Im rick, my book is called information words, howie lost the global battle and what to do about it. Editor of Time Magazine many years and went into the Obama Administration where i was under secretary of state Public Affairs in this book about combating misinformation from the state department. My name is van gordon sauter, used work in newspapers invented television and other things and i think my greatest distinction is that i was the least successful anchorman in the history of commercial television. [laughter] and was fired. Executive editor Los Angeles Times and in prior lives was a journalist working at Bloomberg Forbes time inc. And the wall street journal. You are my boss at timing. Thank you. Id love to hear from all of you that if i could start with you, norman. Jazz 19, New York Times ran a headline that said trump urges university racism. The executive editor of the paper called internal staff meeting at which they are deemed to be two fashions. On one hand, journalists who felt in this era, journalist needed to take a more oppositional stance, for resistance oriented. On the other hand, the journalist who felt the paper needed to be careful not to do that. They needed to continue the big j journalism. What you feel in the role of this era in journalism and the Los Angeles Times, a similar Division Within your staff. There are several components to that. August 19th episode, one of which was the word racism, whether that was a fair label for the president or whether, i think an older generation that went to question them and given the recollections, whether it was racism or sexism or gender issues and so that was one part of it. The second i think is the question of how much opinion editorial voice is appropriate in the news sections of various journalistic enterprises and i think with the growth of the 24 7 news room and with the speed with which news is disseminated, the longer followup pieces be they in newspapers, what they have done is much more room than his traditional in the newspapers. Its a trend that will continue, its a difficult one to address, especially the side of that which is when that journalists who disagree with the positions of a particular opposition go on twitter to voice those disagreements. Which in terms of free speech seems totally appropriate but in terms of understanding the voice can make it immensely confusing. I need to hear your thoughts also. Thats a good question, i think in the macro 30,000 foot field from where real complexion with journalism weve been dealing with the facts of the economic model for journalism has basically gone away. About the president who i call the disinformation is chief in my book, i dont think government and journalism, there is always for very long time, a kind of compact between people in government and journalist. The people in government tried to tell us much of the truth as possible people in journalism have much of the truth as possible. You never had a chief executive who doesnt try to adhere to reality or facts or truth at all. We know how to deal with the president who tells some fiction, bill clinton for example. We had a deal with the president with Richard Richard nixon who committed crimes that involved assumption. We dont really know how to deal with a president who is constantly disinformation where theres little resemblance to any aspect of the truth. I dont know how to deal with that. Cnn had a lot more to do with the election of russia today. Might i say that . They put him on for hours every night getting advertising material to that without it being corrected. One of the most substantial things that hasnt changed and they are dealing with this every day, how do you fall for in real time as quickly as possible . I think that is necessary and a requirement thats very hard to do. Part of the problem is traditional journalism, we have to repeat to corrected but all social science shows when you repeat a false one, it gets embedded in your mind. Thats partially why hes been successful. The other thing i talk about in my book is as i get that the bad guys, prudent in this case uses fairness and objectivity against that. The book starts with russias invasion, prudent said over and over there are no Russian Troops and crimea. That was fly over and over we reported that. The question is, in this new era, is that something we should still do . I dont know that answer. We were talking backstage a little bit about changes in journalism pricing, can you weigh in . I havent been involved in journalism for 25 years. But in the reagan. When i was running a news organization, there was a general sense that the brief networks and major newspapers at which obviously the Los Angeles Times was one, drifted a little bit to the left and there eventually became an attitude that that was acceptable. It had something to do with the dynamics of the earth twirling about. The journalist hated reagan for his policies. He viewed them as ranking havoc. But it worked. Reagan one. It ended up being one of the most admired and appreciated president s. That relationship to the left continued for years. Until we ended up with trump. Who correctly said presented all sorts of new challenges, most of them repugnant. But he was the president. I think you can find many examples of our major newspapers and the Television Networks covering the president s actions or lack of them with great objectivity. But there was another tear where the, i think, a liberal bias is increasingly embedded in the journalism as a result of the trump experience. Its accelerating and deepening the wedge in our society between the left and the right. Let me just finish. My concern is that when trump goes away in one four years, that may not be corrected. Journalists may be so comfortable with opinionated reportage and pieces and analysis that that may become a condition and communications in our society and i think its going to be very detrimental. Im sorry, go ahead. Would you see that is potentially part of terms strategy . The more news organizations viewed to be more resistance oriented, they are taking debate. Playing into his hands by feeding into it and becoming what hes always accused them of being. Sure. I think the first thing that would help the media perspective is to admit what he saying, which is if the media and the people in the media are left, how far left are they . That subject for debate. I just a little bit to the left, far left . Is no question in my mind that if you were to pull Mainstream Media organizations, the people who look at them, that would be our people on the left. Start and honest conversation about where we go from here. Once you own that and say yeah, the media tends to be the left of center, plus just call it that. Then when you Start Talking about what donald trump has done, then you can Start Talking about okay, i accept that but lets also accept the fact that when you hold the media that the standard the media is held to now, which is any sort of hint of bias, hint of rudeness on social media or a tone that might be viewed as inappropriate, a story that they get wrong, this huge news for the right. This is what you get from the left. The answer is president lies much more than the media does. There are many more errors in the state coming from the president and from the media. The problem is many on the right just dont trust the media. The challenge becomes trying to convey that sense and ability to evaluate on a casebycase basis the facts here. Whos right on this . The media challenges weve got to get people to trust us. So many people on the right do not trust the media its a real challenge. I guess thats why im think youve got to start by admitting the media tends to go left. Theres nothing new with this idea that people in the media are liberal democrats. They started doing media 25 years ago in the media has gotten progressively liberal but from 75 to 80 , the same pulse with higher education. Academics, same percentage. I agree. Its a fact but the thing that i found people in government all of us have journalist get, yes journalists are bias, bias getting restaurant on the front page. Getting there based on the evening news broadcast. I never in my life thought journalist not do a story because it may have violated his or her projects. If they thought it was a good story. The Los Angeles Times suddenly discovers that donald trump has solved the global crisis, they will go with that story even if that person thinks donald trump is awful. Thats ignoring the advice. Thats to say trust us. I dont know how you can talk left right when mattis and bolton and brennan articulated as the enemies of the white house. You get into all kinds of trouble with left and right when what youre trying to assess is what to do with dishonest people at a level never faced before. I think you are right in repeating the misdirection that come out of this, its an extremely challenge for us. I played with the idea that whenever there would be a corruption like that, we would simply have a two paragraph thoughts online or in print pending verification. Hooters print assertion not interpreted, cannot explain it, not try to figure out how it would get walked back. In the end, our responsibility went beyond that, this seemed to be the only way to deal with the failures that come when you repeat the lies. My concern is that people wont trust your thoughts and you still need people who are going to say i can trust them. And youre right, it needs to be kept in real time but the bigger problem is that there are probably know very few conservative were going to use the Los Angeles Times think main place of news. Im not saying this, something conservatives. Im extending beyond identify themselves are very considerably Los Angeles Times their primary source of news. Its a reality. A few the other day, im trying to remember the other day about news sources trusted by left and right and one of the things about Republican Voters were often trump voters apparently, the new sources they tested was fox news. We can say that has its own bias but the number two place they trusted was the bbc. Havent been in government and government, theres nothing more liberal and even in america. Part of the flock of this, this idea that journalists have somehow think they are going to change peoples mind by what they do. The number of times journalism has changed someones mind i believe are three or four times. People dont change their mind about things. This idea that if it were objective somehow, the people on the left or right, that idea has been destroyed. Confirmation bias is that we seek out information we already agree with. Thats the reason there is this divide, people who are on the right seek out specific information they think confirms what they believe and people on the left do the same thing. I dont know that it will ever meet. This week when its getting blowback because he has declared great news journalists and how to segment that was revealed by trump supporters. In a general sense, how comfortable should we be with the separation we seem to accept that there is a straight news side and an opinion side and Cable Newspapers . Is at a distinction we should be living with . I dont think he would say he doesnt have an opinion on his show. May be but with that said, i think committing the public of separation between the editorial page and news page is a difficult thing to do. When fox says we have people at night and straight news people during the day and you start evaluating there seems to be a lot of bleeding over, its the same thing with msnbc and cnn as well. Its something i think is a great separation that i think people like norm take very seriously and i dont think the public appreciates how seriously that divide has taken and how much work goes into separating those with the walls that exist, its hard to convince people of fact. But i think it still exists, im not willing to sort of throw out my arms and say theyre all the same because i know how much effort goes into both newspapers, Online Publications and on the cable side having some level of separation. Ducey moved into the new side . The conservative is one and its true that most journalists would self identify as liberal rather than conservative but thats not what we are dealing with here. Unless you want to say that climate denial is solely the province of the right and not the left or the anti vaccine movements is a product of the right rather than the left, these are the kinds of issues that have become much more important than say supply sides, economics versus transient economics and what i find so difficult in trying to cover this administration is the ways in which anyone who disagrees with it is demonized as being to the left of mainstream opinions. If you take an example like environment, if you get someone like jonathan from western, a very conservative environmental professor, if you print a piece from him, you get all kinds of criticism, accusing him of a liberal voice, cap focus on left versus right has always been important in journalism but its not what we are really dealing with here. I am a conservative. I must say that i read your paper and i find most of the stories about trump that are real news stories, are in my opinion, acceptable. I might juggle this or that and throw in a paragraph or a sentence but i cant sit there as a news consumer and say zero, its wretched commies, i think the paper does a good job. Once you leave that story, there are all sorts of pieces that are done, theoretically analysis pieces where it is so clear what the orientation of the writer may be. Then later in the paper, in the entertainment section in book review section, there are all of these injected anti trump observations. So i look at it and say whoever edits the news in that paper is doing a good job. But somehow in those things on the side, its a different form. In the mid 80s, i had lunch one day with patrick, reagans chief Foreign Affairs advisor and the first woman ambassador to the united patient. As was for once, she began to throw that at me about the liberals and News Business. I said we are trying to hire people who dont have any obvious orientation. She said something to the effect they all do. The truth of the matter is, and i think you have it right, colleges which are dominated by liberals. Liberal professors, turning out these students who never hear another opinion unless on their grandfather. [applause] and they cant get out of my way. I think the paternalistic population, which is made up of really well motivated, delightful, articulate engaging people, they never got the message. We try to the degree that we tried because the feeling 35 years ago was just below the surface. You couldnt go to them and begin to say hey, i dont like the tone of your stories and it would provoke a troopship storm that no one would cope with. I think at some time, the editors and producers are going to have to deal with this because if we go in in the next year or five years with the circumstances we are in today, the conservatives and believe me, fox is very liberal about conservative audience out there, they are going to be lost. We need journalists, which is so clear and conscientious that the left and the right can find a credible place to believe they are getting the straight story. If you dont have that, its over. [applause] all the people i knew are, i say to my wife, who like cable and cheat say no. A Business Model behind use for the middle. Cnn i think the question was about a Business Model and if somebody knows more about it than i do, please let me sit down and let you say here but last time i checked, its a big operation. Cnn is a hugely probable organization and a lot of it comes from informational presence. It comes every time you walk into an airport, their grotesque locations, that none of us should be subjected to. The ultimate indignity as you sit there, start being fearful of everything around you on the tv in front of you is this lemon man. Its just unnerving. Cnn is on every airport in america. Why is it that cnn, which no rational person watches on a regular basis, why is it that cnn, okay, you are here to hear my opinion, im not here to argue. I dont understand why theres only one cable channel at lax. I would love to have your organization go and say cnn is the least watch Cable Organization in america, why is it, its the only thing to see on the tv station . They pay for that they did. They get paid by the cable networks. One distinction while we are talking about that general idea but theres straight news and then theres opinion, theres also news that is a point of view. That has become the mainstream news organization, what does that mean . I remember the first weeks hours after of time and we were doing a proper story on the be 22 offspring, this motor airplane and helicopter, they spent billions and billions of dollars on it. Military correspondent had written the story, i read it. On the one hand, this is whats good and on the other hand, this is whats bad. I went through the whole thing and i thought, i dont really know what to think. Twentyfive years, said what you think . They said its a waste of money. Thats a point of view from experts who spent months of this, talk to everybody about it and has an Expert Opinion about it. Dont you want to know an Expert Opinion with a pointmac of view of Something Like that . I do. Our News Business changed in the 80s and 90s. I remember when i became editor of time and even online, this is 2000, i want a secondstory on the first day. All of us, we know what that means. I dont want he said she said back hand story, i want something with a pointmac of view. I want analysis. If you look at the front page of the New York Times today, every single story on it is basically would have been considered analysis 20 25 years ago. I think its like that. Some people feel like its opinion or bias but it is bias from people who are actually expert and no immensely more than the rest of us about the think they are writing. The problem is to get people to see that, put up beside the example that you said, but to get to the utopian state where the media has gone to a point where when they say something, people can believe it. The first way we are going to get there, for example, cnn now has become the anti trump. You can say it used to be somewhere in the middle and i think theres an argument there but they are not anymore. They make it clear at every. Thats an anti trump network. The problem with that is most of what they are doing, the vast majority of what they are doing is true. What theyre saying in the criticism, when they are calling out the president but no one on the right or center mitigates will listen to them because they are viewed as anti trump network. If we want the public to hear and if it were to actually resnick, there would have to be a level of honesty about warrior coming from, who we are, the position youre coming from and then i think you can hopefully take it forward to the analysis piece with the objectivity, fact checks were people will say okay, i believe that because fact checks, its truth the president is lying. Again and again about a number of issues, on key issues. Its not because i dont like the president or dont like the president s policies, its nothing to do with that. Journalism used to be about trying to assess facts, its the thing journalists take more seriously. Fact checkers and the problem is that so many people out there dont believe us. They dont take what we are saying seriously because they view us as an arm of the left or whatever it is. By the way, i think the beginning of the happened with the medias love affair with barack obama in 2008. Particularly in the campaign if you look at the primary with hillary clinton. He was treated different than any other. I dont mean a particular one, talking about the media as a whole but i remember thinking all the time that the media loved barack obama in the election. I think it was part of the reason where we are where we a are. Acclimatization of straight utopia where facts are over opinion is ridiculous. I grew up in a republican family but had a democratic uncle who would say to me every time he saw me reading times, he would say life is for people who cant read, time is for people who cant think. That was the mantra he had because under loose, time was a predictable voice of conservatism and it was only really when henry came in as editor in the late 70s, early 80s that it became less conservative than it was at that time. If you think about citizens, giving about first the role of opinion in his publications. This is not some new reality. What i think is the main differences that we have to come to terms with today are one, a president who is unique in history in terms of what he calls truthful hyperbole. And the ways in which Technology Particularly twitter but other things as well end up with people or 30 opinions that may not be consistent with the publications they work for which goes to the whole fake news issue that we have to deal with at the same time we are trying to continue to cover the head of government. With regard to tension between the White House Administration and media, thats always been there and to some extent, it could be. President obama during his administration said theres this one neck it network, and his administration he thought was his resistance. To what extent are we now in new ground or a matter of degrees. Every president thinks they are being treated unfairly by the media. You can look at recent history, brooklyn. We constantly talk about how unfair he thought the Media Coverage was. In my book on theater roosevelt, which is about a trial which was reliable, at the end of his second term he is the department of justice to charge to media entities grimsley for saying things about him that were true. He sued another Media Organization etc. The idea of the tension between the media is nothing new. The way this president is using that to try to make all the opinion is different. Theres the usual president ial complaining about the media and again, you can talk about the leftwing media which is a fair conversation to have but its also thought reality that what this president is doing is different. In terms of the book on the use of literally lost. I quote by russian journalist in my book talking about what putin does is my book is called information force, to putin is not in information work, its a war on information. The idea is to question the idea of whether there are empirical facts or not. What putin has always done is not saying my way is correct and you are wrong, he saying dont believe anybody. Nobody is trustworthy. What we are talking about this idea of journalism, which we are all kind of on before, i would say that is absolutely an outlier, not only in our history but world history. All through American History from the founding. Until the 1940s and 50s, every newspaper was either republican or democrat every country has newspapers that are affiliated with their party, there such a thing of objective news, they think that was crazy. This. We have where we all grew up in this, we look back as a golden age because journalism will have a. Of year. One of the things i proposed, we dont have a fake news problem, we have Media Literacy problem. People are less and less able to understand the information. Where it comes from, whats back and whats not. One of the things i proposed would you can do online now is that we come radically transparent. You write the story, you write your story and then online, you have a link to all of your interviews, your notes, your outline, the photographs taken from her to your notes from the books you read from the story and people see wow, look at all this work i came in here and they didnt use that quote from senator jones and people can make their own evaluation as to the veracity of that story and know what into it. While every reader do that . No but i think it will make people trust and understand what this process is and it will be the stories themselves will be an example of literacy and teach people how a story is made and constructed. Youre talking about analysis and opinion having been there then and now and thats the thing but the difference is that trust is gone. I brought some. Information here but i wanted to talk about, trusted media at 41 which is alltime close. Theres few Research Studies for government at 17 and covering their alltime lows. The question to anyone on the panel is how can we do better . You had government and media, what is a way forward to rebuilding trust . Im always a little skeptical about these poles and trust in government and again, by the way, it was 72 and 76 and its been over the years. I remember when i was a kid, if i put my head under the desk, i will survive a nuclear holocaust. There is good reason to not trust the government in certain circumstances. I was people had a greater understanding of what government does. One thing government has done poorly is explained what government does. The Obama Administration, i always was talking to the secretary of state president saint lets explain why we do this. Lets explain how people get electricity. Lets explain how to get water and health the roads these are the things of government due to you. Good reason im paying my taxes. I think enough republican, healthy prospective schism of government. As high as 70 , some in the middle. The role of the press, i cant say this enough is to hold government accountable. The press has an adversarial relationship with the government. Whether donald trump is present, barack obama is president. Barack obama used to complain privately all the time about his treatment of the president. He said every president is poorly treated. That is evidence of the fact that it wasnt a love song constantly just like its not to the current occupant. I have a slightly different question. Its 41 but if you look at that across party lines, 69 of democrats trust the media while 15, 15 of republicans trust the media. Thus in one pull. I will create news product to address that. How can we do better . How can the media do better to build trust with the republican side, which is really what it is. I will go back to what dan said. Except the reality, recognize the severe location that is occurring. Quite frankly, i think its getting aggressively worse. I think we had and sunday an event with the death of kobe. The newspaper, which times drives me to fix but the newspaper responded to this on a sunday when normally they are somewhat debated and took a story that related to an accident, a celebrity, to a sports person to an issue about why did it go wrong . Went across the spectrum of that story and throughout the day, just owned that story dramatically. To me, as i said earlier, it was a surprise performance. The truth is that we have journalism practitioners from the top to the bottom who are incredibly skilled. And can rise to occasions where, whether they are on a battlefield or whatever it might be, in the service of their audience. I think what we need is newspaper management. Assess i have a problem. Im going to try to alleviate it, diminish it, make some adjustment in it for the longterm value of the journalism. I know from my experiences when you try to do that, theres a lot of people in the news organizations are beginning to see it as some form of censorship. But i think the management of the news, Public Ownership because they are strange people or organizations but i think its the management thats going to have to come its not the journalist on the street when the white house or on air force one. Its the management, the guys like norman who work 18 hour days trying to get this in the paper in a coherent readable fashion. Engage it or not . I know you are going to crush it. Thirty seconds answer, i think part of this is when these papers and Television Networks, etc. , hire someone whos a conservative, he gets so much grief at the New York Times because the mass audience there doesnt agree with him on most of the stuff or a lot of stuff he writes. I think a lot of this goes back to management, i think if this is the goal, it may not be the Business Model, where it is going to put our hands up. Bring conservatives into the pool, they go for it by hiring them. They have to back them up when they say things unpopular and i think that can help. Just to distinguish between skepticism about 30, which i think is journalism and that bias you are talking about, weve all talked about washington through most of his conversation, a city county and state, all of which are controlled by the Democratic Party and all of them have similar purchases from what you heard today. Thank you very much. I wish we had another hour. Thank you. [inaudible conversations]