Editor. Were proud to welcome him back to the Heritage Foundation. He is the author of more than 25 books, including his latest, roy reforming journalism which he will discuss today. Marvins political journey is unique he became a athiest and marxist in high school and joint the communist party in the early 1970s. It was well at the university of michigan working on his ph. D and he had a spiritual awaken something and was baptized into the presence tieran church in 1976. He later became the founder of redeemer presence tearon church in austin, texas, in 1992. After college, he taught journalism for more than 25 years at the university of texas at austin and became a reporter for the yale dailies news and the boston globe. His first book garnered him significant attention and also caught the eye of the bradley foundation, which support is his visiting fellowship right here at the Heritage Foundation for two years. One of his most wellknown works the tragedy of american compassion which transformed him into a leader in he Christian Conservative political thought movement. Newt gingrich speaker of the house distributed to every republican member of the house at the time. Also what inspired the phrase compassionate conservatism. Marvin instrumental in the december of the World Journalism Institute which he is now the dean of and the institute seeks to recruit and train christian journalists and inject them into the main stream media and we do need that. He is the editor in chief of world, must tie media new organization that reports from a christian world view. You can follow him on twitter, marvin olasky. His most recent back is titled reforming journal. You a faithfilled history of journalism and has useful tips on news writing and advice oned a row indicating conservative traditions dominate by left. Went to Journalism School myself and worked as a reporter and editor in washington i enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it to you. We have copies for sale today in the lobby. Now, to tell us more about reform are journalism id like to welcome marvin over has ski. [applause] thank you, rob, thank you for coming. Its great to be back at the heritage. Spent my most Productive Research rear in 19891990. The building was the base for the trips to the library of congress five blocks away and it was fun, literally blowing the dust off 19th century record stack in the library and my book made the difference in the drive for welfare reform never mid1990s. I like to think hat change helped self mental people move from the welfare rolls into Productive Work so im grateful to heritage for that contribution to fighting poverty in mrs. Arthur brooks, the former head oaei, once said he got Barack Obamas jaw to drop when arthur told him im a conservative because i care about helping the poor. And a great president , kay james could say the same. So, i am grateful to heritage for spending that year here with the nefarious background that rob referred to. Back in the 1970s i thought i was pretty smart and had high s. A. T. Scores, yale diploma, some work in bigtime journalism. I was a left wing protester invited into the halls of power and i was so mart i did one of the stupiddist things, i joined the communist party and then purely, really are you gods grace i came out and in retrospect it was a beneficial experience for me, not sure for others but for me it was because it made my realize how stupid i am and thats an important thing i think for all of to us come to mind. It helped me to understand that other people also considered smart are also stupid. I started wondering where i could go to find true wisdom. I became skeptical of existential subjectivity and the lack of humility that typifies journalism and me as well. Im not careful. And that brings me to todays subject. In September Steve ban non. You hard. Him the former trump aide, spoke to a conservative group in st. House and asked do you thing its been unpleasant and nasty to date . You havent seen anything. The 2020 campaign will good down as the most vitriolic and mastist in american history. Its very simple. We win, we save the country. Well, no, we do not. We do not win, we do not save the country if we win by escalating anger, whoever on the left or on the right, wins by that sword will eventually die by it. And just a little history. Since this is what i was studying in, the United States has been exceptional. Theres debate about that. Of all the revolutions the American Revolution is the only one that did notice become disastrous. Revolutions in france, russia, which i became familiar with in any communist days, china, cuba, cam boda, they all started with ideals that quickly became idols and that could happen here, not next not in the next decade but could happen. I visited argentina last month with it cycles of inflation. That could happen here. We could become like venezuela where class warfare has hurt all classes. And journalism bathed in vitriol is part of the problem. I with keep escalating our cultural decay, our eventual debt driven i driven national bankrupt well lead nor people to go from fierce words to sticks and stones. The old objectivity never was all that good certainly doesnt work now. Other alternatives. Id like to lay out nine suggestions based holiday then bin lick cal teaching that it might help us make journalism part of the solution rather than part of the problem. I want to stress these suggestions degree out of my working world. When i was at heritage 30 years ago i walked over to Union Station and met with joel bells, i joined the board of directors in 1990 and started editing in 1929 and i suspect that was the i did that because that was the way the board of they noor they could kick me off the board and be more active in other types of miss chef. We have grown at a time when other journalistic enterprises are shrinking so the nine suggestions are not just theoretical constructs. We have road tested them and learned they worked. So, number one, do journalism as street level, not suite level. Everyone has opinions. Its easy to sit at our computers and air conditioned offices and ontive indicate, the world we have tried to emphasize, tough time consuming street level reporting. We like being fliesen the wall. Watching and listening. Dont walk to make of uses the center of attention and action, dont walk to maintain officer the apparent font of wisdom. We like to report and reporting is fallen into ware circumstances. Thatter is so much opinion journal jim there is very little reporting, people listening, paying attention, watching, describings. Thats number one. Number two sprinkle salt, not sugar. Some may work in Corporate Public relations deposits. Did that five years, some of you in nonprofit officers or congressional suites. Ive head some experience there and i know that the job for people in that situation is to make your organization or your boss look good. I did some of that. I worked at dupont for five years, great educationally and financially. But the task really was to hand out sugar. Sweet statements that sometimes covered up the truth. Thats not Good Journalism and sometimes people are forgetting the divide between Good Journalism going out and really trying to honestly report what is going on without doing it in a way designed to popularize, publicize, particular group or organization or individual. And sugar isnt very helpful either. Just gives us sugar fixes. Cover up the truth. No journalism. We try be salt. Salt adds taste, also preservative. Thats our goal and that makes us unpopular in certain quarter, including sometimes certain conservative quarters because number three, we try to avoid entangling alliances. We can be salt not sugar because we dont have to scratch the backs of other organizations even when theyre scratch ours. World yes, i am i hope a christian first, conservative second but i am a conservative. World largely can be the same way but not part of the conservative movement. Were not part of the evangelical movement either. We can and do criticize other groups, more than 20 years ago, 23 years ago, world was a member of the evangelical press association and we end the epa code oethics prohibited criticism of other members ask that made its Mutual Protection societies and sometimes organizations, conservative or christian systems are. Resigned from the ep ay and tried to avoid such inning tang. Ments ever since so independence is important. Number four we like to publish send assignsal facted but sensational fact but unstated pros. Journal system was been like a movie franchise, scream one, seem two scream the. People who get paid by clicks create crick baits. Not health for consumers. We have sensational news and wry to tell it not scream it and thats very different sounding from a lot of journalism these days. And number five, we try to remember that the loggal theological for not screaming. The sky is not falling because god holds up the sky. We had flood. God promised not to send another one. This year, is the 75th year since we invented Nuclear Bombs and used two of them on japan. It is absolutely miraculous that during decades of cold war we did not have a nuclear war. Times we came close. Im not aware of any time in Human History that a massively effect tisch new weapon has not been used for such a long time. Thats amazing. Its not natural. Its almost super natural. And when i think of this i really am filled with thanksgiving and you should be, too. God is so great that we cant get our arms around him but clearly had his arms around us. Nearly 500 years ago john calvin wrote how we ought to gaze upon gods works that we may be restored by his goodness. And with all the rotten stuff that guess on, still amazingly we havent had the disaster i think anyone would have predicted we would have had by now. I look at predictions in the first decade of the century, and people were predicting that terrified be Nuclear Bombs smuggle held in and people giving odds better than 50 that we would have a Nuclear Incident in this country sometime in the next five or ten years. Hasnt happened and i guess we keep praying it doesnt happen. Gods work, keeping us from killing each other, with death toll in the billion is is a miracle of mercy. I preach. Do i hear an amen . Six, now that i moved into theology pled me wade into deeper wart. The pay know the truth song by bob dylan, ha to serve somebody. I beliefs direct all reporting and writing. Sometimes in a very implies sis wait, sometimes explicitly but not even the simplest story is without some degree of position on something. When firefighters fight fire we cheer for the firefighters, not the fire. When we have discoveries that help people fight cancer, we are glad of those stoves. Not cheering for the cancer and these days a lot of people think that stuff that used to be popular understood is social cancer but were not cheering for social cancer. All reporting is directly reporting. And the 20th century, some journalists push back against what used to be call objectivity. And some still argue that an objective reporting, the reporter could function like a camera, but people increasing i understood, people in journalism that what a camera shows depends on where we point it, what kind of lens and film you have some so on so to update the metaphor youre more than youre smartphone, your smartphone record depending on where you standing and where you point. You decide which photos and sound to keep or show or play back. When covering stories reporter decide odd the time whats most important to present and what to ignore. Beliefs, judgments, ideologies direct those decisions. Directed reporting. So what does that mean . Does that mean its hopeless, everything is opinion in not exactly. Now, in feature stories particular live the choice of a protagonist and antagonist, we call this pamo. Feature stories and simple story haves protagonists and antagonist and mission obstacles. The basic structure someone does something because, but, then you have the tension. Recorders decide who the something is, what me but reports and world views are important and i stress that because this leads to almost sometimes people throwing up their hands. If conventional objectivity doesnt work iowa subjective. Well, this brings to us point number seven here. We try to provide biblically objective journalism that informs, educates and inspires. Biblical objectivity. Its so different from the conventional notion of objectivity that some people have a hard time getting their arms around it. Ill try to explain. For 23 years now, ive owned and mostly lived in a tall house on a hillside in texas. Except being in texas its called edwards mountain. Its a hill. The house sways slightly when heavy winds hit and that initially made me nervous. You feel. No but the builder of the house lived next door so i could actually ask him about to the construction he showed me it was solid and hasnt fallen down yet. He knew how the house was made because he had made it. Journalists con conventionally sometimes describe objectivity as getting opinions at, b and c and reporting them eve quali. Say my neighbor down the street says my house will fall down if the wind gets to 10 Miles Per Hour and maybe a neighbor across the street says, well, its made of kryptonite and would reject an attack even by superman. And maybe a third neighbor says my house is made of cheese and will fall apart in the hurricane but dont war buys i can eat my way out of it. If i kuwait all their opinions objectively will if happen an objective story . No even if they were all except not noted lightly nutty, speaking generically i would not have an objectively accurate story because they dont know my house the way my builder knows the house. So our balances of subjectivity does not give us an objective answer. What does . Well, god is the builder of the house we all live. In he gave us the bible. Which explains how the house was made and what its made of. I believe that only god knows the true objective nature of things and i didnt always believe this. Had to come to learn it through some hard things that were hard put useful. I believe that his book, the bible, ies the only completely objective and accurate view of the world which means the only true objectivity is biblical objectivity. Die expect others to believe that . Probably not unless god impresses that upon them the way he impressed it upon me. All these years ago. And happily he does that for millions of people. Why he doesnt do that for anyone i dont know. Nip seen the movie field of dreams some people cannot see he Baseball Players but theyre there. How do we sort out what is real and what is true or not and the lied to number eight. Our technique. A metaphor, white rather rapids thankful Business Office in nashville, north carolina, and so there are good white water rapids 40 miles west of it. When we had our World Journal jim imconstitute classes we would take our students out to it and we would go down the rapids with them, 25 students at a time, six rubber boats, and when i captained one of the rubber bosts because i had experience if was such a poor captain is was constantly running number were bushes and trees and everybody ended up in the water. And one potential reporter ended up in the middle saying let me out which we did. And she did not really make as a reporter. What water rafting, biblical objectivity. We get together and as we discuss temperatures how to approach them, protagonist and antagonist we use the rapids as a short hand because people who know white water rapids talk but six kinds of rapids, number one is gently down the stream. Anyone can do it. Im okayable of doing. Number six is going over a waterfall and unless youre a real expert you probable live will die. So best to avoid. Class one, class one where is the bible takes an explicit position so its easy to follow. For example, adult triis wrong and we would not make an adulterer a hero. So taking a strong position where god takes was dot gives us leeway god is the god of truth and dogs not require a Public Relations help but nevertheless, heres a clear position and that influence thursday he way we tell the story. Class two, the bible takes an implies sit position. For example, parents are responsible for the godly education of children so we support bible based schooling at home and private schools, or in Public Schools if the parents think thats best for their particular situation. Dont think those schools should pretend that god doesnt exist else thats not neutral. Thats taking a very definite position. So on class two well take the position but its we may not be as strong. Well certainly acknowledge alternatives but well still say, theres something that the bible shows us right and something wrong. Class three, pardon pardons of both sides partisans can quote scriptures and so only careful study lead tolling biblical conclusions. For example one thing we try to avoid, showing concern for the uns, unborn, unsafe, unchurched, unfashion al, unked indicated. Its what is important whether we are helping our hurting and people are made in gods image with the capacity to be creative and productive to a greater or lesser extent. I think we find from both biblical teaching and experience that payments encouraging people not to work are often harmful rather than helpful. And well come at it that bay and acknowledge this is a hard thing. You dont what we do when theres a person at Union Station asking for money, to give to, not to give. This is hard and requires experience in a sermon and still get it wrong but biblical teach then class four that, nurse clear path we can bring to bear significant historical experience and a biblical understanding understanding of human nature. We should not trust tyrants to honor. Not a peace treaties. We see teaching from the bible about being suspicious in those circumstances and history shows that at welch certainly from my own communist Party Experience i learned that permanently. There is a five no clear historical or psychological trail but theres some experience to lead to us be wary. I can choose one picker example because were sitting here just off capitol hill. We should not expect efficiency from big bureaucracies, something we learned from history and human nature something is gained but something is lost in the process and should not be surprised when we make we have big plans and big projects and they actually turn out to be harmful rather than. He. Then class six, like going over to the waterfall, were on our own. For example, specific Foreign Policy matters or Foreign Trade agreements. We class six rapids we balance different perspectives and koch might be similar to that of a tryings traditional ap story. A generation ago youy see the balance of objectivity and we wont be very different from that traditional approach because we dont know. We try hard not to either overuse or underuse scripture. When i first became a christian in 1976, one of the first thing i saw, i went into the church, starting to go to, and there was a group that was rating members of congress on their votes voted whether these were good people based on the bible or evil people. One question was should the use relinquish control of the panama canal . And if you were against that, you were on gods side. If you were for that you were on and even that i could see this is silly. Theres no book of the panama canal in the bible and it doesnt tell us what to do in some situations like that. Great discernment is necessary and we wont pretend to say we know what to do. We may sometimes grandfather our opinion give our opinion but we say we dont know. This helps to us avoid overusing the bible which is a tendency among some conservatives or underusing it, which i a ten den sigh among some liberal sod we try to take strond stands in the bible. Avoid doing something that isnt in the bible and have the opportunity to get things right by trying to practice biblical objectivity but christians north immune to temptations and pressures and that leads to my last point, number nine, a great theologian said god saves sinners. Thats really important. God is not saving good people or wonderful people or holy people. God saves sinners. And really all worlds reporting and writing is based on the understand god is holy and we are sinner. He heavens declare the glow of god and at the streets proclaim the simple unless of bad. So biblical journal. Being very careful not to mischaracterize or abuse or think of the opponents as forever enemies because some people this is the week of. The march here, some of the strongest pride people are people were form arely abortionists or proclaimers abortion. So god saves sinners and we try to show this in our reporting in the world and we have a podcast. The world and everything it in it that i recommend to yaw al if youre walking your your dog. We are start something podcasts right now and since rob mentioned the my writing on compassion compassionate poverty we have a series called the effective compassion, and episode four this week that deals with the changes in washington back in the 1990s so gain a little bit of history, take a listen to that. Its about 20 or 25 minutes each episode and put in effective compassion, but in the world and everything in it and listen to our podcast and we also have a World Journalism Institute for College Students students and pp to age 30 or so. We have hat in the summer and then the thing that i enjoyed, i enjoyed my teaching at the university of texas for all those years but when you see people for three hours a week for 15 weeks doesnt have the intensity and you dont get to know the people in a classroom, so we have done it 11 times now, our midcareer cores that in my wife and i teach in our living room, in austin, for just ten people each time, and we have a very intensive week. Thursday, friday, saturday, from 58340 in the morning until late at night and then sunday people do need a day of rest and then we good again on monday, tuesday, and wednesday. And its been really the best teaching experience of my life because we get to know the people. Theyre in our house and then a whole bunch of them become correspondents for world and some go and become reporters. Usually people in their 40s who are very successful in their occupations but bored at that point and want to do either theyre bored or they just want to serve god in a different way. So if any of your are interested in that look another our website at World Journalism Institute. Org, wji or world ji. Org and at that i will now show my hugh him in by stopping and humility by stopping and listening to your questions or comments. So thank you very much. [applause] marvin, thank you so mump. Well going to take queaches have a couple and i want to pick one you left off there at the end. When its comed to the next generation of journalists, you obviously have redee voted yourself to devotes yourself to this particular endover make sure theyre better prepared. We also live in a time when it seems trust in institutions has reached significant lows, historic lows and journalism is no exception to that. So, two part question. See the faith and trust in journal increasing and what is your message as you send people into the world, whether theyre in their mid40s or comping out of college to do a better job in their own careers and you probably you asked, will this ever change. Ever is a very long time. Will it change in any relatively short period of time like the next several decades . Im hopeful. Dont expect it but im hopeful because we have had other situations where journalists trust in journalists was almost nonexistent and journalism popped back. Just give you one example and ive written a couple of books early journalism history. Journalists back in the 1600s and 1700s were hacks, completely. They were basically their Job Description was basically to do Public Relations for the coining or royal governor when you come here in the colonies. No one expected that they could read anything truthful. I was Public Relations pure and simple. The 1730s in in new york there was fellow who decided to tell at the truth and was in the a Dutch Reform Church there. On sunday he learned of the port itsbell egg truth. He told the truth about the sky. Of course he was thrown into jail because he is breaking the law at that point. It was the journalist job to not tell the truth. And he stuck with that, he spent about eight months or so in prison then there was a trial and at the trial his lawyer a guy from philadelphia proclaimed that a jury should become a runaway jury regardless of what the law said, hamilton talked about elijah in the bible spoke truth to power and other people did the same and john was doing the same to this vile governor bill cosby. In the should not be imprisoned. The jury became a runaway jury. They took their own liberty in their hands by saying not guilty not guilty and when asked by the chief justice, the justice presiding, how could you say that, they just kept saying not guilty not guilty not guilty. It being direct obstacle. That changed that started to change after that there were no journalists in the colonies liable by the governor in that way. 40 years later you have the American Revolution led by a journalist named samuel adams. He had total trust but the people in boston, the liberty and others because i saw him not as the hack but someone who told the truth. There is an enormous change of the point, journalism was in high repute from the colonial period for the next few decades, it started to change back a little bit in the 1950s and stop enter pop back in the 1900s but nevertheless were looked upon. In general they were. I cannot predict when this would pop back but if there was more journalist to tell the truth in sparkling salt rather than sugar, i think that could happ happen. Lets see whats on your mind, we have other questions i like to ask, will start the back with joe. Please introduce yourself in the organization youre with. Im joe with the american studies around the Journalism Program there. I wanted to get your opinion on what do you think of undergraduate Journalism Schools and what advice you give to students who want to study journalism and im just curious the publications out there, are there any that you admire and take her doing a decent job now . Let me do the last question first. We have lots of fans and sometimes they will write me or come up and say i love world, i love your podcast, its only thing i listen to. In my response to that is a little bit horror. Come im glad they like it but i suggest, im glad you read it, but you should read other things to in my recommendation, i used to say you should read the New York Times and Washington Post. I dont do that anymore because its become so propagandistic. But in a mild way its overthetop now. The liberal publication because its coming from a different worldview but they are good writers, good reporters and i know some of them and theyre good people even though we disagree on this. So thats my usual thing, you can read on the website and so forth. As far as Journalism School, i started teaching journalism at the university of texas in 1983. Even though they knew i was very explicit about this from a christians perspective, they thought that was okay because they actually id been a reporter. I could speak their language and understand and i was on the side of journalism as reporters, i was not calling them enemies in that way anyone would disagree. At that point, the university of texas Journalism School, the professors were mainly old reporters, old the world reporters. Texas liberal reporters which made them rusty and cranky but i enjoyed them and they tolerated me. That changed over the years. It amazed and horrified some people but it was a good decision over the past dozen years of teaching. By the time i left, a lot of the professors were marxist either hard or soft who really had no journalism experience. They knew theory and in my opinion a twisted way but they did not of journalism. There was a couple who had been reporters and who believed in writing and reporting and getting out of that something i found the great propaganda. But mostly it was pretty bad. So it was no fun anymore. I dont know intimately any other program and it would not be surprised if similar things have happened elsewhere. So what i recommend for journalism education, again these are christian places i no which is not everyones cup of tea but in virginia, hav an hour west from here has some good teaching. I have a student i supervise. The college in iowa, has good teaching, former Washington Bureau chief as journalist tend to do you get tired and you go teach. I could recommend a couple others but those of the two i like best. It is hard for students. Lets go here and then will come over here. Reverend michael i represent ministry of state of the ministry in d. C. I have two questions that are interconnected, you walk came out with a book talking about institutions and how they moved to pop under platforms and the negative impact that that is had in peoples perception of the benefit of an institution being formative and now preformative. I would love to hear your thoughts on that. When you mention the fact that you came christianity through communism, i was thinking about how douglas hyde eventually left christianity because he became the solution with the ability to change how we wanted and how do you fight against that an interest enter christian publications. That is interesting. I read the book which he wrote when use christian and im not familiar with his later experience that he write something about this or when i believe was scheduled to be republished he declined allowing it to be republished because he said i no longer adhere to that because its roman dedication and leadership he felt like christianity was the way to affect the change that he wanted in the world and he did not see it coming. That is sad to hear. We do have lots of biblical admission that does not become good and so forth. That is sometimes when i tell my reporters we have again we are conservative but we differ from moving in some ways, we tend to be proimmigration and prorefugee. And one ever brilliant young reporters has been covering this a lot and i think she gets weary and just got a keep at it. I could go on a lot about the platform question and is really hard by the way these days publishing books, you see publishers including christian publishers n not smudge the quality but the platform of the book. And thats a mess. In some ways. I flew in last night and just as coming from reagan airport and you all have the experience coming in, the lincoln memorial, the jefferson memorial, washington monument, the capital and so forth. But people change. In last night, a group of boston basically group at fenway park and spent so much time there that these days when i go back there i feel as im walking along through the tunnels and so forth, i feel i going to go around the corner and see myself in is ten years old, its a weird sensation when youre 15 years old. Its not familiar but that we are the same taipe. When i was 20 years old in washington, this was a big big antivietnam war demonstration in the most memorable thing, we had a demonstration one day and monday worse was to lobby our congress and suffered. We hadnt had much success so we went over to the house of the speaker John Mccormick who is in massachusetts and lo and behold this is about 515 530 the secretary walks into see him and we had a very enjoyable halfhour, he just enjoyed the kids coming in i try to give them rest time at the end of the experience he took us in the House Chamber and said there were four of us there, he said heres my chair that a sitting, i have to go im gonna go have dinner with my wife because i never missed dinner with my wife, but take this chair you can spin around and enjoy that. We all did. So we thought of ourselves as revolutionist but we were little kids on the chair. Thats the way i think we all tend to be, we get tired of things and we may not have as long as Attention Span that we needed, i wrote a book on the history of abortion back in 1992 and am updating that now so ive been reading about some of the people in the Prolife Movement for 40 years. On friday at the march my wife and i will actually be walking with a couple people that have been there the whole time and do something for a podcast. That takes incredible patience and enormous frustration year after year after year. Its a grace of god to be able to do that. I could go on, i am just impressed as a journalist i come to have a mediumsize Attention Span which means i dont want to spend my whole life on one issue. But im impressed with people who have done that in with bob here who is done the welfare stuff for decades. , thats really incredible perseverance, i think it requires that type of patience as opposed to the idea, will find the platform, sell books and go on with my life. I admire the people, its a grace of god. Lets go to the second row. Michael with the institute and former correspondent. Several years ago you developed several periodicals for younger readers, could you explain the rationale behind that. Periodicals for younger . Yes younger readers. That started in about 1980 because how many of you when youre in Elementary School saw a publication called the weekly reader . A bunch of people. Joe want to set up something that was a christian for the weekly reader. I grew up with the weekly reader but he was hoping for something more, he set up to serve that purpose, its still going after all these years and will start doing some videos this fall for Christian School classrooms. So it is still there. When the world started out it was losing money like crazy and out to other way around. Its not making money like crazy but we do have one or 2 left at the end of the year. Anyway that is part of enterprise to try to help kids develop a news habit. Craig popper with the college fix, i interviewed you 20 years ago. I want to ask about business models, it seemed like a lot of problems in journalism is a way you make money on it, it does not produce journalism, what do you see as a path forward that many people dont think as much about. Journalism in the United States has had a different mod model, originally you would see newspapers in the 1700s or 1800s funded by patrons and so forth that it became an advertising base model and be able to sell his people to the ads, it is returning to the earlier model of donors, funders, nonprofit organizations very often in the publications that dont have one big sugar daddy or small ones are in trouble. The big sugar daddy has its own state of problems. With the Washington Post and so forth, that is trouble. Much better to have a diversified group of donors. That is basically what the world is doing, we have more money coming in from subscriptions and advertising and things like th that, thats what im recommending to people, there are two people who have graduated from the institute who are now and set up their own publications, one in a small city in california and one trying to make in the big city in austin providing an alternative. I believe they are either in or will be moving towards a nonprofit model with donors. If you have lots of donors then you are free from having the alliance of having to follow one particular person or small group of people. That is our goal to have diversified giving. That means you have to show people in the community is it is worth doing. Its worth supporting. Now the world and everything in it youll hear its great. Npr is mostly supported and they do such a firstclass job of what they do from the worldview and the world and everything in it is npr as opposed to christian radio and such. If i can ask a followup, certainly the daily has a certain model the Heritage Foundation, and to have the Financial Independence due to policy research but also reporting. The question for you, you have been in it long enough to see the changes of distribution and content, social media plays a much bigger role, a significant role today, how have you been able to adapt and as you said in your talk grow when it seems that many legacy news organizations are struggling. I am not very good at it but im thinking when i neede came o washington and i was a young guy in middle guy just behind the curve. And i was talking to one of our people and saying i look to facebook and we really need to refresh that, a little old with the stuff that we have and we have people applying and then you see on facebook, yeah we still have our facebook thing, that is not most of what we do and then they give them names of other things but some things i have heard like instagram and so forth and one i had not heard of. What we do we have new people who know stuff, i still tend to like email which is th the wayd made it. [laughter] email phobia at this point. Theres another part . Biblically and as a christian, how have you viewed and covered the impeachment of William Jefferson clinton and now the impeachment of Donald John Trump . That is a really interesting question and i question enormous interest about 2000 of our readers who in 2016 sent me complaining letters. We said in 2016 that we considered both our president and Hillary Clinton unfit to be president. In saying that about donald trump we were basically saying he had just not show the character that we hope the president would show. Also you didnt have to be a person careful control of his emotions which is also useful to have in any leader. Another thing, im actually surprised that trump is been as conservative as he has been, i did not expect that either. So basically we said there both unfit, we had one cover with Hillary Clinton with the green ripper wearing it with her and then we had another cover concerning trump and we had a smaller picture of the cover we did 20 years ago with bill clinton. And we thought clinton should resign in office, we were not hip on impeaching him because depending on the definition of impeachment but we hoped he would do an honorable thing and resign from office, but we did that with a democrat and we should try to apply the same standard to donald trump and he did not show the character either. That was then and as you can imagine i got 2000 annual letters from our subscribers and we lost subscription and advertising but this is something everyone in our staff, we all discussed this and we had a wonderful publisher who knew the cost and said go for. So we did. I still feel that in a microlevel donald trump is unfit to be president. Just in terms of current character questions but just the way he reacts to things and people who know th things know about the decisionmaking process. But thats at a microlevel. I have not written about this all start they get it through but heres were in going, there has been microeconomics and macroeconomics which is a distinction in talking about Something Like evolution and people make a distinction between micro and macro evolution. In my view trump remains micro unfit but macro, there are some differences as well as myself but overall hes doing a pretty good job in a tough environment. So this leaves me a certain difficulty, what were doing is not making any announcements, were going issue by issue report by report and we probably have about 5050 of trump not part of the cheerleading and not part of the real but ambitious attacking the goes on. Hes a very hard job, hes a president of all of us and we respect him. So far his job these days are to be nominated in chief, hes done a good job at that not only in the corporate throughout the judicial system for hes achieved a lot, some of the regulations hes got rid of our one that deserve to be buried, we just want to continue reporting actions primarily, not just words a lot of the good actions he has had in weather will make any or all make any general statements, im not quite sure but its a tough situation, i never was and im still not part of the never trumpers because never is a long time and just like everett is a long time. And the people there is one christian leader referred to donald trump as a greatest christian leader ever and i disagree without. And i also agree with people saying hes the worst president ever weve had a a lot of our worst ones. One of the things in washington is the circus, and i kind of enjoy the things trump is tweeting. Im not giving you a good answer, im stuttering around here. What would you say since you asked the question. I was a never trumper who now thinks i agree with much of what he has done. But i also believe he really isnt morally or temporarily fit for the presidency. The problem is. Bill clinton also. Basically we felt that as a magazine we need to be evenhanded. Basically. So we did not tell people who to vote for and they certainly did not tell anyone who voted for trump, i did not say you are wrong to do that. I think its a mistake to be calling him the greatest christian president but it was very hard decision to make and maybe not as hard as this time since the Democratic Party support to the left but depending on who the nominate i think its likely that they will nominate a person who is micro unfit to be president and perhaps micro as well. The problem is the Supreme Court when the Supreme Court has taken so much power that the nominator into position im troubled by this and i suspect some of this from a troubled, life is full of trouble and as part of realizing this is a world that is a wonderful place but full of sin and we have to try to walk away through without drowning. We will take one final question and marvin will stay inside books and after words words my name is maggie and i work at heritage. With social media, it seems like everybody is become a journalist, do you see that as a threat to traditional journalism . Thats a really good question and said to be careful what you wish for and. For. I grew up in a time when it was very little competition in journalism, the newspapers you had the three networks but they were all pretty much the same and not overworked but certainly there. So initially i was very glad and i still am glad to see this diversity. Its wonderful that someone goes through not to just be a reporter but a publisher, editor, never before and we had the opportunity, the american journalist, the problem comes is there really is so much fake news out there and at least in the old days with the swamp fish liberalism, there was some check of putting off stuff that was absolutely untrue. And that check no longer exists because so many people are no longer reporters but just people who take other stuff and retweet it and so forth, all sorts of lies get passed around like crazy. Something lost in something gain, overall i still like it but there are problems and thats why we really try to stress, this is why i enjoy the atlanta, its a different worldview and ac as reporters and tried to tell the truth. Taking for sharing your wisdom and advice on journalism, really a thoughtful book in your remarks today i appreciate it in your leadership and we thank you and we hope you will come back to the Heritage Foundation in the future. Please join me in thanking marvin olasky. [applause] if you would like to purchase a copy of the book, there are available outside and marvin will stay on the stage for assigning them. [inaudible conversations] you are watching the tv on cspan2 with top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Book tv, television for serious readers. [inaudible conversations] good evening, i am tony clark from the carter library, i cannot tell you how excited i am to see you all from the audience, washing this, it has rained all day long and it is raining very hard right now and to see you all turn out tonight i think is a tribute to ingrid and her organization in the