washington, d.c., a discussion on the future of journalism and digital media. npr host robert see gal moderates a discussion with panelists from reuters, voice of america, google, and the academic world. this is an hour and a half. good morning, everyone. i m jim duff here at the museum and it s my distinct pleasure to welcome you all here. it s an hon fornor for us to host such a wonderful event, the 50th anniversary celebration that you re all participating in at the columbia journalism review. and it just gives us all the more credibility in what we re doing here to host wonderful events like this. it s also my great honor to introduce to you victor, you all know him so very well. he s had such a distinguished career. if i went through the list of his accomplishments i d consume all the time you have for more interesting things than a recitation of everything that he s done. but obviously, as you know, he s a publisher emeritus of the nation, the magazine s editor from
well, for nearly all in beijing for cnn. the bureau chief. almost raised to that task taken been taking by academic parents to beijing as child and put into public schools an went on to report at bureau chief in tokyo and now is a senior fellow at the new america foundation. her book consent of the network examines the very challenges that we ll be addressing here. holding a copy there. lee ballenger, you ve made the most explicit proposal for how we should address journalism in the digital age. give us briefly your diagnosis of the problem and what the solution should be. sure. i mean, my expertise is really about the question of development of the first amendment in the united states and public policy relating to the press. so that s where that s sort of my lode stone as i think about this. i ve also been connected to the press in a variety of ways, including my father owning, running a small newspaper. and i sit on the board of the washington post companies. i ve w
happened to the media that says it s all worse than it used to be in the golden age of the 70s and 80s is very much one that comes from the news room is of the washington post, the l.a. times, maybe the new york times. it s not necessarily one that comes from what people experience. and something i think about a lot, it s also i think a very coastal even sort of a corridor narrative. i grew up in a small town in northern alberta. what we could read when i was a kid was peace river record gazette, our local paper once a week. listen to cbc. and edmonton journal, delivered at 6:00 at night by greyhound from edmonton. that was it. today, my dad, who s a farmer and very interested in the global story because farmers are all insane futures traders. insane. and they can now actually trade futures from their tractors because they are gps and wi-fi-enabled. so they care a lot about china. he now every morning reads reuters because i run the website. bloomberg. new york t
which was something of a mirage in recent years but let s build something really worthwhile. and, yes, it will take time but it will be built to last rather than as the last recovery was, built on sand. it is difficult. and politics is not easy, obviously. when you are working in coalition, when you are dealing with difficult economic circumstances. but the most important thing is to do the right thing and to do the right thing by the people of this country who want government to think about the long term and not about tomorrow s headlines. just to underline that point, the latest forecasts are for the british government british economy will be a full 11% smaller by 2016 than it would have been if the crash in 2008 had not happened. a full 11% smaller. and no government can wave a magic wand and wish that away. the nature of that cardiac arrest that took place in 2008 just takes some time to recover and it means the economy is smaller than it otherwise would have been. i
maybe the most important one since he s taken office. it will deal with the health issue. tomorrow night at 8:00 eastern on cnn. right now on cnn, john king and ac 360. breaking news tonight in the murder of byrd and melanie billings this is happening literally right now. susan candiotti with the details. police new development in the case. susan? reporter: here is what is new, john. cnn has learned according to a source familiar with the investigation there was a second safe in the house. and that that safe, according to the same source, contained about $100,000. this was believed to be the mother lode, in effect the suspects were after, for whatever reason the suspects were unable to get the money out of the safe. this is significant because up until now we know they recovered a safe from the house that contained only some personal documents, some medication for the children and some family heirloom jewelry. but certainly not something many people thought would be e