stayed through the invasion of cambodia. in june of 1970 these famous gunships. c-130 gunships would come overhead and take care of the odd mortar and and rocket fire. in in saigon, and of course we were out in the field a fair amount. and and and that whole scene is repeats itself and again makes me ask the question. stephen do we ever learn anything? and also i i have to ask what's the point of journalism?

i i would go out the situation like this. i went out to one particular firefight just as it was ending. and it was a place called camp carolyn. and the casualties were really grim. on both sides and i wrote about that. and i wrote about how fruitless it seemed. all these deaths and destruction and yeah it ran in the paper. i'm sure it was red in washington. but nothing changed. so it made me wonder. you're echoing a lot of presentation earlier today from craig whitlock who's just published a book called the afghanistan papers, which is based on. the reviews done by the military itself of the lessons learned or unlearned in afghanistan over 20 years when a war goes on 20 years, you know, it's not going well. but the reports kept coming back saying it's going great and

we're winning in the end is in sight and there's light at the end of the tunnel. we heard those phrases from henry kissinger in the time that you were there. oh, it's it delicately repeats what you're saying that no, we don't really learn we don't seem to no, we don't seem to. maybe we will in the future. i don't know. i think i would let me move this along and just say vietnam i went back to washington for two years as diplomatic correspondent. i did have a wonderful time with your friend. henry kissinger who was the most conniving mercurial slippery character? i think i ever covered and who's still with us today stephen. he's was he 95 so i think so. yeah and still full of opinions. i then returned to israel for a full tour and i covered the yom

kippur war. the second of the four wars i write about they're there's an image of egyptian troops pouring across the soas canal on a temporary bridge they laid down the jubilant. feeling they were they were rectifying in a way 1967 and israeli troops up on the golan heights an extraordinary photograph here right on the bank of the suez canal. taken by my friend wonderful photographer mika barram that's in israeli soldier in an officer in the middle. he's taking names of egyptian prisoners who are bound as you can see and a shell has landed. immediately behind them and somehow mica had the presence of mind to take that photograph. i find it extraordinary. but it changed again the

geography of course. and and again although israel was persuaded through negotiation to return of course the sinai that you see there. in the brown, but the west bank is still. still the same. the fourth war that i covered. was in cyprus, that's nicosia and this simply gorgeous island was invaded by the turks in 1974. you see the troops there and they took the 40% of the north and and east the island and i know this is sounding familiar. it's the same today. the line hasn't moved. the turk still control that

portion of cyprus i had been over there on vacation actually with this fellow my father. the late sports columnist red smith who was at that time the most widely read. sports columnist in the country and won the pulitzer prize for commentary in a sports column which i found. fabulous. i read him described as the greatest sports writer of several epochs. well, he was he was spectacular and great he in that in that shot. he were in we're standing leaning on a railing i guess overlooking masada. and that's the dead sea and the background. my mother had died and he came and visited. us there and so then i was

covering washington and the white house. and look at the old-fashioned microphone as i went to work for cbs news standing in front of the west wing. that area to the right is now. all for television cameras and there's a gravel. covering is known locally as pebble beach and that's why they are this was the first fellow i covered. and i covered his foreign policy not his white house. and there's your friend kissinger stephen. and and he was quite wonderful he he was in. more than once but at one particular time and you can find this in the white house tapes. he was denying to nixon that he was the source of a story.

i had written that nixon was annoyed by really annoyed. and he want to know who did it. was it henry or was it william p rogers and the secretary of state? so he and this is from the tapes. kissinger says, huh. first of all, terrance smith never calls my staff. i'll simply not true. he has never done it and all the years that we've been here. oh, that's absolutely not true. secondly, my staff is on additional instructions not to return any new york times calls here. well, that was true, but it was ignored by his staff. and so nixon now even more annoyed says that's right and kissinger said so that's out of the question. it can't be me and they go on to their next. conversation in the tapes and there's there are several of those just listening the two of them talking.

with nixon having his lunch of cottage cheese with ketchup. it was really something and and so then i covered jimmy carter for his term in office. intelligent really gifted hard-working determine could think his way through problems. we couldn't necessarily bring the country or the congress along with him. but he tried there he was in on air force one. or the press plane probably talking to us. we did a lot of travel on air force one, which in those days was a boeing 707 as you can see 27,000 the tail number and the press was in the back definitely back of the bus. and i took one trip with walter

mondale. whose 26,000 miles around all of southeast asia all the way down to australia and and and finally he was going over to new zealand to meet with sir robert muldoon, who was the prime minister and the prime minister who wanted to talk about the lamb quota? that was all he wanted to talk about he was known to the kiwis universally as piggy muldoon. okay, a little kiwi humor there. there's piggy piggy muldoon. and it was a right wing very strong. prime minister, and so he and up to this point and we'd stop with this was our last stop so we'd

been in bangkok and and manila and jakarta and several places and kuala lumpur and we start to kid bondale. because nobody showed up to greet the train the plane went arrived. and nobody on the tarmac nothing. and we said, you know, they're never heard of you. mondell is one of those few politicians you could get. and he would he played along with it, but funny he was getting a little annoyed and when we landed. in in wellington my lord, there was a crowd over here where the plane would pull up and they were holding up big signs. and mondale comes back from the front of the plane and he says you see look at that.

i'm big and wellington, and we said oh, it's a crowd we agree with that and the plane comes around and it pulls up in front of the crowd where we could actually see the hand lettered signs. and they read mondale muldoon a close encounter of a turd kind. oh and that was crazy better give people, but yes for exactly i've gone online enough, but i'll tell you what, i'll do. yes. i'll skip through a bunch of pictures here and i'll just explain that the iran-contra thing of course ended carter's administration in my opinion. reagan was next i covered him. and his multiple summits with mikhail gorbachev. where the man who had the man ronald reagan who had talked about the evil empire. reached an agreement and there

in reykjavik hufti house? gorbachev and you remember in washington gets out and shakes hands on connecticut avenue. i mean unheard of for a soviet leader and finally in in red square, where a reporter asks reagan is this still the evil empire and he says no. no that was then this is now that was another time and another place and with that the cold war is effectively over. the next president that i covered as you know was as brilliant and hard-working and produced a handshake on the south lawn between yitzhakrabeen on the left and and yasser arafat i will tell just one little short.

thing behind that greeting clinton got the two of them in the he told us this later. he got the two of them in the diplomatic reception room. just about to come out the south side of the white house for this event. and he said to both of them. i'm going to ask you to shake hands in front of thousands of people. her gather there. mmm so our father says no problem. i'll do it. robin says finally okay, he says arafat, but no kissing true story. ss bill clinton, he'll tell you that of course he did. tell us that he never had sex with that woman ms lewinsky that wasn't quite true. and you know the rest of that story i covered george w bush

not hw, i went overseas again. so george w bush enormously decent man with good intentions i never understood why when for president except his name was bush. i don't think he had much ideas or many ideas about what to do with the presidency. he listened a great deal, but maybe not enough to his father. and you know the rest of that story so that was the white house and those were the the five presidents and that's the book great. thank you. and we have time for some questions. and happy to talk about any part of it. i think you'll want to use the microphone up here in the middle

of the room. and as i have said the the coverage of these events over this those four decades four and a half. has changed dramatically thank you. so i finished your book this morning. i really liked it and very good. everybody should read it and i noticed that the publisher was rowan and littlefields and they have office in lanham, maryland i do and why did you pick them? they picked me but roman and littlefield is the fifth largest publisher in the united states, but the reason you may not know them as well as they do a great number of academic books self-help books other things i've published for them. there you go. they you said what good taste they have here we are and an agent put me in touch and and they bought the book and and have brought it out it and i

think they're fine. i was not enormously familiar with them right? i never heard of them. i thought it was interesting that they were in lanham, maryland and there are no it's a well they have offices in new york, new york and london and boulder and lanham right atlanta. well if what it's their production facility in lanham has quite big but when other comment you wrote a lot about your dad and i worked with my dad too and at one point you were going to be your dad's boss. yeah, and i ended up being my dad's boss. you did. yes. how did that work out? well, it was hard. he didn't always listen to me. so that was that was tension, but it was good to hear that and reminisce about my dad and being his boss. what you're referring to is a time when i had come back, i'd been assistant foreign editor.

and the wonder will again mercurial executive editor of the new york times decided to shuffle the deck. and move his editors around. and he was given to great ideas many every day. none of which. oh, no some of which but very few of which whatever work out. and so he called me into his office and he was bursting with it. he said i'm going to make you sports editor and i said no you're not and he said well, but wait a minute. it's it's great job the staff of 50. and you'd be your father's boss. i said that's only one of several things that's wrong with this. so he made me a metropolitan or instead.

yes, please observation and question for you. first of all, my husband and i lived through all those events. you just filmed including assassination of robert kennedy. we were living in la. in 64 and had just listened to interview with kennedy by by i think it's roger mudd. ted kennedy, i'm sorry robert kennedy. yeah in 60. yeah. the reason i asked is the famous roger mud interview was with ted kennedy when he asked him why he wanted to run for president, but you're not yeah talking about that's true. but was just interviewed. and that night we went to bed thinking out with we're so hopeful that you know, he would be our next president and then he was killed. at the ambassador hotel that night so just brought back a lot

of memories regarding the presentation of news these days. we are really annoyed about so much music before presentations like meet the press all these other shows. it's it's like an orchestra before a broadway show and then they come on and you can hardly hear them with their narrative because the music just drowns them out versus the way news and journalists used to present the news. it's just so dramatic and so overblown that you have difficulty even hearing the information. i'm just wondering if you have noticed this and if well, you're putting your your putting it's called production values, right and you're putting your finger on something which is the what term do you like the hollywoodization the show is attitude news, but the the more

theatrical presentation as broadcast news has become more and more. competitive and the battle for your eyeballs and many eyeballs is with us. i honestly had never focused on the music particularly, but what most people complain of or comment on? some complaint some don't. is the mixing of opinion and straight reporting and that's undeniably true, especially in the cable channels. and you know fox on on your right and msnbc over here cnn somewhere in the middle. and then online on the internet. i mean it's nothing but opinion

fantasy conspiracy not nothing, but there's a great deal of it and what i notice that it leaves it up to you. to decide what's true and what's not true? previously an editor performed that role right a curator of the news in effect a gatekeeper, right? and you're your own gatekeeper now. and you have to decide now i think with common sense you can figure out. a great deal of it if it just doesn't ring right. it probably isn't right. but it is a major major change. it's a big switch from walter cronkite delivering the news and end of the story absolutely and to the competitiveness as you just described it's changed a lot. thank you for your reporting over the years you bet and you're writing. thank you. one more question, i think. here go ahead. you mentioned earlier about what is you reference? what is journalism for and i

wondered what your thoughts were about the future of journalism. it seems like it's been in crisis for 10 years in the kind of local journalism and foreign reportings. and why do corporations seem like they were willing to invest more for more on foreign reporting in the past than than now and your thoughts on the future of journalism. money is a is the answer to most of that. the the business of journalism is in at least print journalism is in total meltdown. the economic model doesn't work anymore print newspapers are disappearing since 2004 2100. newspaper weekly and daily newspapers have gone out of business in this country. not too long ago the publisher of the new york times. was asked if he thought the new york times would still come out

in on paper on in print newsprint. in five years and he said he thought it probably would and then they question her said 10 years. he wasn't so sure. the economic model simply doesn't work. and so it's changed a great deal and again put a great deal of the burden on the reader or viewer. absolutely and what you say is entirely true not to contradict it all but i think it's also true that the new york times is taking us through an amazing renaissance of creativity where i see what they do with their online resources instead of having a little bit of real estate on the front page now they can put a great deal more material in front of me for the world for the opinion for the metropolitan for the sports for four, of course the front page and i can search at all and i can click on the video and i can click on the live links and i

get a much greater experience. i was the guy who used to stay up after midnight when i lived in georgetown so i could buy one of those great big seven pound sunday times, you know and take it home and it was my morning. sometimes it was my whole day reading the new york times now, i read it more briefly but much more richly and i figure that the new york times also the wall washington post also the wall street journal also the economist have responded brilliantly to the end of the old business. i agree with that and an example is right this past week in buka the ukraine. yes. where the new york times if you saw it, there was a dispute the russians deny that they had assassinated people on the street there. and ukrainians said they had and then the new york times took these amazing.

aerial photographs and did analysis and picked out. and found dead bodies with their hands tied behind their back. and bullet holes in the head in the back of the head. i mean they documented. yep in a way you could see. what was true and what was not in ukraine, so brilliant work. i think yeah, mean, it's really remarkable. and they're doing it often in coordination with open source news that is individuals who are taking video on the spot the even of produced a new app that you can download and have timestamped geostamped date stamped what you have just seen and loaded into the cloud and then if some official presumably a russian possibly since you'd be operating very near with the russians were interrupted you. your information would already be uploaded, but you could press

a button on the app and would be entirely erased from your phone. so the evidence couldn't be used against you. this is creative and this is going to make it possible for war crimes trials to be carried out much better than they were carried out against a little bit on melosovich and yugoslavia by the way in slow, but bit on the losovich died in jail. right with time from just right over a real quick one. i was good friends of the morning hands and 19 daniel patrick monahan, right and 1986. elizabeth warren here called me and said guess what but tim russert who was the chief of stop is now going to be the head of meet the press and take over the washington bureau. so we had a big party for him. i went up to him this your point about a competition. i went up to i said tim. this is great. congratulations. what are your goals is a wonderful opportunity to educate and he said dan my goal is market share. and eyeball, that's what it

began the slice and dice. thank you. of course monahan was the author of that wonderful. and ever relevant aphorism in which he said? everybody's entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.

thank you everyone and good afternoon to all of you joining us online and those of us those of you here with us today. it's a pleasure to see everyone. my mom called me the other day and said i saw this letter to the editor and the paper. can you help me understand it and explain what's going on and this letter to the editor had words like interest convergence intersectionality names of academics from 40 years ago in it, and she wanted t