Transcripts For KQED PBS NewsHour 20140203

Own opportunity and you see a lot of talented people without get that and want to pursue it. Those are just some of the stories were covering on ifill those are just some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by and by the alfred p. Sloan foundation. Supporting science, technology, and improved Economic Performance and Financial Literacy in the 21st century. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. And. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ifill the selloff on wall street picked up today where it left off friday, on worries about sluggish growth. The Dow Jones Industrial average lost 326 points to close at 15,372. The nasdaq fell 106 points to close under 3997. Amid the downturn, janet yellen was sworn in as chair of the federal reserve. Shes the first woman to lead the central bank in its 100year history. Ifill frigid weather cut into the car business in january, as buyers stayed away from showrooms. Ford, general motors, toyota and volkswagen all reported today their sales were down from a year ago. Chrysler, nissan and subaru bucked that trend, reporting increased sales. Ifill in a few years, all new cars and light trucks may come with technology that can prevent most wrecks. Transportation secretary anthony foxx announced today he expects to make that proposal before the end of the obama administration. It involves special transponders that link vehicles with each other. Well take a closer look, later in the program. Ifill thousands of people who signed up for insurance on healthcare. Gov are getting nowhere when they try to fix overcharges and other enrollment errors. The Washington Post reports 22,000 appeals are sitting untouched in a computer. Others are being rebuffed over the phone. So far, the web site has no way to handle appeals. Today, white house spokesman jay carney counseled patience. We are talking here about a very small percentage of the number of people who have applied for coverage. We believe that many of the issues that caused people to file appeals are left over from when the website was not working well and many of those problems have since been fixed. Ifill later, officials in charge of medicare and medicaid announced theyre beginning a manual appeals process, until the web site can do the job. Ifill the abortion rate in the u. S. Has dropped to its lowest since 1973. A private research organization, the guttmacher institute, reported today a 13 decline in abortions between 2008 and 2011. That coincides with a large decline in overall pregnancy rates. The study found no evidence that new state curbs on abortion are affecting the numbers. Ifill in ukraine, president Viktor Yanukovich returned to work after four days of sick leave. At a public appearance today, he warned against radicalism among those protesting his move toward closer ties with russia. In turn, protest leaders said, in a parliamentary session tomorrow, they will seek changes to weaken the president s powers. Alqaeda has disavowed its powerful affiliate in syria. In a statement today, the Terror Networks leaders said theyll have no further ties with the islamic front in iraq and syria. The statement also condemned rebel infighting as olympic organizers in sochi, russia faced questions today about unfinished hotel rooms, five days before the opening ceremonies. As of saturday, three of the nine hotels reserved for thousands of journalists were not fully operational. Still, the president of the International Olympic committee insisted today most accommodations are ready. 24,000 rooms have been delivered and 97 of them without any problem. For the remaining 3 , there are still some issues to be settled. Ifill also today, there was word that russian authorities have hired a Pest Control Firm to exterminate thousands of stray dogs around sochi. Its unclear how the dogs are being killed, or whats being done with the carcasses. Ifill the Seattle Seahawks today relished their first super bowl victory in what turned into the mostwatched t. V. Event ever, with more than 111 million viewers. The team captured the title last night, blowing out the denver broncos, 43to8, at the meadowlands in new jersey. A celebratory parade is slated for wednesday. Meanwhile, fans struggled to get home today as a new storm dumped up to eight inches of snow in the northeast. Hundreds of flights were canceled or delayed. Still to come on the newshour, heroins deadly reemergence; the push for talking cars to promote safety on the roads; a look at medicaid in a state that opted not to expand coverage; new ventures designed to transform web journalism; concussion dangers for High School Football players; plus, remembering the actor Philip Seymour hoffman. Ifill the sudden, shocking death of oscar wining actor Philip Seymour hoffman has brought fresh attention to the source of the addiction that apparently killed him, heroin. The use of the drug has been on the rise in states like maryland, where 37 deaths have been reported since september, and in vermont, where the governor devoted his state of the state address to the topic. But its use is spreading across the nation. Jeffrey brown has that. Brown heroin may not be the most commonly used illegal drug but a National Survey shows its use has doubled since 2007. We look at the changing faces and places of addiction as well as reasons for it with Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug control policy, the nations socalled drug czar. And sam quinones, an author and reporter at the los angeles times. He is currently writing a book on the recent heroin surge in the u. S. Let me start with you, are we seeing, to what extent are we seeing a new surge and how serious. It is a serious problem. We are seeing an increase, i think the concern has always that data usually lacks one or two or sometimes three years depending on what the survey or what the measure is. But i can tell you pie travels across the country and a spoke to the National Narcotics officers today at lunch, there is no question we are seeing a resurgence of heroin. And seeing it where and in what kind of populations. Well, its very different. And two issues come up. One is if prescription drugs are more tightly regulated or less accessible or more exsense expensive people can turn to heroin because they are already addicted. They suffer the disease av diction to these opoids. There is a second part, that is we see a group of young people who are very naive and believe that heroin used in certain ways, they wont become addicted. Its edgy and what happens it is incredibly dangerous. You have been looking at this all around the country, where do you see it, what kind of population and how perhaps has it changed over time . I have been all over the country and i with say largely this is a white problem. I dont find opiate addiction too much in black or latino populations. It is very different from the way heroin spread 40 years ago in the 1970s where a lot of communities were badly hit heroin today is almost entirely a white phenomenon. And its in rural america, its in largely in suburban america, place that have done fairly well, middle class, upper middle class areas. And its in towns it that really never had a problem with heroin before this. Charlotte, salt lake, columbus, cincinnati, albuquerque, places like that where you just didnt really see it some of. Now it has become a very, very big problem. And as Gil Kerlikowske related t is the gateway drug in all this are these prescription pills. Brown explain that a little bit more, sam. You start. The tie between they were description drugs and heroin. Well, many of these prescription painkillers are virtually identical molecularly to heroin, oxycodone is very, very similar. Almost identical to heroin. The problem is that there is a black market in these pills now. Because they have been so widely prescribed. Theres with a revolution in medicine in the United States back in the 80s and 90s that said these pills are nonaddictive, ones prescribed to chronic pain patients so we had this rising sea level of pills all across, all across the country. A very deep black market developed in which these pills now cost a dollar a milligram. Most of these pills come in 30, 40, 80 milligram doses. That means you are having to pay 30, 40, 80 bucks a pill and a lot of people getting adicted. Their tolerance rises. They cannot they end up using three, four, fife of these pills. I met people who had 3, 400 a day addictions. Heroin comes in and it is a fifth to a tenth cheaper than that. And if you are already a lot of these folks getting addicted to the pills, have already begun injecting. Nd when they start injecting, its kind of like you crossed the rube con in a sense. And so heroin, injecting heroin isnt much different than injecting pills, it just happens to be far cheaper. And where girl kerlikowske where does the heroin come from. It really hadnt changed. Almost all of the heroin that ept ares the United States enters at the southwest border,. And it is a significant increase in seizures that customs in Border Protection has been making. So we do know the cartels can market and they can market to younger people. So we are seeing that increase. And we are seeing this concern that young people dont recognize that this is incredibly dangerous. And powerful. And they think using it in other ways, they wont become addicted. Unfortunately, they do. Philip Seymour Hoffman has said to have a heroin with the logo ace of spades, a brand name, so to speak. What do you make of that . Are there different strains, power, what is that. Its very common for these folks to label or put some type of tag. But you never really know what youre getting. Just because it has that heart or that ace of spades on it, doesnt mean that that is what you are getting the next week or the week after. And if you look right now in western pennsylvania, i think were up to Something Like 22 deaths with heroin that is laced with another pharmaceutical painkiller fentanyl. Sam, the other thing we know about the hoffman story is that he had gone into rehab many years ago. He was essentially said to be clean for several decades, in fact. That tells us something clearly about the nature of this kind of addiction. It tells us that this is an enormously difficult addiction to kick. People have to relapse six, eight, nine, ten times before theyre actually able to kick the heroin habit. Once you get down, once you start down that slope it is very difficult. It also has this horribly mangling effect on the families surrounding the people who use it. Talking with lots of families, people around the country have lost loved ones to this. And the death, sometimes is even almost like a relief because for so many years its just been this horrible, horrible problem dealing with this one kid who cheats, who lies, who steals. And that is air big part of the addiction. Can i say also, that in my view heroin is like a commodity. Whatever they stamp on these things, or however they sell it, the only way it differs from heroin heroin differs from each other is literally by the way its cut. And so its like aspirin, you know, every everywhere you can find it, it is just measured differently. And i think that this is a key to all this. Because heroin traffickers have learned to market their expert marketers, they have to market because thats the only way they can differentiate between their drug and others. Brown all right. And so to me thats really a big part of this. Tease guys have learned to market expertly all across the country. Brown is there one, just in our last 30 seconds here Gill Kerlikowske s there one policy prescription that you are most focused on to stem this. For heroin it is going to have to be the education. At one time the office of National Drug control policy had 190 million to do preveng programs. That has been zeroed out for the last couple of years by congress, even though the president has asked for about 20 million. Kids get plenty of pro drug messages. We need to give them antidrug messages, particularly around heroin that work. Brown Gil Kerlikowske and sam quinones, thank you both very much. Thank you. Ifill for years carmakers have been adding advanced, automated safety features to their increasingly high tech vehicles. Now, the federal government is considering turning some of those options into industry standards. Ifill in a super bowl broadcast packed with car commercials, this hyundai ad focused not on speed or style, but on how to avoid an accident. Whoa ifill in it, an ever attentive dad does his best to protect his son from a collision. Including the perils of mixing teenaged hormones with learners permits. Remember when only dad could save the day . Auto emergency braking on the all new genesis. Ifill in fact, automatic braking is becoming an option on models around the world. A car that actually see like a human. Ifill the vehicles use radar, video and sensors to monitor their surroundings, give early warnings to drivers and even engage the brakes. The Technology May be hard to imagine. But why you would want it is not. Ifill now transportation secretary anthony foxx wants similar enhancements on all new vehicles. We have the ability, through technology now, to develop a regime in which the safety advances actually kick in before an accident occurs and we actually avoid the unfortunate event itself. Ifill foxx says cars would use radio transponders, allowing vehicle to vehicle communication to relay critical information and thus, revolutionize auto safety. We have 30,000 vehicle fatalities a year in the us and the prospect of being able to cut, according to research, perhaps 70 to 80 of the collisions and accidents that are happening around the are happening around the country ifill dan neil is an auto columnist for the wall street journal who has been following these developments. Dan neil, welcome. Thank you. What is the government likely to propose or considering here that would be different from what we experience now or have available to us now . Well, whats in play is the development of the intelligent highway system and Vehicle System so that cars using sort of airplane like transponders communicate with one another, anticipate each others movements and ideally stay out of each other away. The government set aside a spectrum, an electronic spectrum for that purpose a couple of years ago and the manufacturers will be researchering how cars can best talk to each other. But its important to note that for example in the commercial trucking industry, transponders are a common thing. And with these devices carmakers and whoever else, the interested parties, whoever is creating the infrastructure around these vehicles will have very we seis data on a cars location, direction, speed and that information will be shared among the vehicles on the road. When i think about this i feel like drivers will feel a sense of a loss of control. And that might be a disincentive for actually getting hine the wheel of one of these cars are you taking the onusus off the driver, does it feel that way when you drive one of these cars . I have been very sur priced. The public does not seem to mind the lessened driver workload in these cars with these increasingly sophisticated autonomous and semi autonomous systems, for instance active lane keeping. The car will stay between the lines. And you know, a driver can do that, but its a routine function and the car can do it better with as you mention in your leadup. Stereoscopic vision and starruous sensors so there does not seem to be a concern among the driving public of a loss of these of autonomy. And here is the other thing. Its really important for an aging population to get ahold of this issue. These technologies will extend the driving career of Older Americans in such a way that it will be very beneficial. You know losing your driving privileges is really tough on old people. And this technology promises to keep people on the road and maintain their independence for a long time. Thats just one of many reasons why the government and the automakers are interested in it. Let me ask you this, dan. Does it work if the government does not mandate this in every vehicle. Because if some vehicles are equipped with this, and others arent, does the idea come together . Yeah, this is an interesting issue. Because theyre actually two approaches to in. One you might say the technology is independently autonomous. Each vehicle has an array of sensors that can respond to everything it sees around it. These systems will eventually be programmed with vast archives of you would say algorithmic recognition so they have never seen anything they havent seen before. They respond quick, better than human. The other way that you can do this is what the federal government is talking about now which is a vehicle to vehicle, v to v or v to i, vehicle to infrastructure regime. And in this way vehicles will coordinate their movements and with the infrastructure. Whats interesting about that is that especially in the megacities of asia, managing traffic, that is being able to platoon vehicles on highway its where there is very little carrying capacity left, this is a problem that v to v and especially v to i can address. It sounds expensive though. Are auto manufacturers prepared to do this . Auto manufacturers love these technologies. They are a point of differentiation in sales. And ultimately if you do this right, if you electronically crash proof automobiles you can begin taking weight out of the vehicles and weight, mass is one of the thins that drives fuel economy down. So you are going to have lighter vehicles that wont have to be these big steel boxes to survive crashes. And they will become more fuel efficient. Time question briefly t sounds like big brother might have better ago is to your information, they will know where you are going, where you are coming from, how fast you are going, isnt that a disincentive. To the big brother, more like target and walmart and h m. You know, when commercial interests have a good idea of where you are in your car, they can advertise to you much like they do on the internet. This is the connected car and the connected internet are going to have the same depth of privacy issues. Oh joy. Dan neil, the wall street journal, thanks so much. All right, thank you. Ifill now, a look at new efforts in South Carolina to provide health care for those in need, but who dont qualify for medicaid. The newshours mary jo brooks has our report. Reporter sixtyyearold walter durst had hoped the Affordable Care act meant he could finally get health insurance. Laid off from a retail job six years ago, he now makes less than a thousand dollars a month working odd jobs. Its like stepping on eggshells. Youre just afraid all the time of catching something. There are a few things that i know i need done, like a colonoscopy that i cant do. Reporter but durst isnt getting coverage anytime soon since he falls into a gap he cant afford plans on the health exchange, but also isnt eligible for medicaid in South Carolina. Under the Affordable Care act, medicaid was to be expanded to include anyone under the age of 65 who made up to 133 of the poverty level, thats about 15,000 a year for an individual. But the Supreme Court ruled that states could opt out. And governor nikki haley was among the first to announce that her state would do just that. Its a decision that has stirred up political activity on both ends of the political spectrum. Activists on the left recently rallied at the state capitol, urging lawmakers to reverse the decision. They say some 250,000 people dont have Health Coverage because medicaid wasnt expanded. They brought forward a coffin to symbolize the lives that will be lost if people dont have access to preventive care. Im a student at s. C. S. U. Im doing my thing. But yet i dont have coverage reporter 46year old Anitra Johnson cant get coverage since she isnt disabled and doesnt have young children, the two main criteria for qualifying for medicaid in South Carolina. An air force veteran whos gone back to college, shes currently unemployed. Not being able to go to the doctor and take advantage of the Preventative Care they have for a woman my age is pretty bad. But just hours before johnson rallied at the capitol, activists from the tea party were on the other side of the building rallying against Medicaid Expansion. Rally organizer jesse granston says its very simple. Every time we take a federal dollar that is attached to the Affordable Care act or to the medicaid rolls, were giving up our sovereignty, were giving up our ability to take care of ourselves. Reporter the federal government would have paid the states costs for Medicaid Expansion for the first three years and paid 90 after that. Twenty six states so far have signed on. So far, South Carolina, led by a republican governor and legislature, has stood firm in opposition. Still, granston worries that lawmakers may ultimately find that kind of money difficult to refuse. We understand its going to be a tremendous battle to win because when you have a state legislature that has been sucking at the federal teat for their entire life. Its the equivalent of taking away crack cocaine from someone who has been smoking it their entire life. Reporter while the political debate continues the current Medicaid Program has seen tremendous growth over the last few years, even without expanding the definition of who qualifies. Our biggest success has been with children. Reporter tony keck is the states director of health and human services. Weve invested in everybody whos currently eligible but un enrolled into the system. Reporter thanks to an aggressive outreach program, his department has enrolled 100,000 children who were previously eligible for medicaid, but didnt take advantage of it. That increase has earned the state a bonus of 17 Million Dollars from the federal government. Keck is happy to take that money, but he doesnt want the state to expand medicaid anymore since he thinks the system is flawed. My fear is in the states where theres Medicaid Expansion, that hospitals and doctors and other Healthcare Providers take the path of least resistance. Which is instead of going and finding the people who need the most help, they take the healthy folks who just come on into their door. Easy dollars, easy to treat. And its not really solving the big problems that a state like South Carolina needs to focus on. Reporter keck has launched a Pilot Program that he thinks could do that. Its called the healthy outcomes plan, and is really a series of 40 different experiments. Each one developed by hospitals in the state to reach out to uninsured people who are chronic users of their emergency rooms. The aim is to connect them with primary care physicians and social services, including Mental Health counseling and even access to food banks, all to keep people healthier. Dr. Jamee steen is a Family Practice physician with the program devised by Palmetto Hospital in columbia. Palmetto cares looks at more than getting them a physician. What can we get from social work . What can we get from pharmacy . Often times we do a tremendous amount around transportation. It sounds crazy. Im not a bus driver, but thats what patients need in order to get to the visits. So if i dont have provider near to where they are, how am i going to get them consistently to their visits . Hi. Im here to see nurse christy. Reporter the primary care visits are free of charge, the hospitals are paid from a pot of money totaling nearly a half billion dollars. Mostly federal money allocated for Indigent Health care. How are you . Reporter right now the program is small. The aim was to reach 8,500 patients in this first year. But three months into it, only about 1,500 have enrolled. When was the last time you saw a primary care doctor . Reporter bridget edwards, a nurse and Care Coordinator says its often difficult to track these patients down and convince them to engage in a system that previously all but excluded them. The problem with a lot of them is they dont think they have that person to connect with. They dont have anyone thats there to guide them and lead them and help them manage their care. So its a matter of building their trust, reaching out to them. Reporter that was exactly the case of fortysix year old tammy moody, who suffers from hypertension and depression. Three months ago she began participating in the Pilot Program and she says her health has already improved. Im encouraged to get up, take my meds. To be honest, theyve given me the will to live. The ability to get up and move and help yourself. Because theyve given me the tools to do this. Reporter although moody is a big fan, she still wishes her state had expanded medicaid since this isnt the same as insurance and theres no guarantee how long it will last. Dr. Steen agrees but shes hopeful the Pilot Program will convince policymakers of the need for preventive care. If looking at healthy outcomes is a way to glean data, and say wow. People changed. They had used the e. R. 25 times. Now theyve used the e. R. Once in the last six months because theyre hooked into the system. If that allows the discussion of how can we expand services . Im right there. Which is why im right here. Reporter secretary keck, of course, believes the program will deliver results more cheaply and effectively than medicaid ever could. We think with very little money, relatively speaking to a sevenbillion dollar medicaid budget, that we can actually get that type of access to those 200,000 people, so we can identify youre somebody who might have a problem in the future, lets get you connected to a Health System now. Reporter while healthcare advocates wait to see what kind of results the program will bring, political activists in South Carolina will continue to argue that its a matter of money either more, or less, federal spending on people without health insurance. Ifill now, how journalism on the web, and created specifically for the web, is disrupting traditional models and creating new ones. Judy woodruff has our conversation. Woodruff these days Online Ventures are attracting big names from what was the traditional world of news media and the landscape is shifting ever more quickly. The most recent move ezra klein, formerly of the Washington Post and his popular wonkblog site, is developing a new website for deep and explanatorystyle journalism. That follows nate silver taking his popular 538 blog to espn from the New York Times and the founders of the wall street journals all Things Digital brand creating their own new site, recode, backed by Nbc Universal and others. To name just a handful. We look at what this means for journalism and whats behind it. Jim bankoff is the chairman and c. E. O. Of vox media, which will publish the new ezra klein project x. Walter mossberg, who colaunched the new venture, recode. And, tom rosenstiel, the executive director of the American Press institute. We welcome you all to the newshour. Walt mossberg im going to start with you, why would someone working in traditional media and im sure there are a lot of reasons but what is the main reason we should know that you would want to take that and go too an online only home. Well, judy, just speaking for myself and my cofounder, cara swisher, first of all, we wrote about technology, and because we wrote about technology we are already largely read onlinement and secondly it wasnt sort of anything, it was trying to have the opportunity to build and expand and grow and develop the brand and the kind of content that weve been doing already. So it isnt really print versus online some of, its more independence and kind of the freedom to move nimbly an grow. Woodruff jim bankoff is that how you see it, that its not really about online versus other kinds of media . Well, i dont know if i would say exactly like that. I agree with walt and cara, theyre building something great. And i would pick up on that and say there are people like ezra or josh, our editor, on the verge, a lot of people like him who want to do something bold and ambitious and create a new media brand that was expressly made for the web. And i think some folks lose sight that this is a different medium. Its not print, its not television, of course. It has its own craft, its own opportunity and you see a lot of talented people who get that and want to pursue it. What do you mean that its not its just different by virtue of the technology. Well, there are certain things that remain constant, of course shall good storytelling, a strong voice, fax, it will never change, of course. But the medium is different. That there are new tools at your disposal. They call it multimedia for a reason. We then video it. We then news things too, though, like location, like social, it does it across new devices and the people who consume the new media do so in different ways. And thats obvious. And so the way that its produced, the way that its distributed, the way that it is consumed while keeping some virtues of good storytelling and journalism embraces new opportunity. As somebody who has looked at media old and new for some time now, how do you see the difference in these two ways of connecting with an audience . Well, the old way that lot of people looked at the emerging technology is to say we dont care where we deliver it were platform agnostic. I think what jims talking about is being platform orthodox. Trying to understand the potential and the new ways that are endemic to the new technology and really exploit them. Because thats what consumers are doing. Theyre discovering the ways of doing this. Now one thing about this that is not ep tirely new is legacy media always had stars. There were sports columnists, there were tent pole personalities at publications. And i remember david hammerstam the great book writer who started at the New York Times and won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of vietnam, he said at a certain point of outgrow those publications and want to do Different Things that you can do in newspapers. Whats different now is many of these folks are doing the same thing as they were doing at their Legacy Institution but they want to have freedom to do it slightly differently. But its not going from newspapers to book writing. Its the same product. And Walt Mossberg, you talked about reaching a different audience. I mean who, what are you what are you speaking about . Because you at the the wall street journal, that is a publication that reaches a lot of people. Right. Who do you reach now . Well, we want to reach a wide audience, both people because our subjects are tech and media, primarily, we obviously want to reach kind of the people in those industries and who are interested in those industriesment but we want to watch, we want to reach everybody that uses technology. But that is interested in the topic, the junction of tech and media and one of our first hires when we became independent which was just 30 days ago, was a reporter to do science and biotech and kind of, you know, kind of, much more cutting edge things than just the next smart phone or the next laptop or something. So it is a broader audience and it just depends on your strategy. I would also agree with jim that theres a lot more you can do online than in printment but while i was at the journal, we were already running a fairly fairly autonomous yen line site. We just needed to be able to be nimbler and move faster and take advantage more quickly of everything that the web offered. Jim bankoff, how profitable can these ventures be . Can they, can they be a Business Model that others will want to replicate . I certainly think so. You have to have faith that theres a big opportunity here. You have to have faith that journalism and storytelling will continue to matter as it transitions into a new medium. Looking at it historically weve seen a lot of disruption. Migration from magazines to cable networks, and broadcasts, every generation it seems has had its own Media Properties that have been built into large sustainable and highly profitable businesses. I see no reason why that cant be the case here. How do you see that tom rosen doesfield, you have listed a lot of different efforts. I think we dont know what the potential is for all of these what you might call the individual as brand, the individual journalist as brand. I think it depends on a couple of things. Whats the nature of the topic, how broad is it or is there a sustainable Business Model for it. All things that walt and built derives a lot of revenue from events. And there su a proven Business Model they have sustained over 12 years, with ezra its about economic policy, my guess is the model is going to be different. And theres probably a limit on how many of these can be out there. Theres some element of convenience for consumers to go to one place and still see a lot of things collected. I remember sort of in the early days of the internet when matt dredge came to the press club in washington and said this was the time when people were talking about citizen journalism, maybe journalus was become obsolete and citizen was do the reporting. He said there is not need for a million of me, there is only room for a few. In fact Walt Mossberg could you have done this if you hadnt already established a big identity . 2 was what you were doing with all things dig digital. Eyes not sure we could have raised the money without the identity. But i do want to say, i have had been lucky enough to have a following and to be known, cara swisher, my partner had a following and was known. We had 15 other journalists who were working for us who also all had followings in their beats. And they all came with us. So we were able to hit the ground running and it is a great question, judy, whether somebody completely unknown, even somebody twice as talented as those of us who are better known, if you are not known at all, could you have raised money and go do this, thats a great question. I dont know the answer to that. The great thing about medium is that there is equal access to the platform. Of course, you know, it seems obvious now but gone are the days where you needed a broadcast tower or a Printing Press to express your views or to conduct in publish yourself. So thats wonderful. Now the talent will rise. And i do agree, not everyone is going to give, scale it into a large enterprise but whats clear is all of this opportunity, all of this choice is great for consumers of the news. They have to sift through it and hopefully well provide great context for them to help them make sense of everything that is coming at them. But there has really never been a better time, i believe, to be a consumer of news an information with all the choices that are out there. Thank you all. Jim bankoff, Walt Mossberg, tom rosensteele. Ifill next, a students eye view of a problem weve been covering for a while concussions suffered on the football field and the damage they do. Hari sreenivasan narrates this report. A corbing to the National Academy of sciences there are 11 recorded concussions for every 10,000 High School Games and practices. Twice the rate of college players. But researchers believe the number is actually much higher because many go unreported. We asked our network of Institute Reporting labs, middle and High School Journalism programs around the country to provide a snapshot of concussions in their hometowns. Alex of windsor high school, in california couldnt tell he was badly hurt. The hit itself wasnt that big. I have suffered worse hits, you know, two days earlier in practice and i was basically sleep walking through the rest of the game. Coaches are trained to identify when a player is injured but it can take time for symptoms to appear. They didnt take me out until the Third Quarter when one of my coaches noticed i was acting, even on film i could see that, you know, i didnt really know what i was doing. Often players try to hide their injuries to get back in the game. Not realizing concussions can lead to memory loss, sleep problems and changes in behavior. This player at Austin High School who asked not to be identified said he saw flashes of light and stars. And even blacked out. He knew what the symptoms meant. But he wanted to keep playing despite these and other injuries. I have had about 15 to 20 concussions. That figure is based on personal experience rather than medical evidence. But even if the true number is less, this player says theres no question the hard hits have affected his brain. I do feel as if the concussions have diminished my ability to concentrate concentrate on subjects, especially, like math, adding numbers, it seems a lot harder or figuring out a puzzle is just a lot more tedious than it should be. The tax attitude stems partly from a culture where onfield performance is paramount. And kids just want to play. 16yearold kid, invincible. You want to get back on the field as quickly as you company. And a concussion, you cant get you get a headache but you really dont feel it. It is not like a sprained ankle. Chuck cook, a graduate of Black River Falls high School Explained how he and his friends beat the impact test, a set of associations and memory questions used to diagnose concussions. I did not take the impact test seriously. My freshman soph mon more year i tested low on purpose. I didnt want to have to sit out a game because i had a concussion. Meaning when chuck was tested after a hard hit to see if he had a concussion, his low score would not set off alarm bells that he was hurt. And he could go back in the game. Nd while new regulations require coaches to take head injury awareness classes, players revealed there is still a lot of pressure to get back in uniform. Jesse from fort mills, South Carolina. A couple days after i got my concussion i definitely felt pressured to get back on to the field and i wasnt comfortable at all. Because it was only a couple days afterwards an coaches were asking me how much longer. But for Richard Cunningham in austin, the Health Effects were too much. He decided to switch sports. I missed football more than probably anyone out there. But it was just what was in my healths best interests. I have been blessed that concussions put things in mind for me and i was able to focus more on my baseball and academics. And as much as i do miss football, its been a blessing in disguise having to put it out. In montana it was only after one player died from repeated head injuries that attitudes truly began changing. Dylans went into a coma after a hard hit during a scrimmage in 2010. He was flown to the hospital and died the next day. His parents channeled their grief to pucc forward the dylans protection of youth athletes act. A state law that requires each School District to test for concussions and set guidelines for when an athlete can Start Playing again. We will never recover. We will never recover. But we can do, if you can do stion positive in your life to help somebody else thats very healing. Ifill you can watch all of the studentproduced stories on our special feature page, tough calls how concussion awareness has affected youth football around the country. Ifill now to another, very personal take on a subject many students and their parents are wrestling with. The documentary american promise, airing tonight on the pbs series p. O. V. , is the work of two African American filmmakers who recorded the experiences of their son and his best friend for 13 years. The boys were among the few students of color admitted to a prestigious private school in manhattan. Following along as the boys and their families confront questions of race, class and opportunity, the film chronicles their divergent paths. In this excerpt, the boys are in sixth grade as parents air their concerns. Let me tell you that made it to this school, as an excellent math student. And i am watching this going down. And im questioning what is happening. And a lot of kids are doing what the music, they are playing a tune and they say i dont like it one of the kids say he dont like it because all you like it hiphop. The teacher said that. One of the kids said that. Another student. So i said so what did you say. He said well i got angry. I tried to compose myself because i know you said to compose. Thats hilarious. She was a child was telling him, this is. He has to deal the same way because im trying to from a black male i know the struggle to face the reality of the way people look at them and fear them when they see them. Thats right. And so because every day are you going, you are inundated with this marketing that a dark black face is dangerous. Uhhuh. So watch out. Our children ins this environment f they are seeing it now, what perception are they going to have of themselves. This is going to be something that is going to help them in the future or something thats going to hinder them. Ifill the full p. O. V. Documentary, american promise airs tonight on most p. B. S. Stations. Ifill finally tonight, remembering the work of the actor Philip Seymour hoffman. Jeff is back with that. Brown hoffman, who died this weekend, was a prolific actor on stage and on screen. He appeared in more than 50 films, often in a memorable supporting role, but just as notably as a leading man. In 2006, he won the oscar for best actor for his portrayal of writer truman capote. Heres a short clip from that movie in which capote is asked about his feelings for one of the murderers hes writing about. Catherine keener plays his friend, harper lee. Fall in love with her. Its as if we grew newspaper the same house. One day he too up and went out the back door. And i went out the front. Are you kidding me. No. Ann hornaday reviews films for the Washington Post and joins me now. You started your remembrance today writing Philip Seymour hoffman wasnt a movie star in the conventional sense of the term. What was he . Well, he was a classic character actor, you know. I mean these are the actors, yeoman working man guys who can disappear into roles and become the people they are playing, slip into them effortlessly and also by the way, make the stars around them look all the more credible for their own honesty and truth seeking. I was thinking for a lot of us shall and im one. We started watching this guy in films, something striking about him. Oh, hes indiffer, wondering who is this guy. And then we didnt foe after so many films. Its so true. And no matter what he did, whether it was a comic role, dramatic role, leading role or supporting role, he was complete. I mean it was that quality of screen acting which is fusing being seeming. And being. Brown . Explain that. Well, you are playing a role. You are youre reciting words that have been written by a screenwriter what. You are hitting your marks that the director has worked out but you might be on your 16th take. But you are making it seem utterly brandnew, spontaneous. An most of all honest. And i think thats what people, you know, audience members who grew to love him over the years, i think realize he never lied. He always told the truth to whatever character he was playing. It just emanated. That is what ties these many different characters, you think thats what ties them all together. I think thats what made him so great. And yes, i do think that that was just a consistent threw line regardless of the material he was in, the genre, the scope. Maybe even the quality. He always elevated it because he was honest. And he was 100 committed and right there. He was also relatable. I mean lets face it, he looked like most of the rest of us. And i just think there was something so endear approximating about that. And so reassuring about that. And as he did get some starring lead roles, he continued coming out in these small films in smaller roles as well. Yes, he did. And even just the last few years was sort of a great case in point. I mean he was doing movies with brad pitt and George Clooney and that was a great example, i think, of here are two bona find largerthanlife movie stars. In the way you think of it. But in one case brad pitt is plague a baseball manager and in other George Clooney is playing a politician, hoffmans performances sort of grounded them. And allowed them, allowed us to believe them as those sort of more blue collar, not glamorous guys. One thing he wrote about is how this inevitably plays into the idea of the tortured artist, right, the dark place that someone like this, such a genius on the stage and screen, reaches to. Its a romantic idea that you dont totally buy, i think. No, i understand where it comes fromment because i think when we lose somebody and it happened with heath ledger. It seems to happen with disspiriting regularity, these people with such promise and such gifts. And you think whether would they embark on a selfdestructive path. And so that when you start introducing terms like demons and fighting with demons and the tortured artist. And i think that is way for us to express with compassion and respect their gift without being punitive. But i also think it mystifies the deeper truth which is that these are often this is a disease. Addiction, dependence is a disease whether it is a chemical dependence or psychological one. We just have been 20 seconds. Do you have a favorite hoffman either film or scene that you want to recommend to people. You know, i will be cliche and say that along with most of the rest of the country, i was first introduced to him in boogie nights. Hi seen him, i think i have seen him in littler roles and littlier fills but that was really the first time i was aware of him as such a galvanizing force. And that scene with Mark Wahlberg where he is showing off the car that he bought to match mark walbergabouts character he is this love sick guy with a crush on another guy. He is just tortured. And sympathetic and vulnerable and sweet and the whole, the whole beautiful mess. All right. Ann hornaday of the Washington Post on the life and work of Philip Seymour hoffman, thanks so much. Thank you. Ifill again, the major developments of the day. Wall streets week got off to a rough start as the dow industrials fell more than 320 points. Janet yellen was sworn in as the new chair of the federal reserve. Shes the first woman to hold that post. Major tech firms released new details on how often theyve turned over user data to the government. They said only small numbers of customers were targeted. And joan mondale, wife of former Vice President walter mondale, died at a Hospice Center in minneapolis. She was 83 years old. On the newshour online right now having healthy food choices in your Neighborhood Grocery store is one way a community can combat the obesity epidemic. But it takes more than that. A new Health Affairs study looks at what happens when a supermarket opens in a food desert, or an area where fresh and nutritious options are limited. Read that report on our health page. All that and more is on our web site, newshour. Pbs. Org. And thats the newshour for tonight. On tuesday, well take a look at a harsh new law aimed at gays and lesbians in russia. Im gwen ifill. Well see you online and again here tomorrow evening. For all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Supported by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. 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