Transcripts For CSPAN2 Do I Make Myself Clear 20170611

It ran along fourth avenue. There were 48 bookstores at its height and today the strand is a survivor, we survived bigbox stores, amazon, and as of a month ago, a major manhole fire that blasted out all of our windows. We shook off the dust and opened up the next day. Glad we are here today and thank you all for reading. Today the New York Times called sir harry evans the greatest and the most verdant editor alive. Says it all. You were the head of britain times, sunday times, random house currently working as editor in chief of reuters, the British Press award for lifetime achievement, knighted in 2003. Dont know what else, a great book, many great books. First time i met harry was in 2004 filming a cspan segment on this very floor over that way that corresponded to the republican convention. People were outraged that bush was the nominee, seems like quaint times today. Since then, harry and i developed a close friendship. I am always in our of how they know everybody and how they bring people together and conquer one project after another. Their daughter was a summer intern, so loved that every Department Head wanted her to work in their department. I was the one who had to break the news she had to go back to harvard. I got off subject. Tonight we are here to discuss a brandnew book that polls harrys years of experience into the pristine document of clarity and wit. Do i make myself clear . His number 7 rule is dont be a bore. Hope we are all going to follow that rule tonight. We are honored to welcome mike barnicle, known as barnicle as everybody knows, senior contributors to msnbcs morning joe and columnist for the daily beast, broadcaster and commentator. Mike has followed rule number 7 throughout his career earning him accolades and making him a bugaboo of conservative media and red sox hater. Please join me in welcoming the esteemed mike and harry to the stand. The strands very existence is a heroic story. Sir harry, an honor to be with you this evening, you are one of the most legendary editors in the 20th and 21stcentury so my first question to you is what did you write today . I began writing a piece for the london Evening Standard which is edited by the former financial exchequer and i was in the middle of it talking about where you find truth in what is going on. That is what i spent most of my life doing. I wrote a few words and wasnt satisfied. The strand was more important. In the book, you write many things, the book incidentally is a gift to both writers, potential writers and editors, and readers because it gives you an account of how easy it is to read something that is clear and concise. You dont want to really write anything where people scratch their heads coming away thinking what did you mean . No one ever felt that way about anything you wrote and still right. One of my favorite chapters in the book is storytelling, long and short. Many stories you tell in the book, defining clarity in writing, one that struck home to me was the helicopter patrol over a city in afghanistan, why not speak to the need for clarity and the difference between the differences in two different forms. It is approaching, get the firemen to talk to me. Your too young to learn about that. So i let my writing did my best to come through, too young and inexperienced. The difference between distinguished columnist and the army is you have to be precise. Military precision is an automatic coupling and the story is absolutely shocking because it shows a position, like many of these words we put together they are directed to look for a particular place, men scurrying about, it sounds just like what they are looking for. Maybe it is not, talking among each other, why not ask again . The guy on the ground floor, what is happening . We are looking for this we have seen several of those and to go back again and say lets go, so they go. People on our side said it is without borders and of course it is a disaster so ask your self how did this come about . And tell that story i never saw any action. The army was pretty frank about that. They were not at all frank, however, when cameramen were killed by an Army Helicopter looking down at all these men. They became convinced, one was carrying a camera and said that looks like a gun to me. That looks like a gun. Lets go, so killed them. I personally dont tap Julian Assange or and snowden. But only certain people. I am not fond of this. They gave an example that even the heroes gets this. Could you speak, an extension of that story, the aftermath of that story, the write up of that story, bureaucratic language of that story, why was it so difficult for people who are smart people to write a simple declarative english sentence, noun, verb . That is the whole point tonight seriously because it amazes me. Most of the time i am in a rage. I can be enraged isil language. Let me give you an example. George orwell, last year, coincidental with the election, George Orwell at 70th anniversary, the language with variations, true of all political parties, designed to make life down truthful and murder respectful and give experiences let me give you some pure wit. The management statement, we promise to dedicate ourselves to improving the efficacy of measurable learning outcomes and we intend to learn something was why didnt you buddy say so . A magazine set upon by one of the founders of facebook. As journalist we have mixed views about facebook, it is taking money away, what is going on with the politics . This is what they thought. A crowd you can see. This is what they want to do with human services. We expect this start, cross functional collaboration and align ourselves to integrated what . With words in it. And i want to Say Something that will shock you. They have when i wrote this, donald trump in that this is donald trump at a charity and an emphasis and a certainty which i for one overlook as being effective as it was and this is what he says. We have to stop illegal immigration. We have to do it, usa today, usa today and when i hear people im running against, we have to build a wall, folks, we have to build a wall and wall works, we have to do it, go to israel and say is your wall working . Walls work. You have to say, in the election campaigns that work. All these long words, i hated the message but you have to admit the question is is that language, that certainty someone objected to my notes, that certainty, how does this translate from winning the campaign to governing . If you read the paper today, you know the translation from campaigning but what struck me about this campaign was see certainty and clarity of it, much as i didnt like it, make america read again, make America Great again, how many of you know that was stolen from Ronald Reagan . Ronald reagan said lets make America Great again. Trump edited out the lets and put an emphatic make America Great again and unfortunately, beginning with that, wouldnt have any certainty. That is why we have a 45th president with dogmatic certainty about lies. That is all . When i say lets be clear i am speaking on behalf of people, nonsense pushed through the Republican Party and the moment. The business crap that i read to you, measurable outcomes and magical experiences, we got to learn to speak clearly. We wont get anywhere unless we speak clearly. The clarity it is respectable. Where is the verb . It is okay to have a sentence without a verb. When you are trying to find the verb, the noun relates to terms i cant understand so i sit there getting angrier and angrier and finally find a way of uniting verb and subject. And talking about the Trump Campaign and the wall, lets build a wall and talking about noun, verb, object, you edited millions, literally millions of newspaper stories, thousands of books. Is there a linkage between words that make you think about things and words that summon emotion, if you think emotion is an important part of writing, tell me why and how. I want to get out of the swamp we have been in if i may. Lets imagine 30 years from now or 40, you are 93. I come up to you and say how are you feeling . I know how it begins, blood he awful. Why do you ask . Show the change here. This is what roger angell wrote. Host before he reads it i want to tell you what he quoted. Roger angell could make a paperclip sing. Sorry. Guest in 93, this is what he says. Check me out. Check me out. The two top novels in my left hand worked over by the kgb. If i had been a catcher for the hall of fame catcher, the inventor retired in 1887. Put this another way. My hand like a pistol and fired at your nose people that would nail your knee. Arthritis. Slamming a door in your face. The next one host dont stop. Dont. Guest still facing you if i cover my left or better i with one hand is what i see is a blurry and certain vision of the ceiling and floor and walls and windows on your right and left, but no sign of your face or head, nothing in the middle but cheer up. If i cover my right i, you are back again. If i take my hand away and look at you with both eyes, the empty hole disappears and you are in the 3d. Actually looking pretty terrific today and end it macular degeneration, i am 93 and feeling great. Magnificent writing. Having the courage to admit a deficiency and at the end of the day when hes 93 and im somewhat younger than that, that invocation of sympathy by the way he writes, although the entitled state, barely get it said, that is what i mean by simple language, noun, verb, concrete images, a great metaphor, does that answer the question . It does was one of the aspects of your answer gets to the flipside of roger angell whose book is this old man, all in pieces, which is well worth reading. Roger angell, like sir harry of legend, writing for the new yorker for 67, 7 years but in any event the flipside of clarity in writing struck me, reading your book, the writings it impacts and affects so many lives like Health Insurance policies. Has anybody ever read the Health Insurance policy or their Car Insurance policy . Nobody reads that. I would like you to talk about two people, start with ethan bed rick. The young man whose mother had a difficult birth. He was born with Cerebral Palsy, you have to stretch the muscles or you will never talk, physical therapy. Also because of the effects of Cerebral Palsy, the muscles in the mouth renunciation and speech are not properly developed, you need speech therapy. Even bed rick, his father was a top executive, bought an insurance policy which promised to do more of the things that were required to be done. He within five years he had a chance of walking. After 18 months travelers suspended the treatment, went to court, some of the means by which he was enabled to exercise were restored by court order. But one was not and the Company Refused and ended the service, the speech therapy. That meant that boy was imprisoned in his own skull without the ability to communicate in a simple manner because the Cerebral Palsy can be treated to the extent a victim can learn gradually to communicate. There was all of that. The judge actually said in the commentary explaining i cannot overrule that language. What was the word in the language, state scrutiny . The word was this. Promised to restore speech. The Insurance Company argued, you have not uttered a word, cant restore something that is not there. Which the judge said privately, a diabolical argument because in fact, careful parsing suggests doesnt have to be precisely to take you back to some mythical state, has to be some improvement but the 50 50 chance, a little bit better, that is the story. Is it education . Lack of patience people have, so many of us have difficulty in clear, concise writing, what is the root of this problem . Some of the magazine pieces you read or books you pick up and reads, some of them, not a lot of them, some of them it is like you are in snow shoes and a machete and it is like every sentence is driving to binghamton, takes you so long. That is one of the things i described in some detail. Just imagine perfect example of the perfect metaphor, trying to get through the sentence before you get to binghamton. This is what happens with the sentence. It begins with what i call a predatory given all the circumstances or in the seventh month of our lord and so on and so forth, then a fifth of it comes, where most people get shipwrecked, they panic because instance after instance, there are 60, 70 words, you have to carry all that mental luggage and then you have to remember what it was so in the end you are carrying it out screaming because it is completely incomprehensible so the point is the predatory clause. I have a lot of writing words in my book. Understand your mental sanity. Trying to save you from madness. Is a true . That is crazy. Simple sentence you mentioned at the beginning is hidden in there. Why is it hidden in their . You have got to write. I do this all the time. The side to write and remember something else. In the beginning, lets put that in their too. All this garbage in the pit of the story, Childrens Book licenses, very inhibiting, one or two people maybe accidentally used, terrified of grammar. If you could go ahead, the number of people who are so scared of grammar they get to the clause which what . People dont sweat about the difference between that and which, who and whom, doesnt matter. James server wrote a story about a man who was trapped in a which clause. It could go on forever. Which is a labyrinth. He thought i never will never enter a which clause again. The. I ran into that issue hearing from the chair of the English Department but after a brief while i figured out with the way that you speak. But do you think that is the way to go . I do. And then you start to describe the problem but with the email that they send is very clear because nobody honors the email with that piece of paper nobody will arrest you. So what do we do about the Language Police . It is a real issue. I knew i was creating hostages of fortune and with that subordinate clauses or maybe in a word that you cannot say that. Added in the normal sense of the word. [laughter] so im expected to get some arrested any day now so it is okay to have a word without a verb. One of the more interesting things were the anecdotes and compelling stories that was clearly told is one of the interesting things is you are recounting the number of people that you know, who have little difficulty writing and toe and unless they get a perfect the first sentence, and the first paragraph, they used to take me quite a while. But until i got the first paragraph town. And with those editorials and to be shared with a guardian but i spend the first 44. But that paragraph was not very long and i just slice of first paragraph. So i was beginning to write it this afternoon. And most striking and a rider that tormented me since she made me a better writer. So what you do that . And then to work, the drop. But you have to read this. Is your wife the one that told you about the flesh eaters . Also with english did not recognize los. [laughter] so i write to a professor we used to call a normalization. Zombie is the now that has swallowed the verb and. You can tell they are part of the same family because they have endings of the letter i know when authorize its a good word i authorize them to make me look good but when he insisted to say did you read ziv received authorization . Participation. But take my word for it. You will see all of the authorization. And to participate in this event. And immediately drained of color. Because that was in the book flesh eaters. Everyone of you by flesh eaters except with respect to a whole army the way that you say the same thing two or three times. To say that he is absolutely necessary. They dont have to be flesh eaters to nibble away if you take out those flesh eaters. Slovak recognition in that you have is what made you a great newspaper editor one of the greatest editors in the world for parts of the 20th and 21st century. So what want to rescue ask you first, when you read the newspaper and in my view the most economical supermarket that would be on page six. Do you get angry or sad or are you happy . Du have likes or dislikes . And when i see acres of land and with a crisis. But there is no undue cause. Just think about that. And it seems obvious. And the number of examples of the alltime record it is a record. So yes i go through the papers and one of these days to have sympathy and say what is he doing there . So i am haunted at night. Would anyone like to speak right now . Going back to what is absolutely necessary dont you feel the fever pitch tone is provoking to over emphasize everything to the of most . And the real temptation because the language is like currency. And that is the same with words. Okay so youre not quite sure so then it is weekend we can begin. But if you leave the word in its purity of water really means that as people having hysterics between syllables. Do you worry at all about online newspapers are journalism on line . Most of that is tremendous. But if you go toe to toe combat than every day watching incredible reporting more incredible journalism but youre with those heroic efforts that there are reporters probably younger reporters with the intensity to get the stories online make by 1 00, picklock if theyre riding suffers. And adelaide is worried about that and because of the Digital Press because most of the news is not discovered by facebook so it is the level of editing the you would bring so although it is a very interesting thing some of those things that i read online with that general level with a reputation is now more noticeable. So with a coverup political events that is phenomenal and gary keep saying that word which is phenomenal. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. [laughter] good luck with that. Somebody else has their hands up. Can you talk about the relationship with clarity of ideas . It is a nuclear it of president john has the clarity in his mind. [laughter] but in the campaign i did not like it at all especially how awful some of this stuff just purely to be a lesson for all of us and i think by a fuel and i have discussed this in the book, that there are many fossils and actually he may believe something but what he states from the fantasy is what haunts all of us because the contradiction is brother of gullivers travels in they describe a politician who cannot tell the difference or does not know what he believes so what is your answer . What is your role as the editor to edit someones words but if youre in charge of helping them shape their ideas so i dont know have you come across instances were editing actual words . Sold to write ethically want to improve that message which i despise . No. [laughter] my job is to make the message clear by knowingly knowingly tulu propagate that untruth so people on the staff for zero is challenging the newspaper is an argument on the way to the deadline you have written a column right . Many times. [laughter] so that is in dave very good answer you should write an essay about that. Part of answer to your question to address a portion of it as to what he was speaking about earlier that linkage with the written page and the emotion and i will give you an example like donald trump this occurred early january january 2016. Maybe the first week of jiri in manchester. He had a rally. It was a terrible night. Snowing. I. C. E. Storm. People unable to move their cars. He was coming down from concord new hampshire. A distance of 20 miles and he was late. The place was packed. Full house. Maybe 4,000 people. All white. They waited and waited and waited. Great music played like a rolling stones, of beethoven , turned up full volume and he finally arrives with his family and he came out to strut back and forth on the stage and people are cheering and yelling and screaming and he began to speak and the first saying he spoke about was a wall i want to build a wall and the crowd went wild. He uttered words we will do this or that and then the crowd fell a bit and he caught on immediately that bill walsh was the link between the crowd so he talked about that for two with three minutes. I usually dont hang around in the press than i wonder around. Because the al looked normal and nobody bothers me. But look at the crowd and listen to him. And you realize there were looking at this the same way they look at their Powerball Ticket friday night and he will win for them. And then come into this state on a big plane with a beautiful wife. He has made billions and will make a great deal for them because he told them and he but did they believe him but the emotion of his words. That is the example of a great column i was on pins to know where he was going with it so you dont have to worry that is just part of the device. [laughter] but thats is the point actually that picking up of that emotional echo i tell you how much i despise that and then calling people deplorable as especially cheering on a disabled person but one of the dangers in my view and to be allowed to talk that way as they are continually attacking the credibility of truth and accuracy the judges and lawyers and so on. To say that is a very dangerous thing. Said to talk about the emotional vividness. But would or will have to say . This is a good point actually, but that grey book 1984 that was good that the end of his life is in a farmhouse dying and what we have of him the last breath that he took to say you have to warn people so they can understand what is being done so that the people have the power and it is very moving as it tries to get a message so we must struggle to obtain for what they attempt to do so actually that is the end. Look that upon you to buy thank you would be moved. Who are you reading and who are your favorite writers . How long have we got . But the accounts because they know with the time. For instance as you know, it was exaggerated. But with fiction i have to say to you, i dont think if my life depended on i could write anything fiction because i dont have the imagination to put into the works of nonfiction. So i go back to shakespeare and i will give you my list but they cost me a the river in this is how fiction and gives you an image and youre not sure of the rebels will welcome your not. And i said dont know what to do but finally. [inaudible] but i like that kind of thing. I have been announced may be my favorite five books. Thank you for coming out here and go read this book. Its fun. Its wise. Do i make myself clear . We have copies for sale here and