The noble prize in journalism education, so i am really glad that she is here. I will tell you more about diane in a moment, but first as i traditionally do, we will discuss the discussion. An underlying theme we have been having, the background for all of the discussions in the amphitheater, has been, how the news business, and the Civic Society can do its part. To give us the information and the values and the perspective that we need, as a Democratic Society to find our way. I was thinking of that this morning during nancy gibbss interesting conversation with david andreli. I will have a brief quiz based on this discussion. They were talking about the difficulty of having Accurate Information come across and holding its way against fake information which has been a very important theme in all of our discussions this week. And of course, this comes in the news with confederate statues, which obviously are the center of controversy now. I probably will not ask for a show of hands, but an imaginary show of hands about when we think these confederate statues mainly went up. Do we think they went up in the 1850s as the civil war was coming to an end . Do we think it was the 1860s, during the civil war, 1870s and 1880s during the construction . No, as you all know, the main periods of construction were 1910 through 1920, the same period that the klan was getting going, and the early 1960s. Who here has driven to the National Airport of d. C. A long Jefferson Davis highway . Any guess when i got that name . 1922. All of the northsouth avenues in alexandria are named by law for Confederate Military leaders. When did the law come into effect requiring that . 1963. Anything else going on in 1963 that might have so, this is a way in which we think of these confederate statues as part of the time with heritage of the country but actually they were part of an invented history at certain times of national and southern light. So this is just by way of context saying that all of the platforms in chautauqua this week, and all of our discussions at 2 00 this afternoon have been about the ways in which our institutional life, formal institutions and Civic Society, individuals and their ethics, religion, religious organizations and the media can together try to restore the elements of civic life that democracies depend continue. Those elements include tolerance which is understand now under strain now, a willingness to compromise, also wonder straight now, and a shared reality based in knowing what is going on. If all of those three things are eroded, we are for the theme explored in various ways at the amphitheater and we heard it on michael garson, Peter Bernard and diane winston, now. I dont know any idea what her speech will be about, but i predict that you will find it very interesting, stimulating and concerted argument about how we got to this point in our history, what it means and what you can do about it. Diane winston is excellently prepared to have this discussion, she has been a practitioner, a scholar and she is now preparing our next generation of people to be practitioners and scholars. For more than a decade she was a working newspaper reporter, working for raleigh news and observer, Dallas Times Herald and the Baltimore Sun while contributing to many other newspapers. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for working on all of those publications and regularly contributes to other newspapers and magazines. She has a phd in religion from princeton, a masters from Harvard Divinity School and the Columbia Journalism School as well. As the night chair at annenburg, her focus has been on the intersection at the local and international levels. Of religion and politics and culture and news media. Teaching courses such as hollywood, faith and the media which she is well poised to do. I could say more about diane, i will simply say that as our discussion has evolved on the way that news organizations, governmental culture, Popular Culture and all the rest can either defend us or not defend us against the challenges of this era, i think diane has a really good perspective about how we got here and where we may go from here. Please join me in welcoming diane winston. [applause] dr. Diane winston can everyone hear me . Thank you jim, thank you maureen, thank you phil and maggie brockmann, thank you dr. Franklin and thank you all for coming out today. I have to tell you, this is a dream come true for me. When i began researching my first book on the salvation army, i learned that the early leaders of the army who were incidentally women, would come to chautauqua to talk about faithbased social service delivery. And from reading their remarks, i had the feeling that this was the place to go when you wanted to have enlightened conversations about how to better the world. So, to be here today among you and have a chance to talk about issues that are so important, is just as i said, a dream come true. And it is so much of a dream that i want to tell you all, my new best friends, that today is my 26th anniversary, and i am here with you, and my husband is in los angeles. [applause] dr. Winston and, he was fully supportive because he knows how much this means to me, so if you see me later, give me a pat on the back or a hug. After 26 years, let me know that i did not do the wrong thing [applause] dr. Winston a minister and politician wind up in front of the pearly gates and st. Saint peter comes by to show them their new digs. They start walking and they stop in front of a very humble abode and st. Peter turns to the minister and says, this my son, is for you. Thank you, thank you, st. Peter. The politician begins to get nervous because of the man of god who got the humble abode, if he did, what was in store for him . They keep walking, they come across a beautiful green expanse and in the distance are rolling hills, and flowers and a beautiful mansion. As they get closer, st. Peter turns to the politician and says, this my son, is for you. Well, the politician is gobsmacked, how did i get this . So he turns to st. Peter, i am not quite sure i understand, why did the holy man of god get a shack and i am getting all this . Peter says, you have to understand how things work here. We have lots of ministers. But you are the first politician weve ever seen [applause] [laughter] dr. Winston that actually is Ronald Reagans joke [laughter] dr. Winston it is apt today because the challenges we face, specifically those around journalism, ethics and democracy all have roots in the reagan administration. As i tell my students, you cannot understand the present without understanding the past. So i want to go back to the future in a moment. I would likedo, a to start with an introduction. My talk will address three points, one is the religious disposition of our country, 2, the crisis facing the news media, and 3, the ethical challenges facing not just journalists but all citizens. To be clear, i speak as someone who believes we live in a dangerous time. The behavior and policies of our Current Administration in my opinion threaten not only the health and welfare of all americans, but also the future of our civil society, our democracy and the safety of our world. So [applause] dr. Winston i should not smile, that is not a smiling moment so back to Ronald Reagan. When reagan was elected in 1980, Americas International prestige was at a low point. Domestically, inflation was on the rise and Many Americans were out of work. Adding insult to injury, calls for justice and equality from womens groups, people of color, and gays and lesbians threatened longstanding assumptions of cultural authority. Many whites, especially white men, felt attacked and marginalized. Throughout this talk, i will give you headlines. We can come back to any point during the q a if you want me to follow up on something. Reagan appealed to disaffected white voters by promising to make America Great again. Those of you of a certain age can remember that, those of you who are not quite that old, p. S. , trump did not make that one up reagan promised jobs, a strong military, strong support for policies to end abortion, and return prayer to the nations public schools. Embracing Richard Nixons southern strategy, he warned southern democrats, kicking off the 1980 president ial campaign in philadelphia, mississippi. The site where just 16 years earlier, three civil rights workers were slain by the ku klux klan. Reagan sought the evangelical vote, appearing at a convention of religious leaders, he said, you cannot endorse me, but i endorse you. Reagan seemed like a strange choice for conservative christians, he was a former actor and a longtime angeleno, he had been a union leader, a democrat and was divorced. Divorced, yes, he belongs to a conservative christian church, and claimed to have had a bornagain experience. But at 68 years old, the oldest man to run for president and he did not seem like a typical evangelical standardbearer, but as president he inculcated a religious sensibility that fundamentally changed our national agenda. Which brings me back to my my starting joke. Reagan told that joke in march, 1983 to the National Association of evangelicals. It was the opening to what has become known as the evil empire speech. That speech affirmed the role of religion and American Life and its consequent obligations. There is sin and evil in the world and we are enjoined by scripture and lord jesus to oppose it with all of our might. That was reagan. Opposing evil meant not only pending abortion and reinstituting school prayer, it also meant defeating americas great enemy, the soviet union. Let us pray for the civilization of all those who live in that totalitarian darkness, pray that they will discover the joy of knowing god, but until they do, let us be aware that while they preach, the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict the eventual domination of all peoples on earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world. In the days following, his geopolitical framing of good and evil, it would be repeated over and over and over again in the secular and christian media. His framing became normalized. I want to get back to the issue of framing in the question and answer time, because i think that we have to understand how crucial media is in framing the way that we think about issues and the way we look at the world. That evil empire speech, was key to a world view that affirmed the rightness of faith, the wrongness of communism, and the importance of free market and limited government. Reagan believed the u. S. Was exceptional because it is gods chosen nation. A place where freedom is divinely ordained, that freedom, he believed, should be manifest in the Political Freedom of democracy, the spiritual freedom of religious liberty and the Economic Freedom of free markets and limited government. Even when reagan did not specifically mention religion or morality in his speeches, he described religious virtues, such as personal responsibility and love of country that informed his initiative on tax cuts, ending entitlements and investing in a strategic events initiative. In other words, historians debate whether he was really religious or whether it was a pose. I am saying here and now to you, yes. He was a deeply religious man, he may not have looked like any kind of christianity that you or i are familiar with but he felt carried deeply religious convictions and they informed most of his policies. He helped create a new religious imaginary, which i mean, a collective national sense of what matters, and why. And which provides meaning, identity and purpose for the nation and its citizens. Ok, i know this is my you know, Big University type graph here. I will repeat that, reagan helped create a new religious imaginary. By religious imaginary i mean a collective national sense of what matters and why, and which provides meaning, identity and purpose for the nation and its citizens. In other words a religious imaginary is not something you are conscious of that you discuss over the breakfast table on your anniversary with your husband, but it is something that infuses the choices you make about what you do with your life, how you feel about your country, what you decide as far as your job, your relationships, it is a worldview. Reagan helped shift the american religious imaginary which from Franklin Roosevelt to lbj, had affirmed a welfare state, a multilateral Foreign Policy and a state of social welfare. Neutral public square. That religious imaginary, promoted an ethic of the common good, both nationally and globally. The new one emphasized personal responsibility, unilateralism and faithbased public sphere. I hope everyone is with me. At the same time, an equally momentous shift was occurring in the news media as chains and corporations amassed monopolies. Before reagan the government has blocked media monopolies with regulatory policies that promoted numerous points of view and competition. But reagans freemarket approach ended that. In 1940, 80 of these papers in 1940, 80 of these papers daily newspapers were familyowned. In 1989, 45 years later, that number had shrunk to 20 . At the same time, and the early 1980s, usa today and cnn were turning content and delivery norms upside down just as social media would do, 30 years later. Designed for television viewers, usa today was bright and accessible, its stories were short, its graphics were colorful and its news content was skewed to infotainment. Cnn made news immediate and global. It was the first glimpse of the 24 7 connected world. Even then, in the early 1980s, many media leaders realized that computers were just around the corner. No one knew exactly what the impact of the technology would be, but everyone knew it was going to change things. So before i move on, let me recap. Ronald reagan helped to initiate a fundamental change in the religious and ethical sensibility fundamental change in the United States. So we are all in this together, that ethos had characterized the welfare state, the world war ii effort, the new frontier and lbjs great society, it was replaced by an individualist ethos. According to this ethos, every person, to fulfill their godgiven autonomy should be free of constraint. Specifically an overbearing, federal government and unfair market regulation. Let us fast forward 35 years. The reagan evolution shifted how Many Americans, how many of us think about wealth and social responsibility. But many of the issues that the 40th president hoped to address, remained unchanged. Many workers are still unsure of finding steady remunerative fulltime employment. Our nation has waged an International War against terror and a few decades past and has not won many friends. Today, six corporations, six corporations own much of the American News media. And the digital revolution has meanwhile transformed the economy. Networks, and daily newspapers no longer set our national agenda, instead, many of us find issues that reinforce our opinion. Growing polarization has split up into two nations. Just last week, Buzzfeed News analysis reported that more than 180 new partisan sites for news, launched in 2016 and more than 180 new partisan news sites launched in 2016. More than 180 new partisan news sites launched in 2016. That is only part of an alternate news universe of some 700 partisan websites and almost 500 partisan facebook pages. 700 partisan websites, 500 associated webpages, facebook pages. According to buzzfeed the candidacy and election of donald trump has unleashed a golden age of aggressive, divisive, political content that reaches a massive amount of people, and i would like to add as buzz feed did as well, it is making a few people very, very rich. The fake news produced by some of these sites is a big problem. Remember pizzagate . The story that alleged democratic congressman used it for Human Trafficking . Pizzagate is an example of real, fake news. But then there is also fake, fake news. You know that double negatives are a positive right . President trumps label for news that he does not like or he does not agree with, this conflation of real fake news and fake fake news, has made covering the Trump Presidency akin to a trip behind a looking glass. Especially since the president himself, who i would argue is a product of this media age, since President Trump seems to insist on confusing and conflating fake fake news and real fake news. So this is where the discussion begins. With the readmission that technology, money, politics and religion have all changed the ways that we find and interpret information. Yes, on the one hand we need to address media ethics, the professional standards that make for exemplary journalism. But those standards arrive from deeper ethical commitments that we share as a society. My contention is that the reagan era shift, in religious commentary, shifted our ethical commitments also and our current concerns about journalism reflect that dilemma. That reagan era religious imaginary vaunted freedoms. And it also trusted that god would materially reward his followers. Man, made in the image of god must be free. And free men thanks to gods blessing are rich, powerful and successful. It is sort of a great feedback loop. Is it any wonder that potus feels, the president of the United States shields a loosely aligned network of rightwing christian Prayer Warriors who believe that god anointed donald trump to save america, and pray daily that he does so . Or that millions of americans have no problem with staggering income inequality, xenophobia, the Prison Industrial Complex and a definition of religious liberty that would deny civil rights based on sexual preference . Or that a Washington Post poll this month found christians, especially evangelical christians are much more likely to view property as a result of individual failings. Donald trump is only the embodiment of our current predicament. He lives and dies by the partisan media and is responsible only to himself, he feels free to break all codes of socially responsible behavior, and he would likely not disagree with those who say that his success, bespeaks his blessedness. He is a product of the reagan era religious imaginary taken to one extreme conclusion. And the nation, the citizens, you and i, all of us, who have accepted passively if not wholeheartedly this ethos of freedom of exceptionalism, and individualism, we bear some responsibility for a culture in which trump could be elected president. [applause] dr. Winston so, this is where we find ourselves today, on my anniversary, august 17, 2017. Our National Defense is strongly individualistic, the free market is a dominant good, god helps those who help themselves. I do not have any quick fixes for journalism or for our country, we did not get into this situation overnight, nor will we change it by tomorrow. The only way it may change is if we, as citizens, news consumers, neighbors, family, and journalists, and that is what makes things look so exciting, decide what makes a good society and how we go from here to there. Maybe that means listening more carefully to politicians, maybe it means creating a podcast, starting a Reading Group, creating a facebook page, volunteering with groups working for change. So let me offer a quick example. A little more than a year ago, Lewis Wallace began working for marketplace, the public radio show on business and the economy. Wallace covered Economic Issues and marginalized communities. On january 25th, after reading President Trumps executive order, he began thinking about what it meant to report fairly in a postfact environment. He posted his reflections on a personal blog. Many of the journalists who have told the truth in key historical moments have been sidelined. And right now there is a government shift to a postfact framework and i would argue that any journalist invested in factual reporting can no longer remain neutral. Neutrality is not real, neutrality is impossible for me, and you should admit that it is impossible for you. Wallace had hoped that it would spark conversation among fellow journalists about the problems of reporting objectively, that is not taking a side in the trump era. Instead, it got him fired. Wallace is a transgender person and arguing that being marginalized in a hostile environment, it would be impossible to remain neutral. Before you dismiss this as an extreme case, consider reporters who are women, people of color, muslims, mexicans, jews or just not Trump Supporters our, can they or should they be neutral . We live in very interesting times, i never imagined i would see National Newspapers call out the president as a liar. That was just not something in my journalism career that one would ever think to do. I never imagined that the stories i covered in the 1980s, about the rise of the religious right, the upheavals in the Southern Baptist convention, threats against abortion clinics and televangelists warning about gods wrath. Yes, those stories were about all that, but so much more. They were really about the supersession of an ethical standard that honored truth, community and the dignity of all lives. Is it too much to hope, that we can rise to todays challenges and provide our children with better journalism . A revitalized democracy and a shift in our National Religious ethos . I have a daughter just starting college, and i hope that we can. Thank you. [applause] i will come over here and you can sit on this tool. This is the test of all chautauqua speakers, can you get the microphone over there . See, you passed dr. Diane winston the phd comes in handy james so thank you very much, for that very well structured clear and provocative speech. In addition to your other credentials, i wonder if you have experience in the speech writing business . The reason i ask is in the speech writing business you are told always to tell people what you will tell them, tell them and what you told them, as she just did, so congratulations. I am glad to hear that. I am glad to see that. A hand for diane [applause] james in many parts of your speech, which i completely agree with, the structural changes in the news media, the shift from the disappearance of family owned newspapers, what you said about the sort of elusive grail of neutrality, also being a theme of this weeks entire discussion. Jay rosen let us off monday morning talking about how reporters, what they aspire to is not neutrality but being fair and honest about where they come from. So since i agree with so much of what you said, let me of course concentrate on where i might see things differently. Dr. Winston or we could go drink champagne james my wife and i had an anniversary recently, so we will definitely during champagne. The change since Ronald Reagan, it is certainly true that when you look back through american history, from the Great Depression onward, that is the era of collective national shock, collective National Effort in world war ii and the rebuilding afterward. The elements you talk about as reagans imaginary, they have a precedence. Weve always had religion and politics, with john brown, father coughlin, earlier on, the ethic of the selfmade personists, we had the social darwinists, ben franklin and all that. The idea of american exceptionalism has been there from the very start. So are you meaning reagan and his religious imaginary, do you see it to be a change from the fdr to lbj period or really something new on the american scene . Dr. Winston thank you for the question. Obviously in a talk like this, one cannot, i think that in order for most states to function they have to believe in something beyond the material. What is so interesting about the american experiment is that we were the first country that had separation of church and state, so we did not have a divine sanction. In its place, i believe weve always had one kind of religious imaginary or another and to me it has a tension between this bend towards individualism and a bend toward collectivism. Or a more communal sensibility. It is not something new, it has always been flipping and flopping between the two. It is just the most recent iteration. Does it make you think that this is something that could be waited out as past waves have been waited out . Are there lessons you take from your past experience dealing with excesses of this, what does history tell you about the way to deal with this wave . Dr. Winston historians like journalists tend to want to tell a story, and so to tell a story you have to cut out a lot of the complexity. It wasnt as if, i dont know what day it was that roosevelt was elected, was it in 1932 . James fallows i think he wasnt inaugurated until march or april because they delayed it then. Dr. Winston so it is not as if on that day in 1933 everything changed. It did not change, and in fact, the seeds for the right turn that we have taken, were being sowed as early as the 1920s. The conservative turn which has been documented in a lot of new history books, showed that groups of businessmen and clergymen were really busy trying to promote these ideas of free market, limited government from the 1920s on. So even at the height of the roosevelt era, there were other ideas taking shape. So nothing is completely one way or the other, it is going to take time to move from the predominant ethos, but i think it is a matter of people wanting to change. I thought that obama could have been a step in this direction and perhaps he would be, but you needed at different levels. You need a president and a leader who can enunciate the vision, people on the ground meeting in churches, synagogues and mosques, talking about making things different. You need people organizing, to take over local governments as the religious right did, throughout the 1980s and the 1990s. Thats what i mean, it will not change overnight. There are people who do not believe in the current ethos, and what we have to do, what i see the resistance, at least in los angeles doing, is to take a more activist turn to making things happen. I would ask you about something that is not directly in your speech, but it is parallel to what we were discussing earlier before we came over. You mentioned that in 1980, when Ronald Reagan won the election, the u. S. Was at a low end. As a member of the carter administration, he was the first president ever to have resigned from office, it was succeeding the end the vietnam war, during the time of the first ever oil shock and when there was a dislocation of time, which makes today actually seem mild by comparison. That mildness by comparison, is actually my point. Those of you who were in the amphitheater this morning, heard david vondreli say that he was impressed by the conjunction of a very pessimistic national news. We are seeing it as it positive developments in many places. I think i have given you in the past couple of days my version of the perspective as well, which is that National Politics are in a very bad situation now, and there is a National Narrative that makes people think that things are bad. Any place they do not know about directly, they assume that it is pretty bad too. But my experience with that, going to mississippi, california, south dakota, South Carolina and rural maine, is that while there are problems everywhere, in most parts of the country, people feel as if the direction of the movement is positive rather than negative. Not every place, not on all issues, opioids are a disaster, appalachia has unique problems, but generally our experience is that people feel that at the local and regional level, they are getting traction, better off than they were a couple of years ago. One more thing, to set us up, i was at the Republican Convention last year and there was a story at the and of the convention and the headline was gop delegates believe the economy is terrible except where they are from. The sense that it must be terrible every place. You were saying that you thought you had a sort of pessimistic side to that divide, tell me how you think media are affecting the view, positive or negative, the difficult challenge of being aware of where there are problems, without being excessively pessimistic. How do you think about this resumes themoptimism balance . As you heard david and as you hear me, and as you hear your students . Dr. Winston well, what i really dislike about most media, is its focus on the negative, and the fact that, if it bleeds, it leads. If it is bad news is the headline. There is that experiment where in the early 20th century, Charles Sheldon tried to do the good news newspaper, and it was a big hit for a few weeks then nobody wanted to read it, because they were all bored. I think that most mainstream news media do not take seriously the need to report fully, which also means reporting on good news, that things are getting better. So to some extent, i believe the media, you and david might be lifting this up, which is why i cited you as someone working for change in a good way. Thank you for that but it is rare for that to happen, and i know that my students who have gone into Mainstream Media tell me that is very hard to be allowed to do a story that says something that is not that positive. It is not something that newspapers or Television News media want these days. I think that is part of thinking about what we want as news consumers, and you know, maybe these days we can click on things to get the message across, that we want to hear more about the positive changes taking place. And it is not pollyanna, what is going on in the communities you are visiting, it is not all sunshine and roses, people are working very hard to agree to make change and struggling against uphill odds. I think the story is not being told. James i agree, and i think there is also a challenge, as sense of greater risk in telling a story which is in some way positive, because you are worried about being embarrassed if something goes wrong and you look like a sucker as opposed if you point to something bad and it gets better. The question for advice you would give to members of this audience and those listening, if they buy your diagnosis and your prescription as well about how media should work. You talk about what news consumers should do. What specifically should people in this audience, hearing your description of what is going on, what can they do to help the news be better, to help their local communities be better . To help National Communities be better . If you were forced to say ok, you are great with my assessment of what is wrong here, and therefore i can do the following three things, what would they be . Dr. Winston that is such a great question. It is like i could be god for a day [applause] [laughter] dr. Diane winston the easiest thing of all, is to find news that you think is the right kind of news or the good kind of news or inspirational kind of news and click on it i get the Washington Post optimist email newsletter, do you know of that, it is their good news. If you click on those stories and read them, if you read your local newspaper, let your editor know that you like certain kinds of stories, go in and talk to someone if youre in a Small Community and say, i want to hear more stories about people who are cleaning up communities or working against the Opioid Epidemic for rehabilitating houses or doing something that you think is worthwhile. So being an active news consumer is very important. Also, i do not know how many of you are on the news media like facebook, twitter or instagram, social media, but it is really good if you are not, to get on there, because not only is it a challenge to mental acuity, but you can meet new people. It is good for you and good for everyone else. If you are on instagram, all you have to do is post a picture, put a caption underneath it and send it out to people and say, look, this is a really great thing happening in my community and i want to share it with you or you could post it on facebook, i think there are so many ways to become the change yourself. There is also finding where you are located, whether it is the Community Center or Reading Group or church group and talking to people they are about people there about what you can do as a group. So there are many ways to make a difference. James i have been thinking about that question myself a lot of these years. I will give you the 30second version of what i have been thinking about as well. At the national and collective level, the challenge for us now is that if our problems are like those of the original gilded age, what are the solutions that came out of the original populace, which really means connecting all of these local stories, of people who are standing up for this or that or engaging in different ways. And also, what i would hope everyone here would do is actually subscribed to publications. You may think that it doesnt make a difference but actually does. You are in los angeles, one of your fields of academic expertise is the industry, the entertainment complex. In the reagan imaginary, as you describe it, even though Ronald Reagan himself was certainly a product of the entertainment industry, one of the big nemeses or demons has been popular entertainment. One of the speakers was talking about the evangelical, his evangelical movement and why they felt oppressed, they felt as if the Popular Culture was against them, and it gave them no respect. How do you think the entertainment industry, doesnt it think about its responsibility for the Public Welfare . Do you ever talk with them and if you did talk with them, what do you tell them . Dr. Winston the course you mentioned, on media, religion and hollywood among the media, religion and hollywood, sorry i could not remember the name, i look at television narratives, and i have done scripted drama, and now i am moving to a Reality Television which i do not like very much. Movingbut we are all there, so winston right. What interested me is that the new move in the country is a lot of polls show that although many people are still religious especially among the young people, they are not affiliating. One of the questions i ask myself is how do people make meaning, how do they connect to larger virtues . I think that one way they do it is through Popular Culture and through looking at the narratives that they see around them and trying to discuss them into some sort of sense. Game of thrones for example, i think is my favorite example of that nowadays, it is so incredibly popular, because it is a story about power, about sacrifice, about redemption, james about sex dr. Winston it does not have that much of that this year but also about the incarnation, reincarnation, when john snow came back from the dead so, all of the religious ethical scenes are there, and when i hear people talking about them it is often to make sense of this narrative and what it means. If you look at the hebrew bible, that is what it is about about people getting castrated, about people stealing each others wives, people fighting i mean, and i believe that those stories, when they were handed down in ancient times, were talked about so that people could draw ethical lessons from them. And i think that is what we do with television today, if we are intentional about consuming it. I have had a number of screen show runners and writers in my class, we had david simon, he did the wire, david mills who did deadwood and others, such such as ron moore who did battle star galactica, and the woman who is doing madam secretary, barbara hall. Many of these people came from religious backgrounds, and they are very conscious of the ideas they put in their shows. David shore for example, who did house comes from an Orthodox Jewish family. Everyone thinks it was about a modernday sherlock holmes, but he says that house was about asking even if used can have asking if an atheist can act morally. If he can have morals. That is what he was looking to show in that series. So while not everyone in hollywood is thinking about larger issues, i have been surprised by the number of people who are and are very conscious about putting messages if you will, in their shows. James a quick last question before i start calling on the audience. You teach students going into journalism, who is going into journalism now . Who at age 22 or age 18 says i want to be a reporter . Should we feel good or bad . Dr. Winston trump has been very good for us [laughter] dr. Winston there are a lot of people, who are going into journalism because they want to be on entertainment tonight or espn. I cannot deny, that is one of our strengths. But i have a fair number of people who still want to change the world. They care about human rights, international relations, making the world a better place, they are going into journalism because i think that they can make a difference, they can talk truth to power, that they can comfort the afflicted, their belly is burning and they are there because they believe that telling these stories is the way to change hearts and minds. James well, that sounds like good news. On that note, let us begin here. [applause] james yes. Hello. Thank you for your talk. We enforce policy with our tax code and we have enforced the separation of church and date church and state with our tax code by refusing to allow our religious institutions to take political stance in terms of supporting candidates and so on or by threatening their tax exempt status with that. The new media, the new means of communication, the access that everybody has to all kinds of information immediately, the in the Current Administrations mind, has altered the situation in us that we may not need to continue that policy and we may be able to allow religious institutions and individuals to maintain their taxexempt status and to promote Political Parties and political individuals. How do you feel about that and where is that going . Dr. Diane Winston James so the policy is that tax penalties or incentives to keep separate church and state, that it could not directly be involved in politics. Currently the administration is eroding that line. What do you say . Dr. Winston this is about the johnson amendment, i believe so, yes. Dr. Winston you are talking about whether they should repeal it, right . No, i think it is a terrible idea. I think separation of church and state is extremely important. [applause] [laughter] dr. Winston thank you though, i am not sure why that it needed applause. I saw back in the 80s, what churches were doing to endorse candidates when they still had the tax problems in front of them. I cannot imagine what they would do if they did not have the tax issues in front of them. So i feel that trying to revoke this amendment, is a really, really bad idea, another example of trump playing to his base that i hopes does not come to pass. James yes, over here, next question. My question is about, are there two kinds of storytelling and is the second kind being taught . One kind is character driven, storytelling, valuebased storytelling, where you would identify with someone. The other kind, we train our is process influence force factor storytelling which example we train our engineers, scientists and even economists to think that way. There are only 18 people in congress who majored in science and only one of them has a phd. 90 of chinese leadership studied engineering or science. So what is that rule of broadening storytelling so that people can look, and be more analytical. Are you training the next generation to do that . Dr. Winston the big word in journalism education is storytelling right now, and i do not talk enough to my colleagues to know what that means to them. So a good story can be plot driven, it can be character driven, a little bit of both, and i do believe that any story does need a certain amount of Critical Thinking to tell it well and to tease out the most important things. Because the story that does not have a lesson to it and that sounds so terribly didactic, i guess i do believe that stories should do good in the world. I mean, stories should have a positive influence. So, the problem is that journalists tend to stay away from values and norms like good or bad and judgment calls like that. So, to say that you want to teach storytelling as a way to do good in society, or to think about a Better Society would be problematic in the least. I think the best i can do is not subversively Pay Attention to anyone else and do what i want to do and teach it [applause] to volunteer more on the interaction of sciences, there was a book published a few years ago and i think there is a trend in modern narrative journalism to involve a lot of the stories on science. I have done that a number of times myself, and think it is part of this narrative tradition. Whole separate topics, i have lived in china for a long time and i am skeptical of any votes on the virtue of chinese leadership based on their educational background. That is another discussion. [laughter] [applause] you mentioned what Consumers Want covered by the media and how important that is. I am curious what you think about what corporations and their investors want covered why by the media and how that influences journalism . Dr. Winston that is a great question. There is a macro and a micro level. On one level, corporations want whatever will make money for them, if it is kittens, they want kittens, if it is scandal they want scandal. So, on one level, the bottom line is making money, so whatever works, works. I think that is negative. I think it is negative. Because it sells. Yes, but i still believe that people would like a little positive with their negative. I know that i enjoy reading stories about exemplars. It is not like i want to read it every day, but if i was reading a story about what is happening pennsylvania, and people are around,their communiy i think that would be a great story. It is not saccharine, but i think that is why we need to support that kind of journalism. I think on a more insidious level, the fact that so much of the news media is corporate owned, restricts what we read and what we do not read. There is a theory in media that there are things which are never discussed because they are so outside of what social norms are. So for example, bernie sanderssocialism was not that that is what i meant about norms. Until recently, we did not call liars, now it is interesting that we do. That challenges the status quo as something that even Corporate Leaders relies have to go on. I think corporate control of media has two different effects, one of the negative and one of them squashing the possible discourse we can get into and whoother rewarding people want to write about kittens because a lot of people like reading about kittens. James fallows and if i could just add again a word in support, there are rims of human realms of human activity where there is some tension between purely for profit operation and the larger social effect. Media is one of them, medical care is another, religion as well. These are all built into that situation. Yes sir . Hello, according to my history class studies of the great awakening, i saw those also as a shift in the religious imaginary of the country, but those were shifts where religion was about community service, and taking care of others, and the evangelicals were the first abolitionists so is it the case that this reagan religious imaginary that you talked about, is the first religious imaginary that was about the individual and material wealth and success and sort of really blaming poor people for being poor . And if that is the case, we are kind of in a new territory, so what can we do and what can the news do to pull us out of this, if we have never been in this situation before, in the context of this pendulum that swings from one side to the other . Dr. Diane winston well, i would say that we have been in this situation before, because part of what was the dominant social ethos in the late 19th century during the gilded age, was this idea of the gospel of wealth, and this idea that individual success and the idea that Andrew Carnegie god blesses those who take the initiative so i dont think it is new religiously. I think these ideas have always been in competition with each other. One of the things that happen at the end of the gilded age was the progressive era, the work of journalists and church leaders, and Civic Leaders who tried to counter that im a and say, this has gone too far, there are too many horrible excesses. So this idea of rampant individualism has to be stopped. It looks different in every age, but i dont think it is totally new. It is interesting because at the end of the 19th century is when you have the beginnings of what we call the prosperity gospel today. Youre familiar with the prosperity gospel, the idea that if you type tithe and you ask god to love you, you can become really rich and healthy. Prof. Winston well, i would say that we have been in this situation before, because part of what was the dominant social ethos in the late 19th century was this idea of the gospel of wealth, and this idea that individual success and the idea that god Andrew Carnegie, god blesses those who take the initiative so i dont think it is new religiously. I think these ideas have always been in competition with each other. One of the things that happen at the end of the gilded age was the progressive era, the work of journalists and church leaders, and Civic Leaders, who tried to counter that. So, this idea of rampant individualism has to be stopped. It looks different in every age, but i dont think it is totally new. It is interesting because at the end of the 19th century is when you have the beginnings of what we call the prosperity gospel today. The idea that if you ask god to love you, you can become really rich and healthy. That idea comes from the new thought school of the late 19th, early 20th century, where you could control things through the power of your mind, and if you thought a certain way, things would follow. That was taken in by christians as well, who saw it as a way to bring people to church who wanted to improve their life. James i think theres a question on this side. There was a spider. I wonder if you could i wonder if you could suggest i get up in the morning and i read the times, and then i go to the Washington Post and i read the editorial page, and at the end of that, im ready for a bottle of antidepressants. I said, im going to stop and take a break. I went back and three days i was reading it. What do we do . Then i thought, ill give the times a chance. They have this column now, what the right and the left is writing. There was bill oreilly. Im not going to read bill oreilly in the new york times. What do we read . Where do we go . Theres always americas oldest magazine, now its most popular magazine website. [applause] prof. Winston i realize now i should put in a plug for my own publication, which i havent done. I am the publisher of religion dispatches. It is a place where we take seriously religion, politics, arts, and culture. It is an alternate site for the news. It is not necessarily happy news, but it could be news that offers a different way of thinking about things, or puts you in touch with people who might be thinking similarly to you. I agree with you. It is hard to read the news these days without getting overly depressed, but i find myself reaching out to more news sites to see what they are doing with this. Ive been struck by what is possible to read at buzz feed or vice or the atlantic. It is interesting to see how different news organizations are taking on the challenge of reporting the trump administration. Have you looks at the onion . That might be a good counter. James thank you. Over here. Yes. You associate individualism and with ragan, and conservatives, and suggest that that works against the common good. Others would associate notions of personal freedom and autonomy, selfdetermination, right to privacy, those kind of issues, with individualism, and i guess you could say the cultural left. How do those values, how do they promote the common good . Prof. Winston that is a very good point. It goes to the reality that anything you say, you could say the exact opposite and make a good case for it. Individualism itself is not a bad thing. It was very much vaunted by the left in the 1960s. You could make a very good case for how much of our current predicament has to do with the countercultural move of the 1960s, and some of the ideas, such as individualism and therapeutic culture that were promoted then. The problem is when you have too much of it. I think the problem with one reagan did was, individualism is not necessarily bad. It is to the extent that he pushed it, and the fact that he promoted it in the context of, in my opinion, limited government and free markets. I think that was where it went awry. Reagan wanted tax cuts, he believed in limiting government, but he also believed entitlements should end, because personal responsibility should force people to take seriously their ownership of their lives. That is good in theory, but a lot of people cannot do that. I think reagan and some conservatives have a problem realizing that there are people among us who cannot live under that kind of rigorous individualist ethos. James we have four minutes left. Were going to have the people who are already standing up each ask a question, and diane will answer them all together. This is the lightning round. We will do four people here, four questions. The ultra wealthy have lobbyists in washington, d. C. To move their agenda. Is there a similar mechanism that is used for traditional journalism, where they try to influence it, and are we becoming more a nation of sheep . James i will write these down to remind you. Lobbyists for the ultrarich. Good presentation. Where is americas Environmental Protection going . As a matter of longterm Public Health and protection of the planet. James environmental, yes. It seems like there are a lot of trumps base and many on the left distrust mainstream news organizations categorically. Is that something that organizations are grappling with, and is there anything they are trying to do to reclaim those folks . James thank you. And you are last. In the leftist term, woke, how much of current secular leftism is itself a spiritualist movement, basically worshiping some kind of dogma or another, where even mentioning a certain word literally recalls the scene in the life of brian, where Everyone Wants to stone him. James so it is whether there can be lobbyists for journalism, for public knowledge, state of the environment, whether news organizations are dealing with this from both right and left, mistrust, and whether leftism has a spiritual element right now. You can choose any subset. I will write more clearly. Lobbyists, environment, science, woke. Prof. Winston i happen to believe everybody has a spiritual component, because everybody gets out of bed in the morning, and we couldnt if we didnt believe in something beyond ourselves. Whether it is left or right, christian, jew, we need to believe in something. If we dont, that is a big problem. I think that some of the most interesting religion i see is around the environmental movement, and the ecospirituality, ecofeminism, which sees environmentalism as a spiritual religious problem, is deeply moving, and we need to see more journalism about that. Journalists do not take social movements seriously. In the wake of servlets will, we saw of charlottesville, we saw a lot of reporting. We dont see that on occupy until two weeks in. The coverage of black lives matter was terrible. It is still depicted as a radical race movement, where there is so much more to that particular group of people. Getting a lobbyist for people who are proactively social active on the left, i hate to say the left, on the progressive or human oriented side of things, would be good. I havent been in mainstream newspapers or outlets enough to know why they are so slow on picking up social movements that are not based in hatred or anger. They did better with the womens march, but i think that is because it was against trump. I would be curious to see if poor people or people of color, marginalized people, want to organize, how much newspapers will cover that. I think it is part of, what do we cover and why do we cover it . James the remaining one is, are mainstream organizations aware they are being suspect from both sides . Is that something they are grappling with . Prof. Winston i believe they do know it and they are trying to do Everything Possible to appeal to everybody, and they are still thinking about how we make money, and so far it looks like you make more money by baiting people and bringing hate to the four instead of more positive constructive emotions. I never thought i would see the media in such a antigovernment stance. It is shocking to me. But then again, if i was part of the altright, i would say my eyes are finally clear. James i think that professor winston has done a marvelous job both in the prepared and unprepared parts of this session. [applause] james well done. Thanks for the wisdom and demonstrated expertise. We ask you to come back tomorrow to hear the final conversation of the week. Please come. We will see you tomorrow. Looking ahead to live coverage, a daylong event announcer later in the week, hearings on the individual health market. Coverage begins wednesday at cspan. M. Eastern on three. On this mornings washington journal, editor in chief of the hill discusses the week ahead in washington. Funding for Hurricane Harvey relief. Also, a conversation on the fate of daca. The hearing on the fate of undocumented the immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. Washington journal begins live every morning at 7 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan. Intelligenceicial destroying jobs or creating them . Googles chief economist and thers try to answer that i annual aspen forum hosted by Technology Policy institute. This is a little under one hour. Scott ok. Moving on to talk about Artificial Intelligence. Not a day goes by where we do not see another story in the media about how Artificial Intelligence and automation either, one, are absolutely coming for our jobs, and you can see it already. Just look at the relatively low and declining labor and participation rate. Also, that it will allow for the creation of completely new j