Transcripts For CSPAN3 Politics And Public Policy Today 20150922

Leaked. And it was never written to be leaked. And at first we thought, thats just awful. It was only a few days later that we suddenly realized the power of what had just happened. Because people around the world embraced the fact that the times had the courage to do a deep z dive on itself, which we have done and to say heres what we have done right, heres what we must improve on and within a month i cant tell you how many calls i received from other Newspaper Publishers around the world asking for to come and meet with the people who had done the innovation report because it was a wonderful wakeup call. When dean became executive editor at the same time, one of his first steps was to reach to our business side and take alex and make her an executive in charge of Audience Development. As you noted, one of the great findings was that the journalists must take greater responsibility for building their audience. Welcome to the world of social media. As fewer people come to a home page and more people want to engage with our journalism on facebook and other platforms, how do we get people to engage in that way with us. And i dare you to name the last business side person to become an executive on the news side because there isnt any. So it was a bold move. We have done subsequent work to say heres what weaver doing right, heres what we need to push harder. Theres a lot of work ahead because as soon as you catch up what has been going on, the digital universe shifts. And you have to start saying, okay, its not as much about search as it used to be. Its now more about social. How do we adapt. The audience of the New York Times has risen by 25 and growing. But from where i sit, and im an editor who wants a journalism of the New York Times to have impact, i dont want to be big stories and have them go into a vacuum where nobody reads them. I think we have tools to make sure people read the stuff we have and thats terrific. When you look at the times reach globally, youre talking about 75 million users. Let me get back to the relationship between business and news side. Traditionally the times has tried to maintain that trust by scrupulously maintaining a chinese ball between news side and business side. But now they are not just two sides. There are three. News, business and technology. A recent example is the wonderful series on nail salon workers. In my day when the the times would launch a big investigative series, it would be with a splash on page one on sunday. Yet this one was launched online and on thursday, which led some sprint readers to complain why are you giving us the stale stuff on sunday. Very few print readers complained. And were in a a mode now of testing learn iing and adapting. If you dont have the courage to try new things and grow, youre going to fail. And thats just the reality of the world were in. So i applaud what dean and his colleagues did, which is to increasingly say lets put the story out when the story is ready. And theres some people who are going to read it then and other people who are going to read it later on a different in print but its not about the device. I mean print as well as you so eloquently stated some decades ago, we must platform agnostic. Go to where the people are. And increasingly that means mobile. And were doing a fun test right now at the New York Times. You want to talk about that . I will. Just to say one thing, i think theres a myth about whats remarkable to me as much as people look at journalism and newspapers so closely how ignorant we are of the history. When i ran the louisiana a. Tooims, if i had a big project thats going to run about Orange County government, they were the giant place next to l. A. That we were in the middle of a life and death competition with the Orange County register. If i had a big story that was going to run about Orange County, i would go to circulation director and i would say, please tell me which day youre going to have the most papers distributed in Orange County. And if they said to me monday, i would run it on monday. Because to me the question that i ask myself is i want a story to be read. You want it to have impact. Im still fundamentally an idealist about journalism. And the idealist says i want as many people to read it, i want investigative stories to have impa impact, you want things to change as a result of hard hitting stuff and the only way to do that is to be widely read. To make sure that everybody in the building knows just how many of our readers are on the phone. E we made it so if you type on to your laptop, it automatically takes you to the phone app. Just so you can think about it. Which side of the chinese wall does Audience Development lie on . It lies part of it lies on my side and probably a little bit lies in advertising. Can i back up one thing . The chinese wall has never been in newspapers between newsrooms and the entire business side. It was never the case. Theres always been promotion. But also the wall is existed between newsrooms and advertising. Not newsrooms and technology, not newsrooms and circulation. Thats always been the case. Talking about Audience Development, what new forms lie ahead . I would be especially interested to know if your experiments with instant articles on facebook and apples new news app. You mean what kinds of stories . I can make it a complicated question. Youre risking a lot when you give these articles away f for free. Theres a risk, but here to me is the biggest risk. I know i keep coming back to wanting to be read because thats what all journalists want. The biggest risk is to not go where your readers are. The biggest risk is to not go to places where there are millions and millions of people who want to read you. The biggest risk is to sort soft stay out of that world. Thats why we felt we had to experiment with people like facebook and apple. I think the point is as the world is evolve lg, if you dont have the courage to risk knowing sometimes your going to fail, you will fail automatically. If you just say, you know what, i dont need to you know the famous case. Im blocking on the name. You know the titanic fallacy . Its a question that says, what was the fatal flaw of the titan titanic . Some people will say it was a captain trying to set a world speed record through ice fields. Some people note they didnt have enough lifeboats. Some note they didnt build the walls actually high enough to ensure it was unsinable. The answer is none of that. Even if the titanic had safely made it to new york harbor, it was still doomed. Because a few years earlier two brothers had invented the airplane. So were in a a world where we must shift. The mode is still there, its great, we have births for all of you. But we must become an Airplane Company too. That means trying things, testing, having the courage to invest in things. And not just financially and say that works, that didnt work, next. Thats a lot of what were trying to do. To the key point, youve got to increasingly go where the audience is and the way the audience wants you. That doesnt mean our journalism is going to change, but that means our presentation may change, the way we scroll on small devices is totally different than what you have on a laptop. We have to adapt increasingly to those issues. Let me go off your airplane metaphor. There are a lot of other airplanes in the air now and they are faster and more nimble. But they are not better. With all of the times tradition of careful editing going way until late night dead lines, there are a lot of nimble startup sites including what could be called parasites. I like that. Nicely done. How do you compete . First off, whenever theres a big news story, people come the New York Times by the millions. They dont go to the other sites. They come to us because we break the stories. Secondly because we dont make mistakes. We are a human enterprise. The question is do we own them. Keep going. The New York Times is as fully edited as it was in print, but people still come to uz for news. I dont if you ask me who my biggest competitors are, largely they are the same competitors we had in the predigital era. I would add in some of the european eras. But largely the guardian, the Washington Post and the wall street journal are the News Organizations that keep me up at night now and are the ones that kept e me up at night 20 years from now. I want to go back to the thought about the misu takes. What dean is saying is really important in this sense. We have all seen speed to market being such a critical element in a digital age. More so than in our earlier print era alone. Because Everyone Wants to be first. And so all of a sudden you have competitors throwing up the photos of the boston bombers. Oops, turned out they were not the boston bombers. They were innocent kids. Or people saying the Supreme Court just ruled on the Health Care Bill and then going out with the wrong ruling. And what dean is trying to say is that we pride accuracy so much that we are prepared to be were not prepared to be first and wrong. Were prepared to be fourth and fifth and right. Thats a core value. Let me inject a a little humility into my answer. I didnt mean it to be glib. Of course, we make mistakes. So the Supreme Court issues its ruling on the obama Administrations Health Care plan. E we knew it would be a huge complicated ruling. We knew if we tried to assess it quickly in realtime we would get it wrong. We wrote a memo and put it on the website and said that. We said please indulge us. Give us time to read it. What other News Organizations did is they read the first half and if you recall from the ruling it sort of flipped in the middle. And we waited until adam said now i understand it enough to write it. My main point is that we work really, really hard not to make mistakes. I understand that the greatest currency we have is that we work hard to be accurate, edited and truthful as possible. I understand that i cant squander that. Acknowledging that, i talked to some talented tech people who said they left the times because the News Department people patronized them as Service Assistants rather than recognizing them as innovative partners. Is that fair criticism . I bet you thats a fair criticism. I bet you that there was a period im going to hope that the assessments would be different now. But i bet you people would have said for a long time in the life of the New York Times that e we didnt quite understand how much the Technology People in the news and the New York Times had to offer and say that wouldnt surprise me. Dean has made another important hire in wilson. So dean hired a new head of digital. She used to be at npr and a variety of other places. She came to the the times it seems a nanosecond ago, but what happened is after he settles himself in the newsroom as head of digital, our new ceo, mark thompson, recognized, yes, thats who we need on the business side as well. So wilson now is a joint report to dean and to our Ceo Mark Thompson with Technology Reporting to him across those. Thats a critical because what we need to do is we need to be faster and we need to be more nimble. We need to make decisions less compl complex. I dont have to have seven bosses. So that speed to market issue is a critical one. And to your point of who you spoke with, it does empower our digital teams on news and business to feel eal. You mentioned two different people. Whats the relationship and do they have revenue obligations . Alex does not have direct revenue obligations. Hopefully if you increase the size of your audience, you increase the number of subscribers. If you increase your audience, you get more advertisers. She doesnt have direct revenue obligations. Kinz si does because he oversees technology and product. Product is the part of the business side largely, though the newsroom has a window into it that tries to design stuff for the future. Product would have created the food section. But now were likely to try to create essentially products out of the journalism e we produce. He has revenue responsibilities. To the point of the creation of that section, lets not pretend when they started to rethink the paper in the 70s that there wasnt fundament need for revenue that they recognized they had to meet. They did. This is not unique. This is just transferring that to a digital era. What papers do you read in the morning . Me or him . Him, hes the editor. I read so i start out by looking at the New York Times on the phone to find out what i missed at night. Partly just to get a sense of experience. Then i read the New York Times pretty thoroughly in print. I read the journal, i read the post. Be more specific. The Washington Post. No, but then when im on the subway i read the new york post. I dont pretend i read every paper, but i spin through some other sites that have specific stuff. I look at courts for some business stuff and some media stuff. If theres a big a lot of it depends on the big story of the day is. But do you routinely look at buzzfeed or other sites . No, i look at facebook pretty regularly, which also gives me a glimpse of a whole other rem m. Do you tweet . I have tweeted once. So i dont tweet. But i post to facebook often. Do you tweet . No, i dont. I write too long to tweet 37. You remember the famous quote, i think it was from sally. You can work for the times or you can read it, but you cant do both. I sometimes feel during the course, because i go to it first on my phone. Thats how ill catch up on some of the morning reading stuff. What i have learned is i go to a lot of the pieces that are journalists suggest we go to. I want to ask another business question. Why is Digital Advertising so cheap when its produced so rel livety limit revenue compared with print, even though it reaches many more readers . Thats a great question to ask google. I u think its quite frankly for a variety of reasons. The first is the cost it much less. The cost of producing Digital Advertising is less and distributing it. Obviously, theres no paper, no trucks, no pressmen and mailers and drivers. So the cost of getting Digital Advertising is significantly less than print. So thats one reason. The second, obviously, is theres so many places to go. And what were e learning over time is how little effect some of those places really have on afelkting actual purchase iing. Its a constantly evolving process. Many advertisers recognize the value of both. That there are times you want to be in print because it does have a much greater sale possibility. People actually will focus on it and make a purchase decision. And other times if youre telling a story, digital is a remarkable tool. And one of the great creations of our head of revenue officer is the creation of it in house in a Story Telling Lab for advertisers to use. And that has been that branded content has really become a great tool for advertisers. And thats just not a little pop up ad. Were seeing people really do gravitate to that. So theres lots of new digital tool that were using and Getting Better at. That leads to the ultimate financial question. How is your pension doing . About the same as yours. Even assuming you succeed in developing a large and larger digital audience, given how cheaply people can buy Digital Advertising, can you generate the serious revenue thats necessary to pay for quality journalism . The answer is yes. The mission of the times has not changed since it was founded in 1851. And that mission has to be funded. And thats to produce the quality journalism that attracts a quality audience that we in turn sell to quality advertisers. But the value of our subscription plan, the digital subscription plan has made it such that its as much up to getting the readers to engage with us in such a way they say, yes, this subscription is worth it as it is to build that advertising base. Both are critical. But as we go back to the original numbers, the subscription value of a lifetime subscriber print or digital is one of the core thats going to give us the ability to support that journalism that dean and his colleagues are doing so e ext extraordinary well and, again, dean, congratulations on your three Pulitzer Prizes. The short answer is is paid digital subscribers. And advertising. Lets not pretend that advertising is not a critical part of the picture, it is. But its increasingly a combination of the two. And the final thought i have is as we continue to e grow and continue to grow our base of readers that advertising is going to play a deeper and deeper role. Its an evolving Digital Advertising is an evolving picture and its Getting Better. I want to ask dean a question as a some time victim. How is the public editors job working out . Its interesting. If you had i used to think when i was at the l. A. Times, we had a discussion about whether we should have a public editor. I think having a public editor is a great thing. Im surprised i feel that way. I think its a great thing for a bunch of reasons. First off, i do think it gives people even though in the digital era many people can criticize you, its not hard to get to us. It does give people a sense that the institution is listening. Even though i have no power over her, she can criticize me and often does, i think people feel theres some place to go in the institution. I think shes often right when she bets us up. I think even when shes wrong, shes reasonable and fair. Its probably not a bad idea for newspaper editors find out what its like to be on the other end of criticism and questions. So even though there are times when i would like to lock her in her office and unplug her computer, i u think in the long run its good. Im speaking largely because shes been the public editor for my time as editor of the paper. I think its a good institution. Its been helpful for the paper. Its just i support it now. Let me ask one more question and well turn to you in the audience. Arthur, critics sometimes cry nepotism about the fact that you and your son and half a dozen other family members i thought you were going to be attacking my father. Really, youre going to Say Something nasty about punch . Let me enlarge the question then. The fact is that that kind of criticism has always seemed to be really misguided. It ignores the fact that other famous journalism families like the chandlers in los angeles, the ban krofts at the wall street journal, when it gets into second or Third Generation, they get greedy or some members of the family start wanting to sell shares and the papers consequently lose the determination to put out quality product. How does the family now into a fifth generation manage to assure that the same thing doesnt happen to the New York Times. Its a very good question. Its one my family has been working on for many, many years. There was a story in the paper yesterday that noted that only the number of Family Businesses that are able to move from a Third Generation to a fourth generation, and im fourth generation, is 3 . Only 3 . Not just newspapers. No, a all Family Businesses. And were now looking at the transition to a fifth generation, of which there are six members of the fifth generation currently working at the New York Times, which is very exciting. They are working in the newsroom, they are working on the business end. And doing amazing work. So the family has a fundamental commitment. We have a wonderful trust created by our great grandfather that lays out the mission of the company and the mission of the company is to protect the quality journalism of the New York Times. The mission makes no mention of profitability. So theres eight family trustees and were responsible as trus e trustees to vote the b shares, which are simple. They elect the majority of the board of directors, thats it. We meet as a family at least twice a year. Once for a twoday meeting at the times to learn about how is the business going and to engage with your successors and their colleagues and to hear how the business is going and then we have a meeting, a Family Reunion just to remind ourselves were a family and we have great love for each other. So its something we have invested an enormous amount of time and effort in in making those connections deeper as the family grows is something we all take extremely seriously. Safe for another generation . Theres no question at all about that. Theres no question about that. Great. Lets turn to the audience. Youll ab serve there are microphones on both sides. Let me ask that you keep questions short because there are going to be a lot of people who want questions, and number two, in order to maximize the number of questions, please lets take three questions at once and then well answer them successively. My name is victor houser. Im a member of the community. I started reading the New York Times in Junior High School when they used to give us a discounted copy that i would bring home and you suckered me in. Then i started working and reading the wall street journal. I was in england for a year. I read all three every day. My impression is that every year i read that the New York Times is doing buyouts, head count is going down. I know sections have disappeared, style section, gone, metro folded into the first part. I think bridge is gone. Culture seems not as deep as it once was. The journal since its no longer family owned seems to be growing. They have added a new york section. They have added a section my wife likes to read when i come home from work. The names i used to read in the times are going over there. Who why the difference . Were holding off for three questions. Jack mckenzie, i used to work for some of you. I thought i would hear in the course of this discussion some kind of emotional commitment to the print paper other than the kind of business this and that. I desperately want to keep the printed paper. Now id like to be assured that the digital paper on the screen at home will look like it does now like a newspaper on the web so that the model is the paper. The paper that we started with. Id like to know why the New York Times signed an agreement with a right winger to promote his book and id like to know why amy chosack, another rightwinger, covers hillary clinton. I thought the New York Times is supposed to be fair and balanced. Actually, thats fox news. But we get the question. Can i start with that one . Thats not accurate. Amy is not a rightwinger. She was a reporter who covered media. She worked for the wall street journal. I detect a a rightwing bias in her reporting. I would disagree with you, with all due respect. She was a reporter for the wall street journal and reporter for the New York Times. We did not sign an agreement. Thats been mischaracterized. We took information from him, as we take information from many others from a crock pot like him . We take information from all kinds of crack pots. Thats called reporting. When i spent my time as an negligentive reporter, you take information, check it, use it and use whats accurate. But i really, really think thats an inaccurate portrayal. The first is there are a lot of excellent journalists at the wall street journal. I dont agree with their editorial page, but the journal is a a good Journalistic Institution. I had lunch today a meeting actually with about a dozen of our new hires. Three of whom were from the journal originally. Had come to us. So maybe three. We lose people sometimes. They go to bloomberg or the journal or elsewhere, but remember this is a circle. We get people also from the journal as well as others. But the quality of the journalism and their integrity is the critical part of their being hired. Can i say that we have made to the first question, well get to print in a second. We have made a lot of adaptations to the times in the last 15 years. And we have been forced to. Sometimes its been cuts because of the financial pressures were under as we adapt to a new era. But we have more foreign journalists today than ever in our history. We are investing in our journalism to have their cuts in the newsroom. But by the way, have we been hiring back, yes. We have the same number of journalists today as we had ten years ago. We have more National Correspondents than ever in our history. So we have created new sections. How many bureaus . 40, 18 national. 22 national bureaus. So as a time when our competitors like the Washington Post, which i love and the l. A. Times have cut back on their foreign and national having people there, we have been investing in that. We have created new sections. We have created teen magazine was a a famous section. We did a mens fashion. So we are finding ways, but it is a bit of a change and change can sometimes be tough. But im not going to say anything critical of the News Coverage of the journal, those are good, worthy competitors. But i think youll find, to be honest, they have also had to cut. I think youll find they have also had to close sections. This is a really difficult time in the life of newspapers. And i think the core of what we try to do is to hold on to the stuff that defines us and the stuff that i suspect most people in this room care most about and that stuff we havent cut at all. But i think every News Organization has had to rethink how it does business a little bit. But what we protect mightily is the core of the coverage of the New York Times. Now if we can go to the print. There are many people who adore print and it is our responsibility to keep print going for as long as we can. Were not thinking that print is going to be going away any time soon, so please dont walk away thinking that. But obviously, the degree to which people subscribe to print and get Home Delivery really matters. So if you people want to keep print alive, get more of your friends and family to subscribe. Home delivery, thank you so much. I thought you were going to say the number. Maam . My name is alice. Im former department of state foreign service. I live in harlem. Im a home subscriber. And for awhile i was really writing letters to you all that would be answered about please get to the five ws in the first paragraph please. The five ws are the who, what, where, when, why. So now i just want to say two accommodations. One is thank you for the nice stories on my law enforcement, the nypd. And second of all, thanks for giving me more stories in the travel section on america, thank you. Thank you. Thats very sweet. Maam . During fleet week i had a conversation with a press representative from the marine corps who had traveled through the middle east with secretary gates and he was very candid in saying that the military has and will ask National Press to hold stories because of the sensitivity of the u. S. Relations with arab countries. I wondered what kind of criteria the times would apply holding a story . And how high up in the organization does the decision go . Very good question. Can i take that one . My name is john wallace. None of the questions so far have really addressed except the last one the future of journalism at the New York Times. I wondered what your thoughts about that are. Is the constitution of news going to be different ten years from now and what role do you see the times playing in that new constitution . Thats a good question. Can i take that one and then maybe that one. The way it works is any time anybody from the government wants to ask that a story be held or that anything be taken out of a story, it has to come directly to me. There are some obvious cases in which all News Organizations dont publish things, and im wondering if thats what your friend was talking about. Thats the basic stuff like if youre embedded with a military group because youre covering the war and they are about to do a land invasion on tuesday at 6 00 p. M. , nobody is going to put in the newspaper land invasion expected in three hours. Thats been in basic journalism for as long as reporters have covered war. I think what youre talking about is when somebody wants to ask about national skurlt, it always has to come to e me. I would say 95 of the time i say no. I can think of a couple times when i have said yes. In fact, i can think of a couple at least one time i said yes and came to regret it because it was a mistake because i think i didnt consult enough reporters and just didnt. Theres a very tiny, tiny number of instances in which it is very, very clear that it would jeopardize a life. Thats pretty much my criteria. I dont buy the argument that its going to jeopardize relationships with a foreign government. In every instance when thats become the reason, i always say no. And the times i have said yes, which would have been years ago, i have come to regret them. So my rule is you really got to make the case that it would put somebodys life in danger. There are very small numb of cases in which i have said yes as a result. I always insist they come directly to me. I think theres a mythology that somehow the government comes in and wields its muscle with us. These are really difficult decisions. Would you like to tell stories about being summoned to the white house . No, although it has happened. Most obviously with president bush. And this was the case of the internal wiretapping. We held off on that story for a awhile for i think good reason, but over time we saw that the reasons they had given us to hold back on the stories, those reasons seemed to have less and less value and as we got to the point. Where we were ready to finally go with the story thats when the president called and we had a good discussion and we ran the story. But that happens on occasion. Its happened occasion that we have held off on stories. The famous jack kennedy discussion with the publisher in 19 1961. We knew the bay of pigs was being planned and the president asked us not to print the story. And in fact, to be fair, we printed the fact that we were tra training. There was a a training process going on but we didnt say were going to be invading the bay of pigs. We all know it was a terrible failure and he yelled at the then publisher afterwards. If only you printed that story, you would have save d me from this. Can i ask a question . Thats an important thing. I want to give a specific example because this is one of those questions that is really important. Especially in the post 9 11 era. I think theres a mythology that big News Organizations sit on stories all the time. Let me give you an example. I think its important to understand the context. So i led our wi wikileaks coverage. And the agreement we had is that the New York Times would take the lead in going to the government to show him stuff we thought was sensitive so the government could make their case u if there was a case to be made that someone could get killed. There was one particular cable that i thought was one of the most remarkable. It was a cable that describe d gds visit to the United States. It was this it detailed portrait of what his requirements would be in his hotel. He wanted a tent on the ground. But it was really richly detailed who he traveled with. He traveled with three female nurses. How he was in such bad physical shape that please dont give him a hotel room with stairs because he would get out of breath. Really richly detailed. We were about to put that whole cable in the New York Times. The guardian was going to use it. Julian assange was going to use it. Then the government called up and said, okay, take a look closely at that cable. Do you see the names at the bo that describes the various people who were accompanying gadhafi on this it trip . Who do you think gave us all that information . And what do you think is going to happen to them when gadhafi sees that cable in the New York Times with a description of how hes in horrible shape, is a little bit of a nut job. Whats going to happen to those people . Not only did i agree to hold that cable back until later when gadhafi died, Julian Assange agreed to hold it back. Thats the kind of stuff that you wrestle with. To the future of journalism question, i think, honestly, that journalism will look profoundly better ten years from now than it looks today. If you look at the coverage ill use ours because its what im intimate with. If you look at the coverage of e bow la and what it looked in a , it would have been fine. It would have been fabulous you. Would have had great newport stories. You would have great photography, great journalist, all this stuff. But you wouldnt have had the videos on the New York Times website that described, for instance, one young man writhing outside of a hospital with his parents screaming because there wasnt room for him in the hospital. You wouldnt have had the video in the New York Times website produced by us in which an ambulance driver drove through the streets of monrovia looking for ebola victims whose families didnt want to touch him so he could pile them in the back of his truck and try to find a hospital that would take them. Journalism lets put over here the debate over print versus digital. Journalism is better today than it ever was because there are many more tools. I mean, i grew up in new orleans. I grew up reading afternoon newspapers. And only had access to one newspaper. The same kid who grows up in new orleans in a working class family now has access to as many newspapers as he can push a button for. He has access to video, and he has access to the whole world. We shouldnt get so caught up in the debates over the form. And we shouldnt get so caught up in some of the romantic aspects of journalism, which believe me, i grew up in, to forget its better, and its going to be better ten years from now too. [ applause ] dean, let me add a ps to that. Could you talk about the influence on future journalism of iphone cameras. You mean of the fact that reporters can take their own pictures now . Anybody can. Anybody can. Boy. Just think. If i can keep im sort of to be frank about the passionate about the future of journalism. I mean, my god, we are now seeing an upheaval in the way Police Departments are covered. I mean were seeing cases that we would never have seen. Right. Just for those who are interested in history, just imagine if iphone cameras had existed during the Civil Rights Movement. Just imagine what we would have seen, how that would have changed the course of history. This stuff is better for us. It may be hard. It may give me a headache. It gave give us all headaches about how were going to finance it. But this stuff is better for the country, and its better for society. So say a word more about the times and video. I think we turned a corn their year on video. And i think a guy name bruce headlum pulled it off. When video was first introduced into the newsroom, if you go back to the video, its almost like waynes world. Do people know what waynes world is . It was heartbreaking bad. Not because of the videographers, its because we didnt know what to do with it. We thought we put two not particularly attractive reporters or editors, that would include myself in that to sit at a table and just sort of talk for a little bit, clumsily as they looked at their watches. If one of those was david carr, it did work very well. Thats true. Thats true. I was speak of myself. I think we produced the video for ebola, youre allowed to submit ten things for a pulitzer. At least two, possibly three of the stories we submitted were videos. So i think the New York Times has cracked the code of journalism and video. Not just us, by the way. I think the journal and others do a great job as well. But its enhanced us and made us better. And if i can quickly note, our editorial side has also done extraordinarily well with video. And opdox is remarkable andor elements that are also fabulous. The retro report, the one that went up today on transgender and the history of that. There is a really insightful pieces that really engage an audience. And advertisers also love that experience. So thats good for us. Next question . Good evening. My name is leticia butler. Im a student at columbia university. And going back to nail salon story, that story was available in more languages than english. And while that was to target most likely the audience actually affected by the subject matter, i want to know to what extent multilingualism might become a part of the future of the New York Times or the international New York Times. This is for arthur. This is gabe sherman. Im a writer at new york magazine. Okay. Ive heard a rumor about you. Yes. What role do you hope your son will play at the New York Times in the future . And how is succession different this time around than when your father punch was running the paper and you were rising. Thank you. Okay. Now were looking for a third question and maybe even a fourth. Hi, im paul. First of all, thank all three of you for your work over your careers. Its a great part of my life. So thank you for the New York Times. And my question is you talked about building an audience. And as you start to have your journalists become sort of social media brands, is there any risk of diluting the brand of the New York Times, particularly when they go wrestle and they take their audience with them. Okay. So three good questions. I was teasing about the fourth for the moment. Multilingual. Multilingual. We translated that particular story if im not mistaken into four languages. Right. And korean did extraordinarily well. I mean, it was just remarkable. And weve also do a lot of translating into other specific stories. But youre going to see more and more of that. We also have a chinese language website that has been up for a number of years that has been blocked by the Chinese Government ever since we did this amazing story that won a Pulitzer Prize about the wealth and the corruption of the wealth of chinese leaders families. But, you know, this is a great opportunity for us. Obviously, were already a global News Organization. Not only in digitally, but in print with the international New York Times. Formally the International Herald tribune as part of our offerings. But global is the next great step for us. And its one that we have news and business colleagues working very diligently on to find the right way to make things happen. So that would be that question i think. And add one thing to that question. Because i can detect this is an audience that cares deeply about the Public Service mission of journalism and not just the as well as the economic mission. Part of the reason your translate a story like the nail story into other languages is to me it would be heartbreaking to do a major investigative piece about people who you think were being abused and it wasnt available to them. So for my money, translating it wasnt just an Audience Growth effort. It was a my god, if we can figure out a way so that the people who are most impacted by the series can read it too, i feel like my obligation is to make that happen. Thats great. [ applause ] so to gabes question, our problem is to members of the family who want to come and work at the New York Times and have the skill set necessary to be part of it is to give them careers. And its not to give them any specific job, but to give them careers. And also, weve created a process, a very well thought through process to begin thinking about how do we build a successful career for individual family members. In such a way that when the time comes to have for me to announce a successor, which by the way is not tonight. So put down your pens, that weve got a process that involves our board of directors. Because obviously they have a stake in this. The family. Because obviously they have a stake in it, the trustees, who represent the family in a context like this. And management. Because they have a stake in this. And weve created part of our process to do just that and to begin to help build careers and then guide those who wish to take a more senior position into that process and n a more thoughtful way. And the very core of it is process. And thats what perhaps was most missing in the previous generational shift was a clearly defined, understood, laid out process that all of the members of the fifth generation understand and get and work on. And then there was the third question. Third question. Which i didnt register. Did you, dean . Social media branding oh, thats right. The journalist as brand. Right. Tell me if i got this right. By putting our journalism on facebook and other third parties do, we risk diluting the brand . Was that the question. No, the journalist as social media brand. And i totally get the question. And i remember david carr once speaking to a number of us about that very subject. Do we risk building the brand of the journalist out separate from the New York Times brand so that she or he has and the answer is yeah. And by the way, did we was there a brand called Scotty Reston . Was there a brand called bill safire . So what are the you know, weve had great journalists who then left and made successful even greater careers. Gabe tallese. Again, you cant let fear get in the way of moving forward. And yes, we do have journalistic brands like david carr, god bless that wonderful man, who saw that they were bigger than the times but decide to stay because they were devoted to the mission. Do we lose journalists . Of course. Thats been the case for a long time. Well, it also works both way. When a tom freedman writes a bestselling book, it lends to columns on the editorial page. Or david brooks. First number one on the bestseller list. Same for paul krugman. Paul. Same even more for nick kristof and his wife. Nick and cheryl, amazing. Sir . I think my name is blake fleetwood, and i blog at the huffington post. I think we know the times is the greatest paper that ever existed. I still applaud a lot of your series. I am particularly fond of the justice series in the bronx that your son edited. He did. That was a fabulous series there. But is that your audience is . And do you always want to go where the audience is . Sometimes you have to lead the audience to where they dont want to go, to the bronx. And im a little nervous about the emphasis on the video. Is the times becoming another form of television . And is that a danger . And where has Television Led us . All right. So there are a number of questions there. We can pick up. You want to move to the other . Hi. Im an alumni of hunter college. You talked about the use of canology as a presentation tool. My question is what is your vision of how to leverage canology adds an investigative tool using data science and that sort of thing. Sure. Ill take the so first of all, thank you for that kind comment. By the way, i dont know why you feel that people dont want to naturally go to the bronx. Im sorry you have that biased. I sort of like the bronx myself. Look. There doesnt matter how many people are going to come to any story we write about the war in afghanistan or the situation in iraq. Are we going to cover that . Yes. Because thats our commitment. And we will not be driven to say well, no, well nobody really cares anymore about that. Thats not the way its going go. So there is a commitment we have to the core journalism that is fundamental. And investigative series, some of them do spectacularly, and quite frankly, some of them dont do quite as well, but theyre Still Critical to meeting our mission of quality journalism. So that is a commitment that is fundamental to our core purpose and to our brand identity. And if we lose that, sir, then we will lose our reason for being. We will lose the audience that values the times, and thats the end of our ability to translate our financial future. So there is a correlation there that is critical. Does it mean we also need to have great restaurant review, that we have to have great fashion coverage . Of course. All of those things are also true. But, you know, how many people read the Rikers Island series that we did . I cant tell you the answer to that, and i dont care. Because that was fundamental. May i turn this over to you . Yeah. I think i would say if you look at lets say the last 15 investigative projects the New York Times did, which would include rikers, which would include the piece we did about three weeks ago about 3 4 house, which would include the nail salon series, this past weekends story about the death of eric garner, i do think you said something important, that one of our jobs is to sort of show people the world that they might not otherwise have seen. And i think thats actually fits perfectly into the mission. What i would say to the question about the commitments that use technology and news gathering, i dont know how many of you followed the upshot. The upshot, which i think will go down, i did not create it. So i can say janet elder, who is one of the creators of the upshot is in the audience there. The upshot is largely a Journalistic Institution i would call it that is built on data journalism. I mean, David Leonhart runs it. Davids goal is to look at a way to use data to jump on the biggest stories of the day. How big a staff does he have . 17 people. Wow. He thinks thats not large enough. Would you say so david can see it . And its a mix of graphics people, writers, editor, people that are good with data. And their goal is to come in every day looking for ways to use data to tell stories. And boy are they good at it. Relate that to 538. 538 was its predecessor. 538 which largely flourished during the campaign, which was sort of a part of the New York Times i cant remember the name of the guy who ran it. Im kidding. Anyway, its goal was to sort of dish. Silver. Nate silver . Silver, gold, somewhere in there. Shelby silver. There we go. Thats right. Anyway, it he left, and he took 538 with him. So David Leonhart, the upshot was designed as its predecessor. But i think it added something to the mix. It doesnt just do politics. Its done great stuff like a portrait of middle class america and how people regard themselves as middle class in different parts of the country. Its used data for a whole range of reporting. Gentlemen, thank you so much for coming. Thank you. [ applause ] perfect timing. I lost my microphone. All campaign long, cspan takes you on the road to the white house. Unfiltered access to the candidates at town hall meetings. Always, every Campaign Event we cover is available on our website at cspan. Org. All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give their attention. Number 759, earnest miranda versus arizona. Roe against wade. Marbury versus madison is probably the most famous case this court ever decided. Dredd and harriet existed as slave people here on land where slavery wasnt legally recognized. Putting the brown decision into effect would take president ial orders. In the presence of federal troops and marshals and the courage of children. We wanted to pick cases that changed the direction and import of the court in society, and that also changed society. So she told them that they would have to have a search warrant. And mrs. Mapp demanded to see the paper and read it, see what it was, which they refused to do. So she grabbed it out of his hand to look at it, against thereafter the Police Officer handcuffed her. I cant imagine a better way to bring the constitution to life than by telling the human stories behind great Supreme Court cases. Fred korematsu boldly opposed the forced internment of japanese americans during world war ii. After being convicted for failing to report for relocation, mr. Korematsu took his case all the way to the Supreme Court. Quite often in many of our most famous decisions are ones that the court took were quite unpopular. If you had to pick one freedom that was the most essential to the functioning of democracy, it has to be freedom of speech. Lets go through a few cases that illustrate very dramatically and visually what it means to live in a society of 310 million different people who help stick together because they believe in a rule of law. Landmark cases. An exploration of 12 historic Supreme Court decisions and the human stories behind them. A new series on cspan produced in cooperation with the National Constitution center, debuting monday, october 5th at 9 00 p. M. And as a companion, landmark cases the book. It features the 12 cases we selected with introduction to the background, highlights and impact of each case. Written by tony mauro, published by cspan. Landmark cases is available for. 95 plus shipping and handling. Get your copy at cspan. Org landmarkcases. Pope francis landed at joint base andrews in maryland today to begin his u. S. Visit. The pope was greeted by the president and mrs. Obama along with their daughters sasha and a mallia. Well have more coverage of the popes trip tonight on cspan at 8 00 eastern. On this Mornings National journal we spoke to pennsylvania congressman Brendan Boyle about the popes visit and his address to congress thursday. Our first guest of the morning is representative Brendan Boyle hes a democratic from pennsylvania serves the 13th district and a member of the middle east and north africa subcommittee. Welcome to cspan. Thank you. Its great after all the years of watching its great to be here in person. Talk a little about the popes visit today. What are you looking forward to most from this visit . Now that its finally here its a very exciting time. I represent philadelphia and suburban philadelphia. So sort of getting a double dose of the pope francis excitement and hysteria. I would say that especially in philadelphia which will be the epicenter of the visit, its actually the official reason why hes coming here the world meeting of families and then, of course, the speech to congress and the speech to the u. N. Has all been added as part of it. More than anything else i would say the enormous excitement that it has brought and sort of reignited a spiritual awakening in a lot of people. People who arent necessarily catholic. Also its no secret i can say as someone who was born and raised and a practicing catholic, the last decade or so between the abuse scandals and a number of other things have not exactly been the greatest time in the history of the church so to see this new pope come in, to see the excitement with it to see the fact that he authentically practices what he preaches, to see what a humble man he is, and to have him here in the United States is very exciting. I think there are a lot of people who feel that way regardless of their religion. What do you think about the critics that say the pope should address issues of faith and morals and not necessarily economics or Climate Change or other topics hes expected to talk about . Yeah, you know, i actually would challenge that whole dichotomy the way you presented those. And its pretty common. In my entire lifetime, 38 years, weve had this prism in the United States where we say oh, there are the moral issues and then there are the economic issues. This pope says, no, actually all issues have a moral prism through which you can look at them. I consider when you have gross inequality and you have a significant number of people working and actually still living in poverty that is a moral issue. Thats not just an economic issue. So i think hes going to address all of these. Hes neither a democrat nor a republican. He will say some things that will make republicans uncomfortable. Hell say some things that will make democrats uncomfortable. I think that we should all be cleareyed and openminded and open hearted to his message. It doesnt mean people are necessarily going agree 100 . But i think its good to have him here. Its good to see anything that links democratic members of congress and republican members of congress is a good thing. And when you have so much partisanship especially right now close to the government, a potential Government Shutdown, its nice to have a reason to bring members of congress together. Thats always a good thing. Brendan boyle our guest representative from philadelphia if you want to ask questions about the popes visit or other topics facing congress. 2027482002 for independents. He serves the areas of philadelphia, norristown and lansdown, this is your first year in congress . It is, yeah. What has it been like so far as the experience goes . I have to be careful how i answer that question, because a lot of people will say is it really as bad as it seems. I was a state legislator for six years before coming here and in many ways that was a great preparation serving in congress. Its two different jobs that happen to be combined in one. There is the job thats here in washington where youre serving the capitol and dealing with Public Policy and the budget and legislation. And then when youre back home in the district, its a very different job. Its dealing largely with consistent service. And dealing with local development issue, pretty much anything that comes down the pike that affects 705,000 people, people coming into your office with that issue its now your issue. So thats sort of duality of the position is something that im familiar with having been a state legislator and is pretty im pretty acclimated to. As far as the climate in washington, ive served in the private sector, in state government, now federal government. I worked onsite at the defense department. There are good people and bad people in every profession. And the overwhelming majority of people i work with are good, decent people attempting to do it right, and that says it for both democrats and republicans. Thats probably a message that does not get out. So the issue that faces you directly is this idea of whether the government will shut down. Where do we stand now . Where do you stand as far as the issues when it comes to spending caps and things, what do you want to see happen . First theres actually no economic argument in favor of a Government Shutdown. It is a complete loser for all sides and for all americans. Actually for those who thinks it saves money, it costs more money to do a shutdown than to just have the government running. So, there is absolutely no argument for a Government Shutdown. It is insane that it happened two years ago. And the fact that Speaker Boehner and the Republican Senate leader Mitch Mcconnell might be held hostage by a relatively small minority of their caucuses would be wrong and really would be not in the interests of the american people. As far as what the overall solution is, i would like to see spending caps lifted. I would like to see a bipartisan compromise where you finally address some of the longterm fiscal challenges we have while at the same time loosening the caps, meaning you can spend more specifically on our nations infrastructure. That is something that i care deeply about. Sitting in the middle of the northeast corridor in one of the oldest states in the country in pennsylvania our infrastructure needs are dire. Not just pennsylvania, but nationwide. We have been dramatically underfunding infrastructure in this country for 30, 40 years. One of the things that led us to lead the world caused us to lead the world 100 years ago was our infrastructure. Right now were not even rated in the top 20 by World Council of engineers. Thats wrong. We need to change that. So spending more on infrastructure. Yes, making sure that we have our defense needs adequately addressed, while at the same time ensuring that were taking steps today to avoid trouble 30, 40, 50 years down the line. Here is judy from danville, virginia, the first call for our guest. Judy, youre on with representative Brendan Boyle. Go ahead. Caller thank you, sir, and thank you, representative boyle. I would just like you guys and everyone else to know that the Catholic Church devised an Economic System in the 19th century that sounded very much like socialism. Nobody would be more than ten times wealthier than the poorest person. To close most of the factories because repetitive work, to bring back the Employment Guild in the middle ages, to cut most people off from higher education, particularly women. And to give each man a raise upon the birth of each child, and the ideal catholic family would be unlimited. It would be 10 to 14 children. And for parents to educate their children rather than any type of school system, which would tell me if your parents were functionally illiterate, so would you be. So, this is not surprising. But the real thing i would like to comment on is that most catholics have one foot in each camp. Because the basic catholic position is to be for life, against abortion. Against the death penalty. Yet support the poverty community. So many catholics go through great guilt if they ever vote for a democrat. You know, theyre about a juried if they vote for a prolife candidate. I would like to know, representative boyles thought on this. Ill get off the phone and listen. All right. Thank you. First of all, the historical points in the beginning were interesting obviously, in the modern context no one is talking about moving in that direction. As far as her larger point, though, at the end, it is accurate to say that Neither Political Party in the United States fully agrees with catholic social teaching. I think on the majority of issues, the vast majority of values issues, the Democratic Party better aligns than the Republican Party. However on a few pretty obvious issues the Republican Party embraces the catholic argument and there have been i think that the last 20, 30 years conservative politicians have taken great advantage of that and then kind of been silent about all the other vast majority of social justice issues where their philosophy and economic philosophy doesnt line up with catholic teaching. There is nothing in common between ayn rand and the catholic social justice matters. To be fair even though im a democrat i would concede certainly when it comes to catholic social teaching Neither Political Party is fully consistent with it. So, say, issues she brought up abortion, where does your social or your belief or at least your belief system align you with . Where do you stand on the issue of abortion as a politician . I will tell you flat out i dont believe as a moral matter that you should use abortion as a form just another form of Birth Control. Where the Prolife Movement loses me, however, is the idea that you would suddenly make abortion illegal actually wouldnt reduce the number of abortions and it would increase the number of women who suffer health difficulties. And thats not my opinion. That is the world experience. Whats interesting is if you look at all the countries around the world, a slight majority of them make abortion illegal. The rest make abortion legal. Roughly half the worlds population lives in countries where abortion is legal and roughly half the worlds population lives in countries where its illegal. When you examine the statistics you see the abortion rate isnt any different in the countries where abortion is illegal, they still happen, they just happen underground. What you do see is the mortality rate among women far greater in countries where abortion is illegal. I should point out that of the top five countries in the world with the lowest abortion rates four of the five such as germany and the netherlands are countries where abortion is legal. However, you also have a robust system to help throughout pregnancy, to help once a child is born so that way if the woman were to choose to keep her baby and to keep the pregnancy, she would have the ability to do so. So those who are genuinely and sincerely prolife i wish would join with me and actually seeing universal health care and actually seeing sort of robust financial programs and Community Programs that actually could help us practice what we preach. Chuck is a democrat from philadelphia, pennsylvania. You are next for our guest. Hello. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. Congressman boyle, just a quick question. Are you concerned that the papal visit will be made too political by some of your colleagues on both sides of the aisle . And thats it. Thank you. Its a very good point. I mean, pope francis is not a politician. He is a world leader. He is the head of the Catholic Church and the spiritual leader over one billion catholics worldwide. But it is interesting the way many in politics attempt to force on him their specific political point of view. And i hope that we dont just treat this as another sort of political football that donald trump is the story last week and then pope francis will be the story this week. And then next week its on to the Government Shutdown that in many ways would diminish the power of the popes message and what a special time this is specifically for american catholics. My dad remembers when i was 2 years old i unfortunately dont have a memory of it, but remember when the first pope to come to the United States, Pope John Paul ii came to philadelphia as part of his american visit. And then were experiencing it again here. Its a very exciting time. And that should really be the focus more so than politics. Will you attend events in philadelphia as well . I will. We jokingly call this pope week because im attending events here. Honored to be part of the white house ceremony tomorrow. The official welcoming ceremony for pope francis. The very next day he will speak in front of congress and ill be on the house floor for that speech. And then saturday and sunday ill be attending a number of the papal events as well, papal mass as well as his what i think will be historic speech in Independence Hall where he will speak i think on a number of these issues that weve been talking about already. 2027488802 for independents. Here is reed. Caller good morning. Id like to say good morning to representative boyle and ask him a question. Good morning. Caller good morning. What id like to ask what about us in society that believe in something, were agnostic. We believe in a god but i personally dont try to subscribe to any organized religion. Im not going to digress into my theological perspective. But what im saying is that i really as an agnostic person dont want to see any religion, religious leader, even greeted by an american politician or the president. Im not going to pick on christianity per se, but the one thing that turns me away is that in the book, in the manual it said god made man into his own image. Lets all hope human beings that god doesnt have eye teeth, a tailbone, claws at the ends of its fingers and rips flesh into its mouth to survive. For these reasons im agnostic. I believe but i dont worship, okay . But i would like to say from a partisan perspective, why the democrats would boo in their convention, remembering last election when the mention of god, but yet because this pope believes in their agenda of Global Warming and anticapitalism, they embrace him. Thats a question to your guest. Thank you, cspan. Yeah, just as a point of fact i was a delegate at the last Democratic Convention. At no time did anyone at the Democratic Convention boo when god was mentioned. In fact, we had the invocation. And at the end, the closing prayer was by Cardinal Dolan who did the benediction of both the republican and Democratic Conventions which i think was the appropriate thing for him to do. It showed a certain bipartisanship and equal handedness. So, just factually that isnt correct. As far as people who have other faiths or no faith at all, im mindful of the fact that 75 of our country is not catholic. Certainly no ones attempting to force upon others their specific point of view. In fact, one of the things that has been very little talked about as part of pope francis coming to the u. S. And being the first pope, the first pontiff, to speak in front of congress, just how historic this is for most of american history, the idea of a pope speaking in front of congress would have been a, not welcome, and b, caused a riot. There was such anticatholicism in the United States for most of our countrys history that if anything his coming here is a celebration of just how far we have come as a country. I would just point out i was looking at the Washington Monument on my way over here. That plays that tells a story of anticatholicism in the u. S. , the vatican had donated a stone as many countries did to the building of the Washington Monument. The knownothings, the as they were nicknamed at that time, the anticatholics of their day, broke into the Washington Monument, stole the stone, crashed it and dumped it in the Potomac River because they didnt want anything catholic to be touching the Washington Monument. Imagine what they would think today as americans of all different faiths are welcoming pope francis or no faith at all. So, i also i think its appropriate for any american leader to meet another faith leader whether that be the pope, whether that be a chief rabbi, whether that be certainly billy graham was someone who had a great deal of moral leadership in the United States for half a century. The dalai lama, the arch bishop of canterbury, i think its completely appropriate for our leaders to meet with these faith leaders, as long as theyre being equal about it. What about paul zosar saying he is going to skip the speech because of Climate Change . I dont know him, but i think its disappointing. And no one should boycott the speech and i think as americans and members of congress we should all be there. And b, i would say that all of us who are catholics it would be a good idea to not snub the pope. Regardless of who the pope is i will not boycott a speech. I i would rather choose afterlife insurance and not boycott the pope of my church. Here is teresa, gulf breeze, florida, republican line. Caller hi, thank you for taking my call. I just want to say it is an honor that the popes coming to visit us. And i think its really nice that hes going to also come to the white house and talk about the earth and how we as citizens and as religious people who value our environment should be open to ways that we can protect ourselves and others. And i just think, you know, im a republican. My father was a physical oceanographer. I understand that theres a lot of controversies about Global Warming or Climate Change or whatever theyre calling it now. You know, its changed over the years. But i think we need to be open to ideas where capitalism is responsible to the environment and to people. Its real basic. I think people are overreacting and the man has a, you know, hes an intelligent human being and i think he might have some ideas on how we could do this more responsibly. Well, thank you, for the caller. I think whats and the question. Whats very interesting about what she said is she mentioned that shes a republican. One of the exciting things that has been going on recently is the rise of republicans interested in defending the environment and taking action. You see that specifically among the evangelical community and coming at it from a spiritual perspective. You see that also among some in the Catholic Community as well as someone who sincerely believes that this is gods creation, i also believe we have a responsibility to take care of it and to pass it on to future generations. At the same time i believe in capitalism. And theres no contradiction between the two. We can in a way consistent with capitalism ensure that we are doing far better on the environment. We are the World Leaders in innovation. The idea that were going to create this false dichotomy between, well, we either take care of the environment and tank our economy or we deny the science of global Climate Change and we have a strong economy. That is a false dichotomy. We can have both. We are leaders in innovation. We can do the right thing and also still do well by doing good. Do the rules of Climate Change and the rules put on companies, whether it be coal companies, they affect capitalism in the long term and is there a struggle between those kind of ideas, you know, that you can put rules to affect Climate Change but it will affect capitalism in the long run . Yeah, although i would disagree with one sense that if youre talking about, say, caps, for example, carbon caps, that actually is an attempt to have a Market Solution to this problem. The idea that those companies and there are those that are acting responsibly and are polluting far less below an appropriate quota, the idea theyd be able to turn around and sell that on a market and profit, it helps it uses a market in a sense to spur innovation and grow and reward those companies that are doing the right thing in terms of the environment. This is a problem that affects us all. Affects all of us on the planet. Not just americans, were 5 of the worlds population. This might be in some ways awkward for us as the worlds economic leader, but we do need to insist to all the nations of the world that they do their part. China is one of the biggest polluters in the world. Now they might turn around and say well, you had 150 years to jumpstart your economy. Its only fair that we pollute for 150 years to catch up. We cant stand for that. Frankly, if we knew in the 1840s what we knew today, i suspect we would have made steps proactively to avoid the situation that were in now. So we have to make sure that the entire world does its part. But if were not doing our part, well end up not being able to exercise that leadership. Do you think the president will press issues with Climate Change with the chinese president s visit this week . I hope so. Ill be at the white house friday when the chinese president comes. If you look at the environmental degradation in their own country, its remarkable. The number of days where the air is so bad that it affects peoples breathing. This is a problem that were actually talking today. Thats the case in china. Thats the case also to a lesser degree in the United States. I mean we have places in south beach in miami that are flooding now even when there is no rain just because its high tide. The same thing were seeing around Virginia Beach and southeastern virginia. So the fact that we have had Climate Change, the fact that the seas are rising do affect lowlying areas. This isnt fantasy or hysteria. Its dealing with reality. Attempting to come up with pragmatic decisions to solve it. Our guest is representative Brendan Boyle of pennsylvania, a democrat joining us to talk about the popes preparations across the capital area. Cspan cameras are there as crewmen are setting up for the events that will take place over the next few days. As you watch, that well take our next call. Jim from signal mountain, tennessee, hello. Caller hello, and erin go bragh and god bless america. I hope the pope will use his moral leadership to address abortion. Hello . Yes. We can hear you. Caller yeah, okay. Because i think, you know, this act that there are an awful lot of baby children that are being killed in this country, and the church believes that too, i believe. I hope hell somehow use his leadership to try and reduce those numbers. Also, on Climate Change, it is definite. I mean care of the environment is certainly a spiritual concern, but the last people in the world that should be doing anything about it is the United States congress. I think you know what most peoples opinion is of congress, and its for good reason. Most of the things they do backfire. And when the government does anything, its backed up by force. And that has usually some unintended consequences. One of the things, for example, that the congress did was ethanol. And i dont think its done anything but cause problems to the environment. That was supposed to be one of congresss moves to improve the environment. So i really think that the best thing you could do virtually is keep your hands off. Thanks, caller. Well, thank you. And i appreciate the caller from tennessee. He does point out congress is not exactly the most popular body in the world today. I think the Approval Rating is somewhere in the low teens. Ive only been here for eight or nine months, so dont quite put all of that on my shoulders quite yet. Despite the unpopularity of congress, though, i sincerely and passionately believe there are things that government can do proactively to make positive change. And i would point out too specifically on the environment. 1970, the Clean Air Act and the clean water act. We are a far healthier Society Today just because of those two pieces of legislation that happened 45 years ago. There is absolutely no doubt about it. The Delaware River in philadelphia, the Potomac River here, these are rivers that had become so dirty and so polluted 50 years ago that some of them actually caught on fire. Now today theyre at a healthier point than they were in decades, actually a century. So when you look at the fact that we have reduced the amount weve reduced the amount of pollution, we do have cleaner air, these are areas where weve made a great deal of success. You dont hear much about the ozone layer anymore. Thats because thats a problem that we largely solved. That was a big environmental problem when i was a kid. So i think that actually, the spirit of america is solving problems. Its seeing a great challenge, people coming together, working hard at it, and solving it, and then moving on to the next thing. And yes, it does take american leadership. And that means congress, as imperfect as it may be, it is the system that our Founding Fathers gave us. I still put my faith in misters madison and hamilton and jon jay and the rest of our Founding Fathers. Although it was once joked that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried, it is the system of government we have and it can make a positive difference. Sheer raymond from silver spring, maryland. Democrats line. Caller hi. Thank you for taking my call. My comment today is about the hate that exists since this president became the president , president obama. You have the 30 or so of republicans who still believe that he is not american, that he is a muslim, and you also have your you call him out, those in congress, the republicans who also hate him on those i hope the pope can address this state and encourage both sides to Work Together to avoid that small group that hijacked the Republican Party and dont mind shutting down the, or letting the government default on credit. Its really embarrassing to the world. I hope the pope can pray for them or something and hopefully you guys can walk together for the good of people. Thank you. Well, thank you. Let me say, and this is going to be very blunt, i think questioning whether or not the president of the United States is even american is a disgrace. And i may be young, but im pretty oldfashioned when it comes to this. He is president of the United States. Mean, show him more respect. Of course the president is an american citizen. Whether you be a principle conservative or a principle liberal or somewhere in between, we should all have respect for the office of the presidency. I happen to be a democrat, and i supported president obama. You know, i didnt vote for george w. Bush. I thought it was a disgrace when people actually made the suggestion that he was somehow mindful or responsible or new about september 11th before it happened. This is the president of the United States. Show more patriotism. Show more respect. And even if you didnt vote for him, we can all agree to the fact that someone could rise from where he rose to achieve what he has achieved, shows you why this is such a great country. In terms of how we can bring people together, the caller makes draws the hope that i share that having a world leader coming here like pope francis will be an opportunity for some of the rank partnership to disappear for 24 or 48 hours and bring people together. Those moments i think actually matter. And it can help remind us, all of us who serve in this dome under construction right now that the things that unite us are far greater than any specific partisan differences of the present day. Did you get a chance to invite somebody to the events that are going to take place over the next couple days . I did. This was really one of the most exciting parts of the new job that i have. I was excited to invite father fall kennedy, who was the principal of my high school that i attended in philadelphia. He is a great individual, has dedicated his life to catholic teaching and catholic education. And he is a pastor of a parish that is in my district in northeast philadelphia and has been for a long time. And i just couldnt think of a better person and a family friend to invite. And im sure he is as excited as i am. 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for republicans, and 2027488002 for independents. Your thoughts on stories in the papers this morning about the u. S. Possibly increasing its role in syria. What should we be doing there, and what are the complications you see Going Forward . As you mention, im on the Foreign Affairs committee, and specifically the middle east subcommittee as part of that. So there has been no range of issues that have i dealt with more over the last eight or nine months than Foreign Policy and specifically the middle east. Anyone who would sit here and say that they have quote unquote the solution to syria is either lying to you or lying to themselves. We are left with a ton of bad options what is clear, though, i think we have to play a much stronger role in supporting the rebels on the ground that both want to fight assad and want to fight isis. This is easier said than done, granted. I wish we had started to this a couple of years ago as some argued internally in the administration. I think that was clearly the better route to go. But were stuck where we are now. We will continue to deal with this refugee problem, particularly europe. If we dont solve the problem at its root, and that is in syria. I would also say for 100 years syria has existed it was a country whose borders was drawn by french and british map makers at the end of world war i for their own specific reasons. I think we should be openminded in reconstructing borders that would make sense and that could possibly derive at a peaceful solution. One thing i do want to resist is there is a temptation in the u. S. And an understandable temptation to say thats a mess. Thats over there. Lets stay out of it. The mark twain quote that americas two best friends in the world are the atlantic and the pacific. What we saw on september 11th that with technology today, those problems that are over there can come right on our doorstep very quickly. And the fact is we are the world leader, whether we like it or not, that we have to play a leadership role here. And i think supporting the folks like king like the king of jordan, the actual true moderates in this region is our best option. Although its candidly not an ideal one. The topic of refugees stories reporting the last couple of days that the United States are thinking of largely increasing the number of refugees to take in 100,000. Tell me what you think about that number and are there complications taking in that many more people than we usually do. If were going to meet with the rest of the world to talk about refugees, i think we should also include the refugees from central america. Primarily from three very dangerous countries that came here en masse to the United States last year, tens of thousands. I think that we have to include that in a whole world system of trying to solve this problem. I would say, as the son of an immigrant, i am someone who tends to be pro immigration. I think its who we are as americans. Were a nation of immigrants. At the same time we need to have an orderly system that makes sense. We know that a number of people coming from that part of the world, and they might be small in number, but theyre there who wish to do us harm. And making sure that anyone who comes to the u. S. Is properly vetted has to be part of the equation. I think that we have a moral responsibility to do our part. We should be part working with our european al lie, part of crafting a solution. At the same time, though, make sure that we have the security precautions in check so that way no bad actors take advantage of our good will. Catherine from lind, massachusetts. Up next for our guest. Hello. Caller good morning. Good morning, representative boyle. I just want to say nice to meet you on tv. Thank you. Im from massachusetts. My representative is seth moulton. Im glad to see that you were my mothers representative. She just recently moved to lansdale, pennsylvania. So nice to meet you. And i hope you stay there for a long time. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that and i welcome your mom to lansdale, which is part of the district. I represent a district, roughly half of it is in the city of philadelphia and in montgomery county, pennsylvania, a suburban county. And its a great place to live and work, and i encourage more people to come and move to my district and visit our district office, which isnt too far from lansdale. Paul is in budd lake, new jersey. Independent line. Caller good morning. What i wanted to point out is that we dont manufacture water. So there is only as much water on the planet today as there was when it was formed. Therefore, maybe Climate Change was required to enable more fresh water or water in general to be available for the increasing population. And in the United States, we constantly say we need more people to raise the gdp. Well, then were going to constantly need more water. Thank you. Well, just overall on the environment, we know that were dealing with in many cases finite resources. And so thats why its so important that we get this right. Because its not like were going have a doover if we get to a point of no return, which many scientists believe that were getting close to. The u. N. Had a report a few months ago that was released that was quite serious that said we have already reached the point of no return, and in fact passed it. One thing i do want to point out that i think is necessary to keep in mind as part of this debate is that once we run out of these finite resources, our economy would be in shambles. So those who want to make the assertion that we have to choose Economic Growth over doing the responsible thing on the environment actually we see the tremendous cost of having global Climate Change. The fact that i was in philadelphia riding out a hurricane a few years ago with Superstorm Sandy is absolutely remarkable. You had i believe it was republican governor who made the remark at this time that we seem to have the storm of the century happening every other year now. That had Enormous Economic damages associated with it. In fact, there are people on the jersey shore who still havent recovered even to this day many years later. Its one of the reasons why, by the way, some of the biggest funders of research now on the global Climate Change are actually the insurance companies. Theyre not wide eyed environmentalists necessarily. They care about the bottom line. They care about returning value to shareholders. They recognize how much risk that they have out there and how much exposure they face. So, again, we should resist this false dichotomy between doing something for the economy, doing something for the environment, and its only one or the other. Next representative Brendan Boyle is butch, jackson, wyoming. Caller hi. Im not a religious person. I think the pope is a nice guy. But, you know, you take a look at the Catholic Church being against Birth Control. Are you aware that the Catholic Church owns stock in a company that creates Birth Control . You know, you look at the mormons who used to tell you not to drink pepsi until pepsi until they bought stock in the pepsi company. The hypocrisy is amazing, but nobody ever brings this stuff up. We should get religion out of politics totally. When Congress Comes into session so to us people that dont believe in a diety look at the problems its caused, all the death, all the murder, all the wars. Once we get religion out of this, i think our world would be a much better place. Thank you very much. Well, i respect the caller and respect his views. It is sadly a fact that many people in World History have been killed in the name of religion. Its all a fact that many people have done remarkably good works motivated by religion. Here in our own country if you look at the Civil Rights Movement and the abolition of slavery and the works of Mother Teresa and those around the world who are doing extraordinary work motivated by religion. If you step back and take an independently honest look at religion, people are killing one another in religion and theyre saving one another in the name of religion. Hello. Caller hello. Good morning to you and good morning to the congressman. I would like to thank cspan for their programming, and i would love to have a second washington journal in the evening for people to call in and voice their opinions after all of the news cycle is over with, but i didnt call for that purpose. I called to say that this young man is very well spoken. In the place i come from, huntington, West Virginia, we have obesity problems, drug problems, loss of industry completely, and theres a hopelessness down here. So i am encouraged when i see a young man like this who is well spoken get up there and be encouraged to get into politics and to try to make a difference. But i would like to say i was never more proud of my own son than when last night we were discussing the religious issue and the fact that somebody is against that one or somebodys against this one. He said, you know, nobody should be taking an oath on a bible or a koran or a torah. They should be taking an oath, and if they believe in god, on the constitution of the United States. If you were to do that and if you had no belief at all, you could still stand on your word as a human being and as a gentleman or a lady the way we used to in this country. I was very proud of a young man that has to go out and work two jobs in an economy that is so bad in my area that hes still willing to go and continue on working hard for his family to provide for them, sir. I wanted to brag about my son. But as a point of levity, id like to say this in the religious vein and the fact that the pope and the head of the jewish state came to speak to congress. I would like to start a new religion and call myself the pat instead of pope. I think it is my turn to get up there in front of congress and address the congress on my religious viewpoint. I think we need to get religion out of our government completely. Thank you for the time. I thank the pat for calling in and i thank you for your views. You happen to live in West Virginia. One of the most naturally beautiful states in the country and also a state thats played a part in the pope coming here. In West Virginia, when john f. Kennedy was initially losing because of his catholic faith and was able to overcome that in West Virginia, he was winning the West Virginia democratic primary, that catapulted him into winning the democratic nomination. West virginia played an Important Role in american history. I welcome the pat to come visit me in washington, d. C. Im in Office Building 118. I welcome all my constituents and my folks to see me. Besides saying the very nice things about me, which i appreciate, he should be proud of his son. The American Work force is not by bragging, statistical fact t the hardest working in this country. American people are working harder today than ever before. That is a fact. More hours. More productive, and yet real wages arent any higher today than they were at the beginning of this century. Thats a disgrace. It affects West Virginia. It affects philadelphia. It affects most of our country. The more we can focus on those issues, i think the better off that well be. Representative brandendan by. Joining us to talk about the popes visit and other issues. Representative, thanks for your time. Okay. Thank you. The popes upcoming visit to the u. S. , cspan has live coverage from washington. The first stop on the popes tour. On wednesday, the pope will visit the white house followed by a meeting with president obama. On thursday, the pope makes history on capitol hill becoming the first pontiff to address both the house of representatives and the senate during a joint meeting. Follow all of cspans live coverage of the popes historic visit to washington. Watch live on tv or online at cspan. Org. Today, im a reporter for nbc 4. He comes in here all the time. Thats his seat right over there. So i went back to the office and i called him up. Mr. Mayor, ive just been to club 55. I mean, dont you realize people are watching what you do and where you go and theyre saying youre sitting there all the time watching naked girls. There was a pause on the phone and he said, its nice, isnt it . Tom sherwood on the political corruption in d. C. , maryland, and virginia. 44 attorneys general from around the country signed a letter saying they agreed with government mcdonald saying what he did was politics and not bribery and he should have reported the gifts. That might be a crime, but he didnt report the gifts. 15,000 for a childs wedding. The problem was bob mcdonald was in over his head when we got into the governors office. This was another case where youre a public figure and you let your messy private life combine together. Sunday night at 8 00 eastern and pacific on cspans q a. Former cia director general David Petraeus testified before the civil Armed Service committee today about the middle east and apologized for sharing classified information, which led to his resignation in 2012. Heres what he said. Mr. Chairman, senator reid, members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to discuss the situation in the middle east. As you noted, mr. Chairman, this is the first time i have testified in open session before Congress Since resigning as director of the cia nearly three years ago. As such, i think it is appropriate to begin my remarks this morning with an apology, one that i have offered before but nonetheless one that i want to repeat to you and to the american public. Four years ago i made a serious mistake, one that brought discredit on me and pain to those closest to me. It was a violation of the trust placed in me and a breach of the values to which id been committed throughout my life. Theres nothing i can do to undo what i did. I can only say, again, how sorry i am to let to those i let down and then strive to go forward with a greater sense of humility and purpose and with gratitude to those who stood with me during a very difficult chapter in my life. A signature feature of book tv is our all day coverage of book fairs and festivals from across the country with top nonfiction authors. Heres our schedule. In early october, its the southern festival of books in nashville. The weekend after that were live from austin for the texas book festival. Near the end of the month well be covering two book festivals on the same weekend. We have the wisconsin book festival in madison and back on the east coast the boston book festival. At the start of november, well be in portland, oregon, for word stock, followed by the National Book awards for new york city. Then were live for the Miami Book Fair international. Thats a few of the fairs and festivals this fall on cspan 2s book tv. Tonight, here on cspan 3 a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on state Department Efforts to stop human trafficking. Then a hearing on proposed mergers by major Health Insurance companies. The head of the big 12 conference talks about challenging facing college athletics, and the Senate Transportation committee looks at the implementation of Railroad Safety telo