 Good evening everyone. My name is David McGowan. I'm the CEO here at WJCT and I am so delighted to welcome you here. It's been a long time since we've had these kinds of events and it's just so great to see so many of you here. Before I introduce our esteemed guests, I do want to say a couple of thank yous. Thank you to the Community Foundation of Northeast Florida for supporting this event and helping me if possible. Thank you to our First Coast Society members here who make almost everything we do. In fact, everything we do here possible. And thank you to all of you for supporting WJCT Public Media this evening and for coming out. Michelle, I think you need no introduction to many people here, but I'm going to do it. I think, Michelle, you are best known to people here as the weekend host of All Things Considered, but you're also a podcast host and a correspondent on Amanpour, which is seen on our Jack's PBS television service here. And you came to NPR, I think, in 2006 as the host of a daily program called Tell Me More, which ran for a number of years. And came to NPR after a career spanning print and television from ABC News. And you spent time as a White House correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. That's actually when you and I first met back in D.C. when I was the executive charge of Washington Week in Review and you were a regular guest on that program. So we have that in common, a long history in public media before we were even in public media, some of us. So let's just start by asking you to tell us a little about yourself. You were born and raised in Brooklyn. Well, thank you for having me and thank you all for coming. It's great to see faces, all of them. And also thank you again. Without you, there is no us. The late great Shirley Chisholm was the first black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. She represented a district next to mine in Brooklyn. She was not my family's congressperson, she was the district next to ours. She had a catchphrase, unbought and unbossed. She said, I am unbought and unbossed. I work for you. And I like that catchphrase. That's ours. I think we can have that. We are unbought and unbossed because of you. So you are the reason that we can do the work that we love and think is important. So if nobody else has said thank you today to you, let me say thank you again and again and again. Do love those sustainers, though. But thank you to all of you who make this work possible. We are not beholden to any one person. No one person can be mad at us and decide that we have to go away. I've actually seen that happen. A colleague of mine was working for a wonderful startup media project. It was a great idea. It was bilingual. It was binational. It was meant to kind of bring sort of elevated coverage to issues of particular importance to the binational Latino community. And they had a major funder who picked his head up one day and realized they were going to do real journalism and shut the place down within a week. And so thank you. Brooklyn, New York. Yes. My father was a firefighter. You know, I tell people that, you know, we are people. If you ring a bell, we come, you know what I mean? Like, that's like the family trade. Half of my relatives were police officers, including my aunt. My aunt was one of the first black women to wear a gold shield in New York, if you know what that is. She was a detective. She was one of the... She's in the police museum if you go. And, you know, you know, my dad says he's the black sheep of the family because he started out as a police officer and became a firefighter because he said he couldn't take it. So if you want to know how that happened, like, insert New York accent here. There's meat eaters, and there's grass eaters, and I figured out I'm a grass eater. And remember, this was at a time when the mortality rate for firefighters was actually higher than police officers. You know, the building, you know, infrastructure. You could fall through a roof. My dad fell through a roof, broke his leg. I mean, I have both of his helmets. One of his helmet, the first helmet, has like all these dents in it from when people like through bricks hit his head during the 60s, you know, riots. And then the second one, you know, which is much more sort of pristine when he became an inspector. And, but he just, you know, he liked to save people, you know. So you... My brother was a firefighter also, yeah. And you went from Brooklyn. My sister and I, we're the outliers. Like, we're like the, you know, you know... You're not a firefighter. No, we're not firefighters. Although we do kind of put out fires. So you went from Brooklyn to boarding school and then to Radcliffe, when they still called it Radcliffe, I think. I don't know. I don't remember. I know my ring is Radcliffe, but that's just, you know, identity politics. Sorry. What drew you into journalism? You know, I think it's the same thing that drew my dad to fighting fires, you know. I liked the excitement and I liked feeling like we were helping people. And I liked the fact that if you told people something, it made them feel seen, you know. I think it sort of, it does both things. You tell people something that they didn't know and that's exciting intellectually. But you tell people something that they already knew but didn't know how to understand. And that is, I think, very impactful emotionally. And I think that from the earliest I was just attracted to both of those things. It's a head and heart business at its best. Now obviously, and I think, I assume we will talk about this, people, I think, one of the things that aggrieves, I hope, all of us here, and I know you and I've talked about this, is the way that people have weaponized people's emotions is the purpose of not telling the truth but of winning. And so, you know, clearly there's a lot to be fixed in our business. But at the heart of it, I think it's a head and heart business where hopefully you appeal to people's heads, that you touch their souls, and at its best it helps us see each other. Does that make sense? It does. I think it's interesting to hear you describe it as exciting work because my memory of early days in journalism was, I will tell you, we're not exciting. You're in the wrong business. What were you doing? What were you doing? I was doing a lot of drudgery. I was pulling a lot of wire copy. I was doing a lot of research for people. I worked at Time Magazine earlier in my career. That's why you need to start local. Well, let's talk about that. That's where the fun stuff is. And that's where you do everything, right? So you started local. Tell us about that. You know, I started out as an intern at the Washington Post and I tell, everything I'm about to do is absolutely true. I graduated, I'm from New York. So those of you from New York know that cars are very expensive and it's dad's car. Or whoever has to get to work, it's their car. It's not your car. You're not driving that car. So I, like, I'm sure a lot of you probably learned how to drive when you were like 15 or whatever. No, that's not how, no. So, I'm going to admit this, but I'm going to admit it. So when I got my application for the Washington Post internships, do you have a driver's license? And I assumed the preferred answer was yes. So I thought, well, you know, I'll check yes and if I get this internship, I'll learn how to drive. And so I did get the internship and I thought, yay, and I thought, oh no, I have to learn how to drive. So I think I scraped together like the last $200 of my scholarship money and I paid some retired shop teacher from McKinley Tech to teach me how to drive. And this is a true, and I flattened his tire on my first day and he made me change it in front of all my classmates going to class because the only time I had was, like, at seven or eight in the morning before class started to take my lessons. So I went out at, like, 7 a.m. I tried to park the car. I parked too close to the curb. I flattened the tire. He made me change it in front of all my classmates going to class and I'm like, you know, like that. And so I'm really glad he did that because, like, my first week at the post or two, I took out what they then had radio cars because we didn't have cell phones. So I flattened the tire. I have no idea. And I knew how to change it. And I come back to the newsroom covered with dirt in my, like, one good outfit, triumphant. And they're like, what happened to you? And I was like, I had to change the tire. No big deal. So I graduated June 5th. I took my driver's license exam June 6th. I drove to Washington June 8th. I started at the post on June 10th. So... Getting it done. Getting it done. Getting it done. And, you know, my first story that they sent me out on was, I know I'm sure many of you have read Malcolm Gladwell's work, you know, who's a, you know, a fine writer and wrote about how, like, you need 10,000 hours to be good at something. I don't know whether that's true. I don't know where the 10,000. I don't remember. But, you know, I have to admit, I wasn't very good at first. And my first story they sent me out on was, there used to be a live poultry store, literally down the street from where our office is now. It was called Arrow Live Poultry. It was meant to serve Chinatown, which was two blocks this way. And it also served the Halal community. And it was a target of a demonstration by PETA, which was in its infancy. Okay? So they were demonstrating outside of the live poultry place. So I go there and I interview the demonstrators. And, you know, I interview these people. I come back and my editor says, what's the, you know, tell me. And I said, well, you know, they're out there demonstrating. They said it's mean, you know, to the chickens. And chickens are smart and blah, blah, blah. And he says, is it? I was like, oh. And I went back across town. And he said, I'm sorry. I forgot to ask you. Is it mean to the chickens? And he's, I don't think so. So I go back to the thing and then write up my story. So yes. And then, yeah, so I wasn't very good, but I stuck at it. My other favorite was like this guy named Alfred E. Lewis. You know, do you all remember rewrite men? Do you remember this rewrite men? A few of a certain generation will remember back in the day that were like reporters and rewrite men and the reporters would be out in the street and they would phone in whatever and there was a guy who would write, you know, the copy. Alfred E. Lewis had been like, he was like a, he was like an institution of police headquarters and they took me down there to meet him because I was going to work the night shift because everybody had to work the night shift at some point and he, his one bit of advice to me is you got a pocket full of change, honey? They talk to people like that back then. They probably still do, but, you know, but probably not to me. And they'll be like, you got a pocket full of change, honey? Always carry a pocket full of change. Digs into his pocket and comes up with like a fistful of nickels, dimes and quarters and slams it into my hand. That's all you need. But here's why I really appreciate those opportunities is that, you know, it's people's lives. Like I remember one of these stories where they sent me, I was working the overnight and a little boy had fallen out of the window of a housing project and I was like, oh no. And they were like, go find out, you know, what happened? And I really don't want to knock on this door and I must have driven around the block three times. If I take a deep breath and I go to the door and I knock on the door and I say, I'm so sorry. I'm from the post. Can you tell me what happened? And she said, where have you been? I've been waiting for you. Okay? And the reason I tell that story is that a lot of people think, you know, like we're like vultures. We're just like, you know, pecking at the carcass of people's misery. And, you know, and I've been confronted a number of times with people who, you know, like, you know, how dare you, you know, go and, you know, talk to these people when blah, blah, blah, how dare you. And you saw, you know, at that terrible school shooting in Uvalde where a number of people took it upon themselves to keep the journalists from covering the funerals. They had decided, you know, it was like some combination of hell's angels and people who had empowered themselves to protect the people from the media because they had decided that they shouldn't be there and that this was exploitative. And I go back to that moment and say, this woman, if I hadn't come, it meant he didn't matter. Okay? So I raise that to say that often our views of what matters depends on who we are and where do we think we matter? Do our stories matter? And if we don't show up, does it mean we are invisible? Okay? So I go back to that because I think that that is so fundamental to what we are trying to accomplish. We are trying to not just tell people about their world, we're also letting people know if they matter. And I think that's why the work that you're trying to do, that you all are trying to do here, to reinvigorate local journalism is so important. Well, let's talk about that for just one second and I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to give a shameless plug for what we are doing here locally and for Jacksonville Today, which is our kind of digital first local news effort and you've got a big sign over there and an opportunity to sign up on your table and I encourage all of you to do so if you haven't already. But now you worked in journalism at a time and I think it's still largely true when you worked in local journalism, many people, especially in the big cities with the hope of working in national journalism. And today we have a landscape in which there's an awful lot of national journalism and there's a very, very little bit of local journalism and many of us know that story and why that's happened and the withering of our local newspapers as that business model has changed and they've been absorbed into large companies. Can I just stop you just briefly? I'm not sure that everybody does know that's happening. Because a lot of what people see are these ghost newspapers that look like a newspaper but it really isn't. It doesn't really have any real local reporting in it. So I guess what I'm saying to you is I think the first challenge is that a lot of people don't know that that's happening. I think you're absolutely right. In fact, and this is something I talk about in other forums quite a lot where Pew Research Center does a lot of great research on this. If you ask most Americans how their local newspaper is doing they think it's doing great. There is not a widespread awareness actually of the hollowing out of the newsrooms that have populated American cities for generations and with that a loss of not only the reporting but all of the things go along with that like people's ability to get informed about what's happening in their cities where they live, their ability to have governments monitored, officials monitored, wrongdoing, ferreted out. And we've seen now in study after study the effects of that hollowing out. Let me just say that I think shocks people if they think about it because they don't really think about it. Do you think about it? Do you think about it? Are you saying you're thinking, wow, gee. No, you're living your life. You're getting your dry cleaning. But then how does it happen that these issues that are, nobody was talking about five years ago, two years ago, three years, all of a sudden have taken over the country, taken over library boards and school boards. How did it happen that the urgent need to ban one newspaper article, the 1619 Project, which is one book and one newspaper project, this became an urgent national concern? How did that happen? How did it happen that there was an urgent need to keep children from reading about Rosa Parks or Frederick Douglass? How did that happen? It happened because nature of course a vacuum at national interest groups with a political agenda and ideological agenda have come in where there is not the kind of relationship that people have with their civic institutions because they have nobody to mediate it. Like I'm thinking, like last night there was a, we have in DC, we have these little groups called ANC's advisory neighborhood commissioners. They had a meeting at seven o'clock last night. It was on Zoom because still COVID. People were like, I can't get kids up from school. I got to get to soccer. I don't have time. I want to watch the Emmys. You know, like I don't have time to go. So that's what the, that's what the newspapers supposed to do for you. They're supposed to be places that you are living your life. They're supposed to represent you. You know, can you imagine it's like if you, you have like those of you who are still in that parenting phase or if you remember it, the parent teacher conference, right? You know, how often would one of you say, if you, if you were in a two person household, one of you would say, oh, man, I got to work late. Can you cover me? Can you cover me? Right? That's what we do. We cover you at these meetings that you can't go to. What happens when there's nobody to cover you? What happens? And there's actual data that shows that literally the cost of bond issues goes up, voter participation goes down, community distrust deepens. This is real. This is real. And I don't fault people for not knowing, but now that you know, now that you know, this cannot be ignored. So this is very real. And I understand why people don't, you know, they're not living their lives, but this is a reality that, that interest groups have taken over that vital civic function of helping us understand what's going on in the world. And it's, and I, the only thing I would disagree with what you said is that, you know, you go into local news thinking that you're going to be a national, I didn't. I just wanted to be good at it. I mean, part of it is because I blew up in a blue collar household. I was a firefighter. You know, my mom worked in a store. They've read all the newspapers. Neither one of them have had the opportunity to graduate from college, but they were literate. Like they read the paper. They wanted to know what was going on. They always took us to vote with, you know, I'm sure you all had that same, I'm sure a lot of you had, like whenever they would take, they would go to vote and it seemed very mysterious and complicated. They had to take your turn and, you know, and they pull the curtains and then they would and imagine, you know, how disappointing when I get to DC and like was like this little slip. It was like a dry cleaner slip. Like what the heck, what? This is all I get. This is what? But you know, it was a big deal and they read the papers religiously, all of them. And so I just wanted to be good at it. I didn't have this notion. Oh, I'm going to be a White House girl. So it's terrible. But I remember when my dad, I shouldn't tell the story because I don't know anybody to get in trouble, but when I was getting married, my dad, I was able, I had a friend on the door at the White House. I'm just going to say, what was the secret service? I'm not going to call his name because I don't want to, hopefully he's retired. But he let my dad come in because I had a hard pass so I could get in. And so he's like, what? So he let him go in and my dad, any of you firefighters, my dad never went anywhere without a giant knife in his pocket. So I was like, dad, what are you doing? And because you might have to cut your way out of something, okay? Like that's okay. So he had this giant and Terry was like, what is it? I was like, dad. So he's like, I'll keep it up here. Sure enough, what got me is the president actually came out and had a surprise meet, press, it wasn't really a press conference, availability is what they call it. And availability, it's not all the chairs aren't set up, it's like he wants to say something. Everybody rushes out, so I was like, dad, come on out, come on out. He goes, and he's like, hey, hey. I was like, I know, it's right there. He goes, it's the guy from Channel 2. It's the guy from Channel 2. And poor Randall, he's there. He had been a local reporter in New York, and he's there, and he sees my dad going, hey. And he goes, and I was like, hey. See, okay? I'm just saying to you that I just wanted to be good at it. I just wanted to be in it. I wanted to be part of it. But I do agree with you that the opportunities that we had to learn to move through the chain. I started out covering like the births of interesting zoo animals and the zoning, all the stuff nobody else wants to do. And then I covered the county council, and then I went to the state legislature, and then I got to cover a statewide race. And then after that, I did my time covering one of the federal agencies counting the minutes to how bored I could possibly be. It wasn't all exciting. And then I got somebody literally was covering a presidential campaign that started having some health issues and couldn't want to be on the plane, what we'd call a plane jockey. And they were like, do you want to do it? I'm like, yes, I really do. And thinking that I would never get a chance to go to the White House because the custom then was the person who was covering the candidate that won would continue to cover them at the White House. The candidate I was covering lost. So I was like, well, that's it for me. But then it turned out that who was considered the senior person at the White House at the time was George H.W. Bush was very foreign policy oriented, did not really want to cover domestic policy. And they were like, do you want to do this? Yes, I do. And that's how I got to do it. I want to shift gears for a minute now and talk a little bit about what you do now. Take us inside the show a little bit and what your week is like. You have such an incredible range of topics that you cover on the weekend, all things considered program. I mean, just this weekend, it was the death of the queen, the Ukraine war, how to make a vegan meal. It's such a range. I just think folks would be really interested to know, how does that all come together? Well, my work week is Wednesday through Sunday. So I'm here on my day off, you're welcome. You know, we... You know, I think that every show has an identity or should. And I start out, whenever I take on an assignment, I try to rethink it. I try to think, what is this for? This is the one time I will probably quote Newt Gingrich who said back when he spoke to mere mortals like myself. I mean, he was in Congress. It wasn't hard back then. Like, there wasn't this high hierarchy of I will talk to you because you are on my team and I don't talk to you because you're not on my team. Back then everybody talked to everybody. And what he said was, a standard for anything, practice or policy or institution should be if you weren't already doing it, would you start? If you weren't already doing it, would you start? And I personally think that that is an excellent guide to what we're doing. And so whenever I get a new assignment or I'm asked to do something, I ask myself that if we weren't already doing it, should we start? Would we do it? Would we? And so when I was asked to take over a week and all things considered, that was the question I asked myself. And obviously I'm not the only one who gets a vote. But I ask myself, what is this show for? Who's watching it? Who would we want to watch it? Why are they watching it? What is it for? And can we offer you something that isn't just like you could just turn on the CNN and get the same thing? Because my attitude is, and frankly, frankly, are we just the executive summary version of what Scott Simon reported that morning? I don't know. Like why? So that's kind of my guiding principle. And because we have the opportunity to be on the weekends, part of what I do is curation. And what I say to myself is, what is the most important thing that you may have missed? And can I tell you something more about it for Saturday? And on Sunday, I think, what is the most important thing I can tell you about what's coming up? And then I sort of fill in from there. And then also, frankly, some of it is like what is my staff? What are they interested in? Because one of the things I say, because sometimes we'll have interns like, are you interested in X? And I'll be like, why? First of all, if this show was only what I'm interested in, it would be pretty boring thing one. Thing two, if we're all thinking the same thoughts, why do I need you? I didn't say that to them, because that would be me. But you know what I'm saying, you could just see the little tears. But I wouldn't say that. But I'm thinking that. It's not about what I'm interested in. It's about what you encourage me to be interested in. And if you can't encourage me, then maybe you don't care that much. That's part of it. What else? I'll give an example. She's working for here and now. So I feel really happy about that. She was obsessed with The Bachelor. I could so care less about The Bachelor. I pride myself on how little I have watched The Bachelor. She was obsessed with The Bachelor. And she was like, are you interested in The Bachelor? And my first thought was who? But I was like... But America cares about The Bachelor. No, tell me why you care about The Bachelor. And what's so fascinating to me, she's a first-generation immigrant. She's become a very intellectual fan. I don't know what image people have. She's not sitting at home in her pink fluffy dress. She's just obsessed with it. And I didn't realize it was like a whole Bachelor nation and all this. And so, this being NPR, we found a woman who is both a scholar of The Bachelor. Thank you very much. And who's also a fan. Of course we did. And she's also a fan. She actually watches it. And so I was able to say to her, why are you watching this thing? What is it about it? I had succeeded when people who I don't know e-mail to say, I really cringe when you said you were going to talk about The Bachelor, but it was so interesting. So that's how you know you've succeeded. Because she told me something like I didn't... Why do people care? I think it's so gross. Kissing these people, they don't even know that. I guess maybe most people kiss people, they don't even know. Now that I think of it. But anyway, you see the whole... I've been married for 20 years. But just... So you've worked in radio now for quite a while, but you've worked in every other medium. Except print magazines. I've never done that. I got you covered there. How do you feel about working on the radio? What is it about the radio? I think there's a lot made in NPR about weekend moments and that kind of thing. There is something to that, to the intimacy of radio. How do you think of it when you're on the air? Well, I can tell you, I got very good advice on this from a veteran broadcaster in Washington who told me who had also worked in television. And what he told me is that television is to the room. Radio is to one person. And I have always adhered to that. That's why you will never hear me say you all are guys, you people, you out there. I never... No, it's one person. Because I frankly think that's how most people are listening. They're listening in the car, like with other people in it. In fact, a number of you were nice enough to tell me that you've indoctrinated your kids by having the radio on while they're in the car. We appreciate it. I love a captive audience, especially the ones in the car seats. They can't go anywhere. That's where we want to do it. But I mean, it's true. I think there's something to that. Like television is to the room. You know, you're in their ears. It's very intimate. I think I try to remember that. And also, particularly when I had a mid-day show, because often things were... Tell me more, things are happening like literally right before you get on the air. And so I warn people sometimes you're going to hear something loud. I mean, sometimes people think... It's interesting, some of my younger staff think we're being patronizing. Like when we tell people disturbing images. They think we're being patronizing. They're telling, grow up. And I just disagree. I feel like here you are. You're on your way to the store or you're just, you know... I don't know, something might have just happened before you got in the car. I'm going to tell you about somebody just being eviscerated. Like the Ukraine coverage, some of it, is so heartbreaking. I feel on a human level that I'm going to hurt you. That's just how I feel. I don't think television is the same. We generally don't... I mean, sometimes they do because particularly in times of war the images are so graphic. We have a very sanitized media in the United States. I mean, just as a fact, we don't share a fraction of the kinds of imagery that people in other media enterprises around the world are exposed to. But I personally feel like you were kind enough to pick me up on the way over here. You're going along and if you were to say, how was your day? I just got a very upsetting phone call. I wouldn't just launch into this terrible thing just happened. I would say, David, I'm going to... I have some upsetting news. And I just think it's... I have a lot of opinions about how... So forgive me, I have a lot of opinions about that. But when I hosted Tell Me More as a daily show one of the things I would say to people, don't leave people devastated. Don't let the last thing that people hear from us be something that breaks their heart. Give people some hope. People can like it or not like it or they can think it's corny. But I personally feel that I think that the world is so stressful and it can be so unkind that if people give us the courtesy of inviting them into their personal space I feel the least we can do is honor that space and have a little bit of gentleness about how we introduce things that cannot be avoided. You can avoid it, you can turn us off. Nobody's under subpoena here. I tell people that all the time, nobody's under subpoena here. But I just feel and I understand that people disagree with it. Sometimes people get annoyed. We get letters from people all the time saying, why are you being so? Because it's my show. Let's talk a little bit. You mentioned the differences between television and radio. I want to talk a little bit and ask you about this crazy media world of 2022 that we live in. There have been a lot of observations over a long period of time about the differences in media and the way it affects our democracy. Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman and a lot of media critics are talking about this. I think famously the kind of politicians that tend to do well in a television world are politicians that are likable on television. That's one of the things that's been said. I want to posit a theory on you which is recently from someone who I admire who said in our social media world actually it's pretty good to be likable but it's really good to be unlikeable. That's because of the energy and the passion that that kind of unlikeability generates. Of course it generates likeability and passion among a group of supporters but actually the energy that's generated by the controversy itself and by provoking folks into not liking them is also actually useful to them. You actually kind of in a recent interview you asked a question about I think was the Pennsylvania race and saying you asked your guest whether this was an intensity election and it struck me it made me think back to this theory. What's your thought about that? Do you think there's something to that? I think it's a dynamic question and I think that it's one that we have not we don't really even fully understand. I think that the likability standard has gone out the window frankly. People can argue with me if they want to but I think that 2016 proved that likability is not relevant to effective public discourse if you want to win I mean I think that there have been political movements throughout history that have demonstrated that charisma and likability are not the same thing and so I think that that argument of fueling outrage is one that is one that I think that's taken over all media frankly. Really so you don't see that's not a social media thing you think that's a... I think social media weaponizes it but the outrage machine is one that I think has been taken over by all broadcast channels and I think that at NPR we're fighting against a wave and the question... I mean it's interesting because we highly prize civility in our corner of the business it is not highly prized that for a long time in the media as you say television has done that for a long time because the controversy the heat of the argument it makes for... it used to be said that makes for good TV so we did it and I think the thing that I was interested in trying to understand is I don't know if candidates have ever felt that that their own you know their that was spewed at them could actually be productive for them and helping them win it depends on whether candidates are serious people or not or they just want to win I mean there's candidates are not all the same candidates are human beings and they all come in different flavors and some people are very interested in policy and some people are very interested in winning and some people are very interested in both I mean obviously politics is the means by which government happens right? okay so yeah look down on politics politics is the means by which government happens there's two choices it's words or weapons those are the choices right so you either win by you know might or you win by words but the problem here is that you know who can be the most outrageous right and when people don't have other basis to evaluate people this is it goes back to what we started our conversation with is not local news is not the answer to every question because look again there was no golden age of when the news was perfect in this country please please please newspapers in this country have motivated lynch mobs newspapers in this country have this is a fact I mean come on like you know there's a project there's a really interesting project the University of Maryland where teams of multiracial teams of reporters I think it's very interesting how they've constructed this of student journalists are going back to their community newspapers if they still exist and re-reporting some of these racial atrocities and going back and trying to find like what happened why was it constructed in a certain way like there are those of you who've ever dug into this area you know it will break your heart I mean people act like mob violence directed at marginalized people is like a few bad apples well how is it a few bad apples when you have a thousand people showing up to a lynching that was prioritized in the newspaper so this is a fact and I'm sorry that some people want to outlaw facts or the learning about facts but the facts will not disappear and you know what is it that you know Ronald Reagan said facts are stubborn things he was right and so so newspapers there's not some golden age but the but of where everything was perfect and everybody did the right thing and all this other thing I mean there's a very long and interesting history of the relationships that different papers in the United States have had with the political parties and with ideological groups and how they were used for political agendas I mean those of you who are history buffs I'm sure you know about the Spanish-American war and how it was basically the invented construct of some people I mean they just made the whole thing up everybody those of you who are veterans of the Vietnam era you know about so so but what I am saying is that we are in a moment where it's very hard you have to be very motivated to break through that noise and let me be very clear we are not perfect in public media let me be very clear we are not perfect we have done all the things I mean we do not participate in the outrage machine that's not our brand it's not our mission and again as I said at the beginning because of you we don't have to chase the clicks our life does not depend on it but we've been we've been you know guilty of not seeing whole parts of the world we've been guilty of not seeing our neighbors people who live right next to us because we didn't see them they weren't our folks they weren't our people you know so but we at least are trying to push against that culture of outrage for the sake of outrage and again I'm not you know saying that my our friends our colleagues in the commercial media love this I think they're all everybody's paddling and as fast as they can and they're not sure where they're going I can tell you remember I was in commercial television I was working at ABC during the OJ Simpson trial and I remember one by one as everybody clicked on to the Bronco chase do you all remember that I know I'm dating myself but I remember thinking what is happening I mean I had just come from newspapers I was like what is happening what is happening and I remember thinking why are we doing this and it was almost like if you went back and asked people why are we doing this because they're doing it and so it becomes the circle the cycle of you know this is what we're doing because everybody's doing it and this is where I think a lot of people are looking at trying different models of ownership to create different incentives and you know think about it we were go fund me before go fund me was cool I mean this model of you give five and you give five hopefully you'll give ten 25 50 so that means that no one person can decide that this is our reality and that we can all hopefully seek truth together and that is why you'll see outfits like ProPublica which is an investigative group but they don't have their own distribution platforms they have to basically go around and find a paper or a partner to distribute their content you'll note that there have been these huge big multinational investigations like have you heard of the Pandora Papers they've done a job of figuring out where often dictators and autocrats are hiding their money around the world and because so many of them live in places where the wrong story will get you killed or arrested that's why they spread the information around newspapers and news outlets around the world so that no one group can be shut down hoping that at some point the truth will come out so I guess what I'm saying to you David is we have not figured this out but we are trying and you are trying we are trying hopefully you will help us try I'm hoping that this next generation of people will take it equally you know there was a whole remember the whole Woodward and Bernstein generation everybody got excited about investigative journalists again because Woodward and Bernstein and then people realized well everybody can't do that then now I'm hoping that people will get interested again in both local news but the business structures that allow it to thrive but they're not the only ones struggling with this like with those of you who are in medicine you realize there's a whole generation of so-called general practitioners right GPs internal medicine who are retiring so now it becomes a matter of specialists well how would you know what specialist you need to go to if you don't have some sort of a gatekeeper I guess what I'm saying is there are lots of institutions now that are going through this kind of disruption and how I ask is that within your lane you do what you can do and all I ask is as citizens and as conscious people do your part don't pass along rumors that you don't know to be true just do your part don't pass along you know whatever social media outlets use don't be part of the problem you know one of my some friends that people that I'm friends with they say practice good information hygiene like remember we've all had to relearn how to wash our hands like I don't know you're supposed to do all that like we had to relearn that because of the current environment that we're in well the environment we are in now we all have to practice good information hygiene and it is very comforting of course to be validated in your views all the time I mean who doesn't love that you know you're right I think you're really right everybody loves it but that's not what we need as citizens so I want to ask you about something which is again as recline who many of you may know said something which I really found interesting about the need for media that allows you to change your mind right you know it's it's true I think that no matter what your particular sort of problem in the world is if it's climate or it's poverty or it's inequality or whatever it may be there seems to be you know a vast gap between what we sort of think we should do and what most of us acknowledge we will do and the thing that is especially infuriating is that if you tell people that well you know this is what you should do it just makes the problem worse it makes people I think react in a very negative way and dig in and entrench themselves and that's part of the polarization that we see today and yet we've got to acknowledge somehow that you know the secret politics is you know you got to be able to change people's mind in order to change politics and I wonder how you think about that as you do your stories as you I think all the time about maybe it's just a product of getting older that I'm actually much more willing to change my mind now about a lot of things than I was 20 or 30 years ago I wonder how we how we present journalism and media to people in a way that allows them to actually consider things think about the new and potentially change their mind because it seems like what's required is a difficult question it's more difficult than it seems because we are presented now with not just a matter of different part of the battle in America today is a battle over narrative and it's not just a matter of fact it's a matter of fact interpretation and in some cases outright falsehoods okay so in a situation where you have somebody say insisting that the crowds at his inauguration were the largest ever in history and since I was there and have been in Washington for some time and have covered many demonstrations and many gatherings that were bigger and I know and can see with my own eyes including any of you who also can see and their satellite imagery and there's people whose job it is to count crowds and there are people who with expertise in this matter who all say the same thing is this service a good service to present that with equal weight see what I'm saying this is the problem because some people would say that it is some people would say your job is to just go he says A he says B some people think that's our job and I just don't there's an interesting conversation about this in media I'm happening right now because and I'm not sure what's happening at CNN right now with the change of management right and the sort of fear that what's being ordered up by the new bosses is kind of this classic what we call both sides journalism I don't know enough about what they're doing I understand what you're saying and I understand why people are afraid of that I just don't know whether it's that or they think that they've gone too far to interpreting the flaws and strikes but the motivation of the picture it could be that and I just use CNN as a proxy because there's been a lot of writing in the media about this recently but this question of legitimacy to both sides I think it's fair to say that there was a time when it was almost automatically warranted to give both sides in a political debate some measure of coverage or attention not necessarily it was always a journalist's job to evaluate the legitimacy of those views and whether they had some basis in fact and to present that to to readers or listeners or viewers but that seems to have changed now friendly amendment friendly amendment when Richard Nixon was first portable handheld tape recorders became widely accessible during the Nixon Kennedy campaign when Richard Nixon first saw a New York Times reporter because New York Times had money then and they were often the first to adopt new technology when saw the reporter with the handheld tape recorder he was furious because he realized that people would actually know what he said so all I'm saying is this push and pull but he could say whatever he wanted and these clothes grew and then like who was going to dispute it and now there was just like with photography just like with other technological innovations the problem we have now is these same technological innovations can lie we have artificial intelligence that can make like those of you may have seen this image of Nancy Pelosi that was distributed all around social media that made it look like she was slurring her words like she was drunk at a public event she was not it was manipulated to make her look that way it's just a fact and so I guess what I'm saying is we've had these periods before where people were fighting over narrative this is not new what is new is the means by which you can weaponize falsehood has become so accessible and so easy that it's not just a matter of certain people having access to this it's a matter of lies spreading literally around the world and we know for a fact that there have been mob attacks on people based on lies on social media thankfully in this country only one but in recent years but in other parts of the world you see my point so it's just it's I don't want to leave us and you know this is the thing I've said I don't believe in leaving people devastated what I think is that I think that we as an industry we we have a lot of work to do I have a reading list for people if they're interested I mean obviously you mentioned as a client I think people if you are so inclined I would love it if people would read Margaret Sullivan's book it's a small book it's called ghosting the news it's like slender it'll take you if you're a fast reader it'll take you a couple hours if you're a slow reader it'll take a couple days Chris Starwald has a new book Margaret Sullivan's book is called ghosting the news it's about this whole question of local news why it matters so much and she has the receipts I mean she has she has the data on why local news matters not just from a standpoint of civic you know goodness but how it really affects your bottom line but I also am reading a book Chris Starwald's book you know those of you remember he was the political director at Fox and he was fired for correctly calling Arizona for Biden that is a fact and he also just recently testified before the January 6th committee about the pressures that were being brought to bear he has a lot to say about his sense of he started also in newspapers he has a lot to say about how he thinks the technology has accelerated what he calls the rage machine I guess what I'm saying is it's not your job but it is all of our responsibility and to the degree that I can persuade people like you who by your presence are showing that you care about these issues to participate in these conversations it's too big of a job just for us I'm sorry I wish it were different it's too big of a job just for us and just like we all can't just leave health care to the doctors because it's all of our responsibility this is all of our responsibility to to figure out how we communicate with each other about the things that matter most I wish it were different I wish you and I could just like sort this thing out right now but we can't what I can promise you is we will do our part but I can also promise you we cannot do it alone and there are so many things like just there's just so many things that you know support it's like if you're picking your wine right I mean I'm not trying to be you know what do you do you get the best wine you can afford and you leave the garbage on the shelf right so leave the garbage on the shelf we're going to turn to your questions in just a minute can I have your water thank you help yourself I'm sorry I noticed you weren't drinking I flew today I flew in today so I want to ask you kind of a related question which is do you think we have a problem with bias in the media we're human beings all humans are flawed vessels but I mean it's a problem is it a problem in the way and how do you mean that do you mean that as a personal character flaw of the individuals doing the work or do you mean it as a neurological phenomenon that is inescapable in human beings I think I mean it as neither of those what do you mean what I'm telling what I mean is if you have if we accept that everyone has biases but that a balanced a nuanced view of the world is best created by having a diversity of backgrounds of diversity of opinions a diversity of perhaps a political orientation do you think we have a problem with bias in our newsrooms in America I think the structures of media now and in the current moment whatever the personal proclivities of the people doing it are tend toward liberalization whatever your personal opinions are because I think that in terms of bias I think that a lot of people think that the legacy media is by and large liberal I would argue that in the current how can I put this if you were a surgeon could you do surgery if you couldn't stand the sight of blood my attitude is you can't stand hearing other people's opinions that don't comport with yours you can't do it does that make you a liberal no it makes you have professional discipline and I think if you're a dentist and you can't stand teeth you're in a world of hurt so I just think that this argument that people of a certain generation in media are bias like the New York Times are organically bias because everybody is a political liberal who all voted for Dukakis when nobody else did I'm sorry I just think it's to do the work the way it has been done in the current environment you have to have a tolerance for different points of view you can't do it if you're a person who everybody's got an uncle Fred like this who's like the minute everybody's got an uncle like this the minute you think Johnny's come out and told us that he's gay and he's got a friend and he's coming to Thanksgiving and uncle Fred's gotta let you know why that's wrong and he's not gonna up with which he will not put you can't be you're sending him out to go talk to people I'm sorry everybody can't do this so I think some of it it's professional discipline it's a certain personality type if you're interested in all kinds of situations who's somebody whose primary instinct is to judge and condemn you're not gonna be attracted to this that's different from somebody having a political agenda which who says my get up in the morning and my goal is to make my team win okay I think there are certain news organizations where that is the overriding goal one in particular I'm sorry that's the overriding goal make my team win what's so fascinating about Chris Starwald's book is that he suggests I don't know I've never worked there but he says that it's not even really that way it's that the incentives are so directed in that law in that way that you get it's the undertow it's the undertow you just get pulled into it and that if people were in a different stream they get pulled into a different stream I think that's an interesting I think that in terms of you know I don't see how you could not need diversity in a newsroom I don't see how you could possibly do your job without at least do it the way it should be done I had a very painful interestingly I had a very painful conversation with one of my former bosses frankly just this weekend about the coverage of some it was about coverage of the royal family and thinking back to my time in his newsroom and how disempowered I felt as the only female correspondent and the only correspondent of color and I said now you know what like Prince Charles marrying Camilla then Prince Charles was portrayed as this beautiful you know late in life love story I said but as the only woman in that newsroom right to me it was like this powerful middle aged man using this young girl as a brood mare and then when he was done with her threw her over the side that's how it felt but nobody cared about you know and he was shocked and I said to him I said now I'm really telling you all the inside and I said and could it be because there's so many middle aged men in our newsroom who are having affairs that could it be that that's why this was the preferred narrative I mean so I guess what I'm saying to you is that you know I said I said to him the reason I'm raising this with you is that you are now teaching and I really would appreciate it if you ask your students who gets to tell the story and tell it and whose voice is missing and why is it missing and I just don't see how you cover the world as it is without at least an appreciation of whose voice is dominant whose is the loudest voice and who is not being heard I don't understand how you think that's fair now the fact of the matter is only diversified in terms of racially because like remember Eleanor Roosevelt famously stopped talking to male reporters she wanted to make the newspapers hire women she said I'm not giving interviews to male reporters sorry so they had to hire women hello and in fact during the area of the 60s activism some of the black radical groups would not talk to white reporters or some of the white reporters were afraid to go talk to them and so some of the newspapers had to hire black reporters and but in that instance they weren't trying to yes they were looking at people who they thought would better understand them but they weren't trying to obliterate other narratives the problem I have now is that you have people who want to obliterate other narratives they want to criminalize other narratives they want to make it and that is to me it's not acceptable so what I'm not looking for is replacing you know one set of bullies with another set of bullies I'm not looking for replacing one set of kind of smug self-righteousness with other smug self-righteousness but what I am saying is I don't understand how if a diversified financial portfolio is desirable if biodiversity is desirable how is intellectual diversity not desirable that is an opportunity to open up to some questions I think we have some microphones in the room that will be brought to you so if you are interested in asking a question please do let us know hopefully it's not a fitness contest either like I how much time do we have just so I know how to we have about 20 minutes I just need to know how to calibrate my answers see this is so funny because like most of you know so like I'm like nobody asks me questions I'm like oh wow I got to talk thank you David thank you so much for being here I have a question to try to create a sense of urgency around what we see as the crisis around local news and my challenge has been why should people care because I cannot figure out how to make people care about this so I just want to give you an opportunity on why individual people should fund a non-profit news entity so any thoughts that is a tough one because I feel like the proof is in the pudding you know what I'm saying once people see that it's useful they will be interested success breeds success so that is a tough one if there's anything I can do to help you I'm glad to do it I'll show up but I'm not going to you know but I think the proof is in the pudding I think success breeds success and once people see something is valuable to them they tend to want to support it and I think you know forgive me I don't know what particular area you're interested in but one of the things that I've observed breeds loyalty is when you pick something like you know those of you who play this is terrible I'm using golf metaphor can you believe that I'm using a golf metaphor but you know pick your club and swing it like if you pick an area where you can add value and add it and then build from there I had an intern who was at a college paper and he was really frustrated because he was used to running the whole deal and then poor guy shows up in my newsroom and he's like doing whatever and I said to him look if you can cook a whole chicken you can cook a chicken leg and find the chicken leg and cook it and he to his credit I say I love this kid he called me up during the next election he goes I found my chicken leg because what he realized is that nobody was covering like the little the precincts right around the university so he sent his reporters to cover it and people were happy about it so that's what I would find your chicken leg that's what I would say and if I can do anything to help you I will do so where next two questions softball and the hardball do you write most of your dialogue and secondly what can the world do about Putin and what can journalism do to help that well the um which was the softball no well I I am not like this is terrible Henry Kissinger once said this joke about my friend and colleague Ted Koppel he hates it when I call him my boss I don't know why like he was my boss he could fire me I couldn't fire him so he was my boss but he hates that for some reason but anyway my friend and colleague Ted Koppel Henry Kissinger said that Ted's fondest wish was both to ask the questions and answer them but as to the dialogue I do not write the answers but yes I do I don't write all the introductions but I certainly put my hands on all of them because people need to you know if somebody brings me a guest I need them to basically have vetted the guest and I will go back and but in terms of my what I say yes I write that myself or at least I edit it myself and I don't choose all the guests because like as I said like I I can't know everything but I certainly approve them all and there are people that I you know I sometimes I have to go back and say this happened a couple of months ago that somebody picked a person to offer expertise on a subject and I looked a little bit deeper into that background and I said well I said you know why did you I asked my staff why this person on this topic at this time if you can't answer those three then come back when you can but this person had a record of anti-semitic comments like I you know you can't really cover if you're going to write about race you're going to interview racist that's the way it is and if you're going to write about anti-semitic at some point you're going to interview anti-semitic but if the subject is like anthropology why are we interviewing this anti-semitic tell me why and they were like I didn't know so yeah what about Putin what's happening in Ukraine how journalism can help I think that was the question I have been really moved and impressed by the vigor of the reporting and the yeoman's efforts that people have made to get the truth out we have a telegram channel we have Russian speakers we have broadcasting our news on telegram which is a social media channel that a lot of people in Russia get we are doing whatever we can we and not just us this international consortium of journalists as I've shared trying to get the truth out and still keep our people on the air and out of jail I mean that is real we're trying to keep Charles out of jail Charles Mainz is our correspondent in Moscow he did a terrific piece this weekend about how magically pro-Kremlin forces have been able to criticize the recent offensive in Ukraine whereas anti-Kremlin individuals it's against the law and you will be arrested so we are just I guess what I would say is we're staying on it and I don't mean to it's kind of a terrible expression that's an awful expression we need to keep hammering on the same nail is that better but it is your support that allows us to protect him and to protect other journalists who are doing this difficult work both legally and with the appropriate equipment for example I went to Romania I promised my kids I wasn't going to cross into Ukraine because they hadn't I promised them as I was saying to David earlier now they're both in college where I am and what I'm doing and your support is why we have body armor your support is why we have security consultants your support is why we have people that we can call 24 hours a day if we're in trouble and need to get someplace we've had as you know colleagues killed overseas doing this important work and we remain doing this important work because you allow us to do it so that we are doing our best so question over there yes I often wondered how you managed to keep balance in your segment barbershop did you know all of these people or did you have a group of individuals to give you background and inkling of how to ask questions they were always that segment was entirely to me very informative and well balanced I appreciate that I appreciate that because one of my goals with tell me more was to bring people who weren't like always you could hear everywhere you know what I mean and sometimes when that happens so I had certain rules which is you have to you got to mess up twice before we dump you because everybody's not always great their first time out and sometimes people mess up or they don't know how to work the time so yes we had basically a lot of scouts one of our kind of key people Jimmy Israel was kind of a talent scout for us and he would try to bring people to our attention I am really excited about the fact that our NPR was one of my early guests on the barbershop so you know and so giving people an opportunity to be good is one thing and this is something that I also particularly about women one of the things that used to irritate me is like you know during the Iraq war you know you'd have four generals and they all beat men but there are women who have expertise in defense matters and they were up with like half an hour's notice and she'd run into the studio and be like out of breath and they'd be like oh she wasn't very good so really because you called them up a week ago and they had like five days to prepare so one of the things I try to do is when people aren't experienced talkers give them an opportunity to get good and if they mess up you got to mess up twice before you get dumped like this one guy he was really popular blogger every other word you know what I'm saying I'm like no I don't I don't know what you're saying so he just couldn't adjust to our vibe but so thank you for that it was one of my proudest things I think we brought lots of new voices who you would not have heard otherwise many of whom have gone on to be very successful like there was a guy who later became a full-time on-air person at ESPN who had never been on the air before I tell you there are a number of people that I brought on who'd never been on the air before there was a woman who named Janet Mock who has become an internationally known transgender activist she was one of the writers and producers of pose if any of you are fans of that show I am literally the first person ever to interview her and so well thank you I'll receive that anyway all I'm saying is I feel part of my job is to bring people in and sometimes when that happens they're not going to be great at first but to give them that opportunity to be great so I was wondering your thoughts on the influence of journalism and entertainment in three minutes or less yeah well it is there look look look some of the fame you know people forget that Mike Wallace started out as a game show host Hugh that's true Mike Hugh Down started out as a game show host the late great feared Mike Wallace the you know CBS Newsman extraordinaire started out as a game show host Hugh Down started out as a game show host Walter Wynchel started out as a publicist for dancers on Broadway I mean he later became you know he was one of the most powerful he was like the Rush Limbaugh of his day so there's always been a relationship between broadcasting and entertainment like Diane Sawyer was a Miss Young America or something like that America's Junior Miss she started her career as and then she got a job as Richard Nixon's assistant when he was living in sort of post presidency exile she was like his secretary or an administrative assistant and somehow like you know Megan Kelly was a lawyer if she wasn't in entertainment but you know you could argue there's an element of razzmatazz and lawyering I can say it so there's always been a relationship between entertainment and journalism the question is at what point do you adhere to the values that make journalism what we expected to be listen in the United States journalism is a craft it is not a profession there is no test that you take there is no license you put on the wall you can't be arrested for impersonating a journalist and if you could I have a list but but that's our system and we prefer it I mean there's no licensing board you know in some countries you know there's a licensing board we don't that's not our we don't believe in that here because so that's where you get the whole citizen journalist and who's a journalist and who's not a journalist it's it's that's our system it's not going to change but I will say that again like I was saying to this lady here the proof of the pudding is in the eating are these people who are having a constructive purpose can you trust them and you know that's where I get concerned is that just the entertainment value cannot should not overwhelm is it true is it fair is it right can you trust them and so that's where I get upset is that people I feel like who have earned your trust and I say this to my interns all the time like you know we get interns every semester and it has taken me a long time to earn the trust of this audience it can take and I don't want to lose it so it takes a long time to earn it's very easy to lose so you know have my back so right there can you hear me thank you Michelle and thank you NPR I know you earlier Michelle I and my son pretty much listening to you in the car every day now he's out of college and working in San Antonio so we are also a big fan of NPR we listen to NPR every day I have many questions but I guess I have limited time I just ask wine only wine right you know relevant to myself in my life as an Asian American I am passionate about helping people to live a better life I promote lifestyle medicine I have an organic restaurant we made organic food I often say I wanted to make the meals they're healthy so my question is not related to food not related to Asian hate from geopolitics our country has war with China and last of five years we have a Chinese project and profile Chinese born scholars professors students who live here and they brought them to to the court some has issues 80% 90% just profile them and they all dismiss the case and the other one is that our media has buyers reporting about China everything about China is bad bad, bad, bad nothing is good from China but I often say to my friends if everything is bad about China but they outlived 600 million people from poverty in 30 years I said this is something that as Americans we can learn from them so we can the good stories that we can learn how we can deal with our poverty homeless people on the streets so my question is that how as NPR we all trust trust media in our country how we can do to make the reporting more balanced and to help our country help our politicians to make the better policies to live our poverty and the homeless populations thank you well I understand what you're saying I agree that there has been that racism has been weaponized against people of Asian descent and that it has been a very frightening time for people I believe that this isn't solely a media problem this is also a leadership problem I don't think you could ignore the fact that the president of the United States use racist terminology to refer to a disease which knows no ethnicity I personally have seen what you're talking about I have experienced this I have one of my older girls I have a blended family one of my older girls is a hospital based physician and has described the harassment that people have experienced which is appalling in any context but particularly appalling when you have people who are trying to save people's lives as a person of color myself I completely understand what it means to be profiled on the other hand it is also a fact that the current regime in China has made a diligent effort to shut down public discourse and free reporting I have a former colleague from the I don't want to say which news organization an organization that I reported for previously who was ejected from the country had to flee because of her reporting it is fair, accurate and honest reporting it is a fact that the current regime is trying to do in China what Putin has tried to do more quickly and dramatically in Russia which is to criminalize reporting this is just a fact that reporters have had their licenses revoked their access to the internet has been shut down censorship is real in China it is a fact and so the fact that the doctor who tried to call attention to was literally arrested and questioned by the police subsequently died of COVID when he was trying to just to warn his countrymen about it those are real stories and they have to be reported and they have to be reported for the sake of people in China as well as for the rest of the world because if we don't give people in China the opportunity to tell if they don't have the opportunity to tell the truth about themselves to themselves it is an outside force that is willing to do it I go back to that woman I talked about whose son fell out of the window I think that is an apt metaphor for autocratic regimes around the world who are trying to silence the voices of their own people that woman said to me where have you been and I cannot say in good conscience their whole millions of people around the world Americans where have you been where are you and so I think that what you are saying is complex but I feel as a journalist it is important for us to stand with those who want to tell the truth even when it is painful and I think that in the long run that is a greater service to people people in China right now and other people who are living in environments where access to information is not free as to the question of people the mistreatment of their fellow citizens that is a stain on our country and I hope that all decent and ethical people will do what they can when they observe this injustice occurring and you should not be alone in this ever and I think that we are not Asian and see this kind of behavior going on have a duty to stand with you we have one last one over there first of all I would just like to tell you that I am a big fan of yours and also yeah with newspapers going out of business all around the country and the price of the newspaper going up what do you say to a young student that wants to become a journalist because are there many jobs is the pay worth it is the time worth it and the second part of that question is how many newspapers are headed by African American males around the country are there many perfect how many newspapers around the country are headed by African American males you know I don't know the first question is well I'll end with the second question I'll end with the first question the second question is how many are headed by African American males I mean the LA Times is the largest that I can think of LA Times Kevin Merida is the executive editor of the Los Angeles Times New York Times until recently New York Times until recently this is Dean Bracay he's a great journalist he's been at the Dallas Morning News he's been at the Post he started this project at ESPN called The Undefeated he's I think he is probably the most prominent African American male newsroom leader that I can personally know I know that at the Post there's a generation of rising stars at NPR there are a number of people who are very well positioned for leadership like as I said Nick Charles is now the cultural editor who's just doing amazing work there's a the head of our visual team is expanding exponentially he actually left NPR and came back which tells you something I mean the shrinkage of newspapers is a real problem the Denver Post had an African American man who was the executive editor the Globe at one point had the Boston Globe had an executive editor at least one of their top editors but the shrinkage of newspapers is a serious problem but if you're asking me what I would tell you if I need you I would say it's not if you have the inclination and the skill and the desire I would say your country needs you it's not just that our field needs you I would say our country needs you and I don't mind if people do this work for a certain period of time just like we offer our thanks and congratulations to people who wear the uniform we don't necessarily expect them to do it forever but if they do it for a time we thank them for their service and that's the same thing I would say to a young journalist who comes at this with what I consider to be the right mentality which is I'm here to tell the truth I'm not just here to win for red team or blue team I'm not here to decide what's right and then find the facts to fit that narrative I'm here to tell the truth to support my country and that's what I would say and I mean it so in closing tonight I just want to invite all of you to take up Michelle's invitation and learn more about what we're doing and about how you can become knowledgeable not only about what's happening in local journalism but what's happening in your community you all have some material on your tables in front of you that invite you to learn more and to sign up for Jacksonville today which is an email newsletter which is really the start of what we're doing we have a big ambition in this space and we hope that we can count on you to participate and to support it and finally I want to say to you Michelle thank you so much for being here on all of our behalf thank you for sharing yourself with us and for being here this evening thank you and good night