Transcripts For CSPAN History Of Journalism Fake News 20240713

California. This is just over an hour. Lets talk about fake news. Joke about thea reporter who asked a tough question of Elizabeth Warren . [laughter] neither have i. But i am a journalist, i run a Journalism Program. I want to plead with all of you not to let 99 of journalists gave the rest a bad name. [laughter] i was looking through some Washington Post headlines recently. My favorite one recently was from last week. This is the headline, this is true, this is an actual headline in the Washington Post last week, it said, cant republicans relearn how to accept political outcomes they do not like you . They do not like . [laughter] that is what the Washington Post was wondering last week. Headline joelious alluded to was when we learned about the killing of the isis leader and did you see the headline the Washington Post gave that . Was, albaghdadi, religious scholar, dies at 48. That was the actual headline in the Washington Post. I do not what your experience was, but that was like the best day ever on twitter. Inventingstarted their obituary headlines. There was one that said, herod the great, noted for his special interest in small children, dies at 77. [laughter] the author brad thor . He put up this one. John wilkes booth, renowned thespian, theater go where, and supporter of states rights, dies at 26. There was this. Vegetarian, landscape painter, and german states minute dies at 56. I think we have too many have their references in our politics. We should avoid them. I have to admit, that made me laugh. Start with a couple lines about the press. Let me read this to you. Is, to acan press fearful extent, and the hands of a cowardly principled class of men, who have no regard for truth and in dealing with what is unpopular, who cater to the low with the passions of the multitude and caricature every movement aiming at the overthrow of established wrong, a destitute of fairness and controversy as they are lacking in selfrespect, and columns are close against any replies that maybe property to their libelous accusations. Does that sound familiar . Somebody said Thomas Jefferson. It is not Thomas Jefferson. It is william boyd garrison. In 1858. Complainingeen about the press for a long time. There is almost nothing more american than complaining about the press. For the next three hours [laughter] i like saying that and seeing the reaction. I will talk about the with anof journalism eye toward x planning the moment we find ourselves in right now. I want to push back against this increasingly popular fairytale that the press used to be better than it is today. In the sense that things were so much better a generation ago. Hadt it wonderful when we a completely objective press that always told the truth . I am hearing that more and more. I am hearing it especially from liberals in the media who are complaining about the mere existence of fox news. I am also hearing it from my own students, who bought into this idea, social media has wrecked everything in journalism and made it worse. I want to push back against that. I think the truth is or complicated. One of the things i want to stay about the state of journalism it has never been worse and also never been better. I will explain that a little as well. Also raise what i think are ,nique challenges for us today both as conservatives and libertarians, but really everybody who is an american who wants to follow the news. A question i like to ask my students at the start of a , what is the purpose of the newspaper . What is the purpose of the newspaper . They will raise their hands and start to give ernest replies about informing the citizens and presenting facts to be public and so forth. These are all good answers and there is some truth in them. What i always say, the purpose of a newspaper is to make money. It is a business. It is a commercial enterprise. We never can lose sight of that fact. Is important to recognize there are some strengths, but also weakness and vulnerability that comes with that when you are in the press. We cannot ever forget it. Downsides to the fact this is a business, you are always chasing after readers and trying to get more of them. Today we hear about click bait. Click bait is simply to get another click the link because it is a provocative headline or picture or whatever because the website will get another nickel for someone having done that. Not even a fraction of a nickel. Click bait. That is all about making money. But journalism has always had a disincentive. Sensationalism. To thise got attached in previous generations. Or yellow journalism. All about selling copies of fibs,pers by telling reporting fake news, etc. It has always been there. The purpose of newspaper is to make money. The incentive has always been there and it has led to abuses of Good Journalism throughout history. I want to go back in time a little and go to the founding era of our country and talk about what journalism was like a little bit then. I will mention three extraordinary journalists and one interesting, colorful journalists from that time. One of the Founding Fathers of journalism in certain ways in our country is ben franklin. Instead of George Washington war,ngton is first in first in peace, persian the heart of his countrymen. Ben franklin is first and everything else. When we think about what makes ben franklin great, what comes to mind . Diplomat. Scientist. Inventor. Politician. All kinds of things he was great at. The first thing he was was a journalist. He was making money printing newspapers and periodicals. This was his business. He was and amusing writer. He published one of the great periodicals in our american history, Poor Richards almanac. These things made him wealthy. That enabled him to go on and do the other things for which we run number him. Ben franklin started as a great journalist. Someone who was a model has you signedd have up for the steve hayes, the dispatch . They got the name from the writings of ben franklin. He is the inspiration for their new media enterprise. Another great journalist from that era is thomas payne. Who wrote common sense. The document that, more than any other, convinced of the colonists to declare independence against the throne in england. Sense as ammon pamphlet. An essay that was published on its own. The pamphlet was a great form of journalism back then. We dont really have pamphlets anymore. In that era, they were publishing their ideas in pamphlets. It was a fantastic medium for debating ideas. Great payne was a practitioner of it at wrote the most influential one in american history. The fourthd us on to of july. Journalist is. Lexander harrington allison or hamilton. The founder of the new york post. He founded the new york post, which is still with us. Allison or hamilton. Also the author of the federalist papers. One of the authors. When we encounter the federalist papers today, when we have to read them in school, they come to us as a book. They were really newspaper our beds. Opeds. Aper john jay wered writing the federalist papers today, they would be opeds. People forget that. They were a central the ratification of because the tuition and reread them and works now. But they were journalism. Within those three great examples, we have ben franklin the printer, a great entertainer and businessman, maybe the first media mogul in american , thealism, thomas payne first great polemicist, Alexander Hamilton, the great journalism. Opinion now i want to introduce you to a guy named james calendar, the first great political hack writer, hacked journalist in american journalist. Story,this colorful which as he came to the United States from scotland, he was an immigrant in the 1790s as a so many journalists were, Alexander Hamilton himself was a immigrant. Into theendar entered news business. Back then, the newspapers or closely allied with Political Parties. The purpose of a lot of newspapers was not to make money, they were subsidized by the parties and the purpose was to present ideas at our their rivals. James calendar signed up for that and became a jeffersonian in the 1790s. We sometimes put the Founding Fathers on a pedestal for all the great things they did and forget the fact that a number of them didnt like each other, they fought with each other. Jefferson versus hamilton was one of the great divides in the early republic. James calendar signed up for the jeffersonian side. He started publishing, writing, so forth. In the early 1790s, he published a pamphlet with a bizarre title. In it, he accused Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of the treasury, of financial impropriety. He basically accused him of abusing his position as treasury secretary to enrich himself through inside trading. He makes this accusation in print. We dont have any copies of the pamphlet he did this in. It appears Alexander Hamilton bought them all and destroyed them. We know what it said, because there was a reaction and people talked about it. We just dont have the original document. What hamilton said in reply was you are wrong, i have not been engaged in insider training, but i have been making payoffs to this figure in new york. Hes been blackmailing me for having an adulterous affair with his wife. So this actually demolished hamiltons reputation. People say he was on track to becoming president , but he never would have recovered from this accusation, which james calendar reported. He did a report precisely what happened, but exposed it through his rumormongering journalism. This partisan hat journalist undid, in many ways, the career of one of the great Founding Fathers. Hamilton remained active in politics, but he was different after that. Calendar goes on and continues writing for the jeffersonian. In the late 1790s, he runs afoul of the sedition act. Essentially, he started writing things so critical of the government and adams administration, that they threw him in prison. He spent a couple of years in prison for having criticized the government in his writing. A lot of people are wondering about freedom of the press at that point. The sedition act expired, Thomas Jefferson was elected our third president , and calendar exited jail at that moment. He came up thinking i spent the 1790s writing and fighting for Thomas Jefferson, i went to jail for his Political Party to advance his ideas, i deserve a sweet political appointment. Jefferson didnt give him one. So calendar switched sides. He went from a jeffersonian attack dog to a federalist attack dog who waged war on the jefferson administration. He moved down to richmond and became the first writer to put in print the allegation that Thomas Jefferson was sleeping with a slave called sally. You probably heard that story, which we are still debating today. Which we still dont know the entire truth about. But he exposed that, also. A partisan attack dog journalist. Is that the biggest scoop of the 19th century . Thats what he did. You dont hear about thomas calendar in many histories of american journalism. He is a disreputable figure. When he reported on jefferson and hemmings, all he had were rumors. He had no proof. He just heard people talking about it, so he leveled the accusation in print. Turns out he may have been right. We dont entirely know. The circumstantial evidence is good. Thats what journalism was like back then, full of fake news and personal attacks, also sometimes truthful, maybe in unexpected ways. As we moved into the 19th century, journalism remain highly partisan. Newspapers remained tied to Political Parties for most of the first half of the 19th century. You see vestiges of this, when you see a newspaper such as the arkansas democrat gazette, the newspaper in little rock, arkansas that has its own connections to the democratic party. In springfield, massachusetts, the springfield republican. I just learned santa rosa, california, there was the santa rosa republican. This is going back to the days when newspapers had these partisan alliances. We had great opinion journalism during this era. We had the fiery abolitionist leader. His newspaper was the great abolitionist paper of the era. Another great journalist was frederick douglass. We all regard him as one of the great champions of human freedom in our country. Most people encountered his work through his newspaper. They read his speeches and work in a newspaper originally called the north star. Kind of nice to have a newspaper named after you after that. What started to happen is with the partisan division, some people had an interesting idea on how to make more money in journalism. That involves the birth of the Associated Press. It publishes wire Service Articles in newspapers around the country. The Associated Press started 15 newspapers in new york decided to pool their resources to cover the mexican war. It would be cheaper to bring resources together and get the same information coming out of mexico. The Associated Press formed to do that. Thats what it did. A few years later, one of the key writers had an insight. He thought we have all of these newspapers that supply information to have the country, and these other newspapers do it for the other half based on partisan information. What if there was a company that sold our articles and information to everybody . The idea was objective journalism, nonpartisan journalism, report whats happening in washington, every paper, no matter what their political alliance, and thats basically what happened. They eliminated a lot of a lot of the over partisanship that dominated american press. A lot of it is still around today. Thats where the idea of objective journalism is born. It picks up steam, especially in the 20th century. Were also dealing with the era of yellow journalism, of hearst and pulitzer, the newspaper wars in new york city. Pulitzer, the most prestigious award in american journalism, is named after that guy. He was one of the biggest yellow journalists in his time, meaning fake news of the 1890s. Arguably, fake news let us us into the spanishamerican war, when the uss maine blew up in the harbor of havana. The accusation spaniards bombed it. It turns out maybe they didnt. Maybe it was just a boiler explosion and a tragedy. We went to war over that. The newspapers led us there. That is fake news, arguably. As this is happening, theres more objective journalism, the idea we are not going to sell to half of the country. It really picks up steam in the 20th century. The New York Times and Washington Post are important forces in this effort. How objective where they really . Back in the days when you could get your news from one of three sources on tv. They were picking their news based on what the New York Times put on its front page that day. Was it as objective as people are claiming . I dont think so. Im reminded of Walter Cronkite, one of the most trusted man in america. He misreported the results of the tet offensive in 1968, and possibly turned americans against the vietnam war permanently based on false information. Walter cronkite, who later said he would have been delighted if George Mcgovern in 1972 asked him to be his Vice President ial running mate. For member how much trouble mcgovern had with his running mate . He finally wanted up with sargent shriver. That was the most leftwing ticket in american history, at least for 2008. Mcgovern actually thought about asking Walter Cronkite onto the ticket, then decided not to, because he thought he would say no. Years later when this came out and someone told Walter Cronkite what he thought, cronkite would have taken him up in a second. He would have joined the most leftwing ticket in the 20th century. How objective is that . On we go. Im reminded of all the president s men. Terrific movie. Its also had a bad effect on journalism. It encourages a lot of young people to go into journalism who thought the purpose of journalism was to bring down a government. Theres always been an adversarial side to journalism. You have to be willing to ask hard questions. That is all true. It brought in a crusader element to journalism. A lot of people in that era swept away by woodward and bernstein portrayed on film. Its a terrific movie, a fun movie to watch. They got swept away thinking it was the job of journalism, to bring down a government. They went in and started to think that way and influence that way. If you think im overstating things, do you remember dan rather in 2004 with blogger gate . The successor to walter contrite cronkite, one of three people who the majority of americans got their news in the 80s and 90s. Putting the bs back in cbs. They called it blogger gate, because these accusations were reported that president george w. Bush dodged his military service. A very serious charge in the heat of an election season. It came out in like september of 2004. The kind of charge that if true, would have ended a presidency, and maybe should have, if true. He reported it as fact, then the bloggers found out the truth. They started looking at the precise claims and figured out things like the letter dan rather was showing us couldnt possibly be an actual document from the era, because it had a zip code, and we were not using zip codes back then. Theres all kinds of forensic evidence bloggers were bringing in to the argument. Eventually, it ended dan rathers career, as it should have. [applause] but, if that had happened 10 years earlier, when no one knew what a blogger was, what kind of effect would that have had . I dont trust this idea that the president was once subjective a generation ago. I think it was the opposite. They claim to be, but it wasnt true. The dan rather episode proves it more than anything else. What made that possible for people to fight back on the way they did was the rise of the internet. This great Disruptive Force that had supposedly divided us more than anything else, that made americans scream at each other on social media. This was happening amid a bigger breakup of the mainstream media. We had the rise of talk radio in the late 80s and exploding in the 90s, when they repealed the fairness doctrine and we had the rise of talk radio, a new medium that was dominated. Then we had fox news. Then we had the internet. Suddenly there are a lot of different voices, conservative and libertarian, that warrant in the mainstream media, and we could hear them all. This drove the left crazy. Lets not fool ourselves into believing the media was really great 30 years ago, was reporting only the facts, everything was subjective. When i came out of college in 1992 as a right of center young writer thinking about competitive journalism as a nifty career, where does someone like that go work in 1992 . There was a National Review and i eventually got a job. There was the wall street journal editorial page, and human events. That was about it. There were regional editorial pages, but options were limited. Now theres this whole ecosystem of conservative news and commentary, you know the names. Anything from the Washington Examiner to the daily caller, the daily signal, the daily wire. On and on we go. There are a lot of places to get information from. A lot of places for Young Conservatives to work if they want jobs in the media. Today, we have an unprecedented access to information. When i first got to washington in 1992, if you wanted a copy of the speech yesterday by the senator, you would have to call the senate office, hope to get on the phone with a press secretary, begged that person to fax the transcripts, and stand by the fax machine, wait for the thing to come off in that weird scrolling paper it came in. This was like the afternoon. He required the cooperation of other people. You couldnt just do it on your own. Now you can look up the speech and have it in 10 seconds. Its a power journalists and all of you have, and ability to learn whats happening, what people are saying that we didnt have a generation ago. The conventional point is to say this is a type of technology we have, computers in our pockets, but its also worth stepping back and expressing gratitude about this fact that we have this amazing power, that most of us are old enough to have been adults when there was no internet. We remember the world as adults without internet. I like it better now. Would it means is we have instant access to information, a lot of it good, accurate, and reliable, and a lot misleading. I prefer this world to the other one. I like this option better than the alternative. It has a lot of problems, but a lot of benefits. Thats true for conservatives and libertarians. We have a bigger voice in the media. Its easier to get our ideas out. It has never been easy, its not easy now. Weve never had a better opportunity to do that sort of thing. I welcome this environment in which we find ourselves. Its an improvement over the one that came forth. We also have a lot of new threats, calls for censorship, we hear them on campus all the time. We also hear them from journalists who call for limits to free speech. There is a journalist who just published a book called the case against free speech. If a journalist cant stand up for free speech, what we have left, calls for twitter and facebook to censor content. This is a thing to resist. One of my favorite accounts on twitter, a satire account, the dprk news service, the peoples north korea. It is a saturday or account that has comments on political events in the u. S. And around the world. About one year ago, it tweeted calls for prohibition of fake news in west show wisdom of marshall kim jongun, dprk citizens enjoy total protection from false journalism. I can live with foster nose and. It does put a burden on us when there is so much out there. Would it means is we have to know our sources like never before. We have to be careful about what we read, what we trust. Have your relieved something because you heard it on the internet . We are all a little skeptical, but we have to be skeptical constantly about what we hear. We need to recognize good news sources and questionable news sources, what is not to be trusted. Thats a burden we have to take on. We also have to know our language, there are tremendous abuses of language. Heres something i read last week in the wall street journal. A great newspaper, my favorite in the country because of the editorial pages. On the front page of they have their news briefs. Heres what one of them said last week. Iranian conservatives on monday celebrate the 40th anniversary of the u. S. Embassy se siege. Iranian conservatives. These are the islamic revolutionaries, and we are calling them conservatives. When the media talks about other countries, conservatives are always the bad guys. This was a point of tremendous confusion when i was a teenager. Growing up in the 1980s, reading accounts about the soviet union, and hearing about conservatives in the kremlin, they were hardliners, the worst guys. They wanted to go back to stalin. I remember being 15 and reading about this and thinking i thought reagan was a conservative, shouldnt he be friendly . Conservatives are always the bad guys, everywhere. They always do that. Here it is. The wall street journal referring to iranian conservatives. There is a kernel of truth, in the sense that maybe theyre the most conservative of a fundamentalist belief in islam. I think the term is deliberately used and misused to confuse people. We need to watch our language very carefully. That brings me to george orwell. Another great journalist. We think of him as a novelist, the author of animal farm, and he was those things. He was his whole life a journalist. He made his living by writing for newspapers and magazines as a literary journalist and so forth. His Great Success came at the end of his life, but he spent his life in journalism. I have heard him called every conservatives favorite liberal, and every liberals favorite conservative. He was a highly political writer. Its hard to find political writers who are admired across the political spectrum. He is one of them. His politics were a little bit confusing at times. He did maintain his whole life he was a socialist. The best description is antitotalitarian. Widely admired by all kinds of people. He wrote a book in the 30s called the homage catalonia. In his lifetime, it sold like 700 copies. It is his memoir of the spanish civil war. When spain was having a civil war in a proxy battle between fascism and communism, he went to fight on the side of the socialists and joined a militia. He got shot in the neck and was nearly killed. When it was over, he wrote his memoir. It was in spain that he recognized he had enemies to his left, that the stalinists were up to no good in spain, communists were up to no good, they were enemies of freedom. It was the first time he had that realization. This book is essential in his own political development. It allowed him to write the other books we all admire so much. He has a great line where he has just met a russian propagandist who has come to spain to spread communist ideas and so forth. I watched him with some interest, the first time i had seen a person whose profession was telling lies, unless one counts journalists. He was used to fake news, he encountered it all the time. He thought every reporter was getting the spanish civil war wrong. He thought the british reading public got misinformation constantly about what was really happening. It changed the way he thought about it. He went on to write a lot. One of his great essays is politics in the english language. I have all of my students read it. I think i had garrison read it twice in different classes. I make all of my students in journalism read this essay, because it is a great document about truth telling and the way we often manipulate language in politics. What he fundamentally says his language should be a tool used to communicate the truth. All too often what happens is we become tools of language, and language controls the way we think. This is why cliches are bad, because there are phrases we haul out to express in a lazy fashion. He says in politics, it is particularly deadly. The idea finds itself in his novel, speaking in 1984 and all of that. In this essay, he has this discussion about all of the ways to abuse language. We are doing it right now, when the Associated Press, whose history i briefly recounted, a few years ago said in the ap style guide, the style guide that dictates how 98 of all journalists right, the style guide says we will no longer use the term illegal alien. Because people cant be illegal and so on. Tell me that is not a political choice, not a choice meant to shape the way we debate these subjects, because it is. Its an example of using language to control how we think, saying you cant use that term to describe this thing, because it may influence what you think. Thats what they are about, tremendous abuse of power. That happens in our own world. Orwell has some great examples. Uses the word pacification. Remember what pacification was in vietnam . The word pacify means to bring peace to. When we were pacifying in vietnam, we were bringing war to it. It is the exact opposite of what the word means. We do it in politics all the time. When the word is the exact opposite of the thing it describes. It controls what we think about it. In that context, it means bringing war. We have other examples, is everybody against the death tax . Most americans are against the death tax. If you pull them on the estate tax, they are for that. It is the same. If you change the question, you change the opinion. Everybody is against the death tax, because it is abortion, whenever a state legislature in alabama or georgia passes a new law, what word do they use . A restriction. A new restriction, new abortion restriction. That is probably a fair limitingon, living a right to abortion. It is a restriction. They never call it a protection. What perspective are they writing from . Its an example of how language controls what we think about in debates. Need to be sensitive, hypersensitive to the way we talk about these issues, read about them, how journalists describe them, so the language of politics doesnt control what we think. Time,as true in orwells was true in James Callenders time, Alexander Hamilton, unfair to people when they die. Everybody is for the estate tax, because it sounds like you are soaking the man. If you are so wealthy you have an estate, certainly you can share a little bit of it. It is the same. Our view changes depending on what term we use. The politicians know this. The journalists dont always know it. When they do, they sometimes abuse it. Next time you hear a story on the death tax, estate tax, take a look at what term the journalist is using, how it might shape what people think about that whole debate. The debate surrounding abortion, whenever a state legislature in alabama or georgia passes a new law, what word do they use . A restriction. A new restriction, new abortion restriction. That is probably a fair description, living limiting a right to abortion. It is a restriction. They never call it a protection. What perspective are they writing from . Its an example of how language controls what we think about in debates. We need to be sensitive, hypersensitive to the way we talk about these issues, read about them, how journalists describe them, so the language of politics doesnt control what we think. That was true in orwells time, was true in James Callenders time, Alexander Hamilton, and true in our time now. I will leave you with one final thought about the burden on all of us as we think about free speech. Another story about Alexander Hamilton. There are like 84 federalist papers. They say almost nothing about free speech. Thats partly because Alexander Hamilton didnt think we needed a bill of rights. He thought the constitution was a pretty good document. He resisted the idea of a bill of rights. You all probably know the story, we got a bill of rights partly as a mechanism of compromise in order to have the constitution ratified. Once we had the bill of rights, people were comfortable enough to endorse the document and it became supreme law of our land. Hamilton didnt think we needed it. In federalist 1980 80 4, 1 of the last ones, he does address the question of free speech and freedom of the press and all of that. He says it doesnt matter what any document says, what any amendment says, theres another line about parchment barriers, just because you write something down, how important is it . What he said in this context, it doesnt matter what an amendment to the constitution or bill of rights will say about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, anything like that. What matters is whether the people really want it. If they do, they will get it. If they dont, they wont get it. Its all on the people, not what the constitution says or doesnt say. I think hes right. Im also glad there is a first amendment. Im glad they went ahead and made that compromise, just in case. Thats what he said, and i think its true. We will have free speech and freedom of the press if we want it. We will still get fake news. We will get a lot of on fake news if we are vigilant and care about what we consume. With that, in conclusion, i will say epstein didnt kill himself. [applause] thank you so much. Those lucky students. What a great storyteller you are. We know the drill, we see the ushers with the cards walking around. I have one to get us going. There is one question, it works out well. He started your comments with what newspapers need to make money, because they are a business. How is a nonprofit News Organization like npr, and nonprofit has different definitions, does it distort the market for the news and reporting of the news . The purpose of a newspaper is to make money. It is a business. Its often been a moneylosing business. There have often been people involved in the news not because they want to make money, but because they want to influence. You will find Newspaper Publishers who are ok with taking losses in order to have a platform. It is the same today with these new nonprofit News Organizations. Npr being one of them, also some investigative reporting units raising Foundation Dollars to report the news. There is an agenda behind it. We need to be aware of that. Bill buckley always said National Review was for many years of forprofit magazine. Everybody kind of laughed at that. Bill buckley says it exists to make a point, not a prophet. He was willing to sustain losses in order to do it. It was technically a business for many years, now it is owned by a nonprofit. This is almost the opposite approach. What is here opinion of expanding the libel laws against newspapers and journalists where there is a thing of too i kind of like american libel laws, where they are weak. When i read about the uses of libel laws in other countries, like the u. K. , it gives me the shivers sometimes the way that can be abused. I like our libel laws that require real malfeasance, in other words, not a mere mistake and gross error at the same time. We spoke about the power of language, whether you are restricting, protecting, how do we fight those who describe thanksgiving as Indigenous Peoples day . I hear that more connected to columbus day, but what do you do . We keep calling it thanksgiving, or columbus day, and use it by that name. Indigenous peoples day strikes me as something a few people on campus want. Heres a technical question. Somebody would like you to repeat the name of orbitals essay. Politics in the english language. You will find it in any collection of George Orwells essays, because it is the most important he ever wrote. It is also free on the internet. You can look it up and get it that way. It has great general writing tips that are really good, and the second half is all about politics. I will tell you another quick story. When i was working fulltime with National Review, in 1999 or something, we wanted to put together a list of the 100 most important nonfiction books of the 20th century. 1999, everyone was making their 20th century lists. We wanted to do the 100 most important nonfiction books in the 20th century. We convened a panel of experts, historians, scholars, and other people. They were of the National Review flavor. The liberals were going to have their list, and we would make one of our own. I ran this project. We sent ballots to people, we had numbers, all of these equations and complicated scoring system. We tallied the results, the 100 most important nonfiction books of the 20th century. What do you think was number one . I havent heard it. It was Winston Churchills second world war, the six volume memoir of the second world war. Number two was the gulags are blago by social neeson, his story of the gulags in the soviet union. Number 3 that was on the list, but not in the top 10. Number three was a no match to catalonia. I remember getting that result. I had heard of the book, it has become it has really risen to great posthumous fame. Number four was road to serfdom. Number five was George Orwells collected essays. He was two of the top five. Not bad. You commented the press was biased towards attacking president ial power. Where were they during the Obama Administration . [laughter] we are still looking. Theyre currently on the campaign trail with the democratic president ial candidates. Theres a quote liberals go into journalism to change the world. What motivates conservative kids to enter the field . Not enough do. John m. R. I. He put this in a good way when we were talking about this at dinner. Our first team, the best and brightest conservative and libertarian kids, what do they do professionally . They go into business, maybe law may be engineering, medicine. Thats what they do. Where does their first team go . They do some of those things. They go into academia, they go into journalism and the media. First of all, not enough conservatives and libertarian kids are going into journalism. Ultimately, thats the solution to the problem of liberal media bias, to get more and different perspectives into the newsroom. Thats what were trying to do with the Journalism Program at hillsdale college, also the college fix, and through other programs. It is hard to do. Wire those kids doing it . I would like to think that although some are idealistic and want to change the world, be a force for good, i would like to think they want to be Truth Tellers and go out and find Great Stories to convey to the rest of us. I hope thats what motivates most of them. We talked before about all through history, journalism, and reporters would maybe put a spin on story. Its not so with the stories are telling, but what they are not telling. The fact a lot of stories are ignored by the mainstream media. Is there a precedent for that . One of the most important phenomenon to recognize is you read an article and maybe you will detect a bias, but prior to the article is the question of what stories we are going to cover. Are we going to treat benghazi as an Important News story, or use our judgment that it doesnt matter much . There are tons of stories that dont get covered and we never hear about, or we hear about them only in certain places. The abortion doctor, who reported on that . Not the mainstream media. They didnt report on that. Thats not a news story. Boy was that a crime story. Thats what that was. Indisputably. I dont care if you are prochoice. At any rate, story selection is where the bias begins. What stories are they choosing to tell . All the news is fit to print . No. They print what they want and it starts at assignment meetings. A Good Platform for news every day. Separately, we offer internship programs, we try to place the most talented and eager at professional News Organizations where they can try out a career in the media and decide if they like it. We are trying to excite them about which is true, and if you are intellectually curious, this is a great light of work, and, in fact, you can make a decent living doing it, rumors to the contrary. There are jobs, and if you really want one, it is there for you. Ok. You mentioned from our history, who do you think are the most influential journalists of the 1700s . Of the 1700s . So i will tell you who my favorites were. Jonathan swift. You have heard of him, right . Gullivers travels. He was a journalist. He had a couple of jobs. He was an anglican bishop. Modest proposal. Has anyone read modest proposal, the greatest in satire in american english . It was a pamphlet, like thomas payne is common sense, about how to deal with the like Thomas Paynes common sense, about how to deal with poverty. It is such a good and compelling argument, we are still reading it today, so i will go with jonathan swift, and then i will say ben franklin, 1700s. Ben franklin, he was a very funny writer. Also, a master of the quip, the epigram. A lot of these stock phrases, early to bed, early to rise. That is ben franklin. No pain, no gain, ben franklin wrote that. What he was doing back then, a highly, highly readable journalist. Would you care to comment on how some journalists would like to make themselves the story . Jim acosta. Has that had an effect on the profession, or is there are a lot of journalists who like to be a part of the story. When that is done well, you get someone like tom wolfe, sort of the new journalism, that can be done well. Often, it is done poorly, and you get you get people who want to be stars as opposed to writers and Truth Tellers and make spectacles of themselves, and jim acosta is probably the biggest contemporary abuser of that. You must have access to people of other academic institutions that do what you do. Do you feel like they try to teach journalists to be more neutral or show both sides, or is it just damper torpedoes, full speed ahead to the left . Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead to the left . There is a Mission Statement which i read and i believe in. And so, we started doing things that i thought made sense, and one of the things we do that i think is essential is you learn journalism by doing journalism. In other words, we do not want kids sitting in the classrooms, hearing lectures from me. They get a little bit of that, but we mostly want them working on the campus newspaper and working at the campus radio station, because we want the experience to become the teacher, and journalism is a thing you learn by doing. It is like a trade that way, less a prevention and more of a trade when you think of it that way less a profession and more of a trade when you think of it that way. I do a history of journalism class, and intensive writing workshop. You do intensive things. We also push them out and have them engage in the practice. The other thing we do at hillsdale, journalism is not a major. It is a minor, and that has it it is proper place. Journalism should be a major nowhere, and one of the great things about hillsdale, the students will come and will major in a tradition academic subject, learning about biology or economics and history, and they can bring that into the profession with them when they are a journalist, as opposed to being a journalism major, and not knowing much about those subjects. I will give you a quick story. A few years ago, i had a young lady. She was a freshman, and she came into my office, and i asked her the question i always ask these people, what do you want to do when you grow up . What job do you want after college, five years or 10 years after college . And she said, i want to be a wall street journal reporter, which is amazingly precise, but i was delighted to hear that, because i thought i could work with this. What do you think she should major in . Journalism . Ok, so she went on and majored in economics. She minored in journalism. She became the editor of our paper, which, by the way, the Princeton Review called the number three College Newspaper in all of america. [applause] thank you, even though garrison no longer writes for it, and, i am not done, yes where she is working today . Erika the wall street journal. A Great Success story. Do you have any comments on international press, bbc, sky news . Yeah, i do not read a lot of the british press. I do get some british newspapers from time to time. I like the guardian a lot, which is kind of a left of center, and i enjoy their cultural reporting, and open but the telegraph, which is a right of center, also good, harder to read. Their pay wall is tougher to penetrate. And i will say this, but i do not have a lot of experience with the foreign press, and i will say one thing. I hope we can get into the habit of paying for journalism again, right . Over the last generation, we have gotten the idea that journalism is free, right, that you can Read Everything online for nothing, and newspapers and magazines are trying to figure out how to solve this problem, how to get people to pay for good writing again, and National Review has been doing this. The wall street journal is mostly behind a pay wall right now, and if you want Good Journalism, and you recognize the fact that the purpose of a newspaper is to make money, if you want Good Journalism, youre going to have to pay for it again, and i hope you are willing to, because if you do not, you will not get it. So maybe that is a thing to think about area if you let your hometown so maybe that is a thing to think about. If you let your hometown newspaper subscription lapse, which i did a few years ago, because the quality was diminishing. Is there something i can subscribe to that you find rewarding . I would love to see us get into the habit of that again. I find it amusing. I will post an article of mine on twitter, something i have written for the National Review or other, and someone will say, i cannot read it. It is behind the pay wall, and the implication is, how dare you do Something Like that, and i always say, well, have you considered a subscription, but i would like to see us pay for journalism again. Earlier, we were speaking a fair amount about Alexander Hamilton. Have you seen the musical, and if so, what did you think . I have not, but i gather it deals with the affair. Is that correct . Yes, so i have heard that. Is james calendar a character . I heard a no and a yes, so the answer is i do not know, but the play hamilton does deal with that controversy. There is a book by it is a novel by a late New York Times columnist william safire, and you guys might remember him. He died but was a great columnist for the New York Times, and this was about the journalism of this period, and it talks about the hamilton affair. It talks about jefferson and hemmings and james calendar is a major character, so it is a work of fiction and takes some liberties with what happened, but it is actually safire is very conscientious to stick to the facts of history as we know them, and he sort of rights in the silences and uses his imaginations writes in the silences and uses his imagination and gives us an idea of what that period was like. 95 of the news media is owned by six corporations. Is there too much amalgamation . We all understand the benefit of consolidating from a financial point of view, but does that have an effect, perhaps . I have not heard that figure, so i would want to fact check that, frankly, but i dont know. I do think it should be easier for tv stations too newspapers and vice versa. I think that would be good for the health of the media, and right now, there are some rules against that. That is a law it is an attempt to restrict this sort of concentrations of power and influence, but i think, given the state of the media, it might be good to let some experimentation with that take place. I would be for a little more consolidation, but i am spit balling here. If you only had half an hour a day to get your national news, what are the top three news sources you would recommend . So i read the wall street journal every day. I especially like the editorial section, but i read the whole thing. I checked out National Review, partly because it is my employer, but i think it is a good product. Especially, the magazine, i think, is very good, and i read the New York Times every day. I like to know what it is saying. I also think it is reporting on science and Foreign Affairs and several other subjects is quite good, and it remains, for all of its problems, it remains a Great American newspaper that we cannot ignore, so those are three stops i make every day. Ok. Nice wrap up. Thank you very much for coming, john miller. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] the impeachment of president trump. Continue to follow the process on cspan leading to a senate trial. Live, unfiltered coverage on cspan, on demand at cspan. Org impeachment and listen on the free cspan radio app. Campaign 2020. Watch our coverage live of the president ial candidates on the campaign trail and make up your own mind. Your unfiltered view of politics. Now toake you live hudson, New Hampshire where democratic president ial candidate Tulsi Gabbard is expected to speak at a town hall event. She is currently polling at just over 5 in the Granite State putting her in fifth place. Announced shee would not seek reelection for her house the in order to focus on the president ial campaign. This is live coverage on cspan. [applause] the song made famous, by this is called the big rock candy mountain. This is not a hawaiian song. Consideredbe americana, talking about traveling around this nation. One evening when the sun went down and the jungle fires were burning heading for a land thats far away beside the crystal fountains, come with me, well go and see the big rock candy mountains in candy mountains theres a land thats fair and bright where the handouts grow on bushes and you sleep out every night where the boxcars are all empty and the sun shines every day theres birds and bees and the cigarette trees the Lemonade Springs where the bluebird sings in the big rock candy mountains in the big rock candy mountains as we wait for Tulsi Gabbard s town hall in hudson, New Hampshire, here is a look at this weeks newsmakers with the president of the Border Patrol agentss union. You can watch the full interview tomorrow on cspan. Just how bad of a problem is it . How widespread are these cartels along the border . Nothing crosses the border illegally, it does not matter if it is individuals coming across the order to claim asylum, narcotics, counterfeit goods, nothing crosses the southwest border illegally without the sayso of criminal cartels. They control every single facet of illegal crime on the border. These cartels operate in every single town on the southwest border, and they are very violent, very dangerous. All you have to do is look at the murder rate in mexico to understand how bad it is. The United States Intelligence Community has estimated criminal control somewhere around 80 of the country, in mexico right now. That is on the highend. There are lower estimates. But even if you go lower, the fact criminal cartels control any part of mexico should be concerning, and it makes everything very dangerous. Thats one reason Border Patrol agents get so frustrated with politicians who say its ok for people to cross the border illegally. They are encouraging, politicians are encouraging a very vulnerable segment of the population in south america to put themselves in the hands of criminal cartels. These individuals at times are raped, enslaved, even murdered by the cartels, all because we dont enforce our laws the way they are written and we glamorize illegal activity rather than, sorry, we glamorize illegal activity and we vilify our Border Patrol agents rather than going after the cartels. Full newsmakers interview tomorrow morning at 10 00 a. M. Eastern and again at 6 00 p. M. On cspan. Hudson,e are live from New Hampshire where democratic president ial candidate Tulsi Gabbard will speak to voters at a town hall event. The hawaii representative is currently pulling at 5 in the state, in fifth place. Cspan. Live coverage on with the chrome heart shining in the sun, long may you run it was back in blind river in 1962, i last saw you alive ship, on the that long decline, long may you run. May you you run, long changes have the come with your chrome heart shining runhe sun, long may you as we are waiting for is thisbbard, here mornings washington journal. Authors weekof our series where we feature authors from all sides of the political spectrum on key Public Policy issues of the day. Joining us to talk about her columnisthor and Jackie Gingrich cushman. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. Our broken america what prompted you to write this book . Both sides need to stop ranting and start listening. I am very concerned about our political environment. My husband and i have two children who are now 20 and 18 and i am concerned about the environment they are growing up in. I think its important we learn to disagree agreeably. We need to talk about issues important to our country, in a way that makes progress and not screaming at each other. Host you are the daughter of former House Speaker newt gingrich. What was that childhood like, and tell me about what you want people to take from this book . Guest absolutely. Im newts younger daughter. I have a sister who is 3. 5 years older. People ask, what was it like to be newts daughter . The truth is, its all i have ever known. He began in politics when i was very young. We lived in a rural town in georgia, where he was a professor, and the first two times he ran for congress, he lost. And this is in the 1970s, so a different world than we are in today. No social media, no internet. We couldnt afford any tv out of atlanta, so most of the campaign was done in the car on the road, with the family. So i spent a lot of time campaigning, learned a lot about those two defeats, and what it means, i talk about this in the book. After my dad lost, one of the School Administrators said to me he was glad my father lost. Im not sure he was telling a child that, but i learned a lot from those lessons. We can talk more about it, but it has in so many ways framed the way i think about life and politics. Host so your entire Life Experience comes out of this book. To takeyou want people away after they finish reading . Guest to really have a chance to move forward in this country, we have to do it very thoughtfully. My husband and i live in atlanta now. We do a couple things. First of all, we focus on community, on problems in our community we care about. For us and for our family, its homelessness, its early education, its the environment and also church. We spent time working on those issues with people from anywhere in the political spectrum. We dont care if you are republican or democrat. We make progress together. You can have your own political identity, but it doesnt have to be all of who you are. That, you have to get out and get active in the community. Host i want to read a little from your book here, our broken america. People from all political stripes are worried about the high level of polarization, and youve probably noticed its virtually impossible to have a civil discussion about politics. I the past, all too often steered conversations away from politics to avoid getting trapped in political discussion. This polarization has become so prevalent, it has silenced people and stop them from engaging with each other. Give me a situation where you have had to steer things away from politics because it got too polarized . Guest i am unusual because my father is newt gingrich. I went through a program last year, a year and a half ago called leadership atlanta, and during the program i didnt tell anyone who my dad was, because i knew once they knew, it would change their opinion of me. So i was careful not to let anyone know. Some people found out, but even after the program was over many people were surprised i was newts daughter. We prejudge, and this happens on both sides. Its really interesting. Almost half of republicans and democrats dislike the other side without knowing who they are. And in addition to that, 64 of democrats and 55 of republicans have few or no friends on the opposite side. So, what happens is we kind of selfselect ourselves by party, and what this means is we begin to hate each other, without even knowing one another, and thats the real problem. Host what is a quick solution you see for that . You talk about this in your book, but one thing you can tell us really quickly that will get us past this . Guest the first thing to do, find someone of the opposite party and go to lunch with them, learn about them as a person, not about someone you hear about on whatever media you listen to. If you have someone who lives in new england, a democrat who watches msnbc, somebody else, a republican who lives in the south and watches fox news, they have two worldviews that really dont intersect at all. But if they can get out of that, meet one another, maybe have a discussion over lunch, it makes a difference, when you begin seeing people as people versus somebody labeled as another party. Host i want to bring up the public agenda pull here poll, where they ask people the best way to understand the opposite Political Party. 27 of republicans, and 21 of democrats say the best way to understand the opposite Political Party is what you say, knowing someone who is a republican or democrat. 15 of republicans, 25 of democrats say the best way to understand the opposite Political Party is through the news media. 4 of republicans and 6 of democrats say the best way to understand someone of the opposite Political Party is through social media. 31 of republicans, 23 of democrats say they dont have a good way. Almost a third of people say that theres not a good way to understand people of differing political opinions. Where does that leave america . Guest i think it is sad. You raise a great point. We are a country, we have free speech, the ability to elect officials, the ability to talk and believe whatever we want, but we need to use that. We need to engage in it these hard discussions and not take it personally. Unfortunately, a few things that happened, and i talk about them, have really created a really unhealthy environment. I call it the fortification of politics. We have Political Parties, colors versus ideology. The ideology has pulled apart from both parties. Because of that, people think of themselves as belonging to a team, blue team, red team, versus the belief system underneath it. We have gone to this transitional phase where we really need to step out of it, and learn how to really talk and listen to one another. Host lets let our viewers join the conversation. We will open up regular lines for this segment. That means that if you are a republican and want to talk about our broken america without guest, you can call in at if you are a democrat, we want to hear from you at and independents, your line is keep in mind that you can always text us, at and we are always reading on social media, twitter, and facebook. The places you point out in your book thats a problem is, could be, is the media. I want to read a little bit from your book again, where you say gone are the days of real, unbiased, factbased news. Now on our airways and screens are dominated by opinion label as news. It is sad that people often dont know the difference between news and opinion. The media are partly to blame for the devolution of news into infotainment. Opinion based news has a place, but we have to understand the difference between facts and opinions. Tell me what you are talking about their. Guest when i was growing up, probably when you were growing up, there was a short newshour where they delivered straight to camera, is what happened today. And then we would all see it and talk about it the next day. Now instead you have not only long shows, 24 hour shows, 24 hour news channels that are really more opinion. They dont talk about what has happened, but they talk about their opinion of what has happened. Theres nothing wrong with that, as long as people that are watching it understand it is opinion, and not factbased. For me personally, i often watch a variety of news channels, a variety of ways to get information, so i understand the different biases. The challenge is, when people look at those opinion shows and dont understand the bias in that show itself. Host i have to ask you, where do you get your news . When people asked me where i get my news, i tell them a watch i watch a bunch of different news stations and read a bunch of newspapers. Guest i read anything from the New York Times washington and theashington post Atlanta Journal constitution. Msnbc,watch cnn, fox and but very little tv. I am a columnist. I write a column every week for creative syndicate. When i am researching for my column, i tried to find as many source documents as i can, the original transcript of the speech, transcript of the call, the actual source document of whatever happened, the bill that was passed. I think its really important when people talk about things to really get down to the original document of what happened. Host heres another little bit from the poll i want to bring up. Americans whod promotes mostly destructive debates, National Politicians were on top, and then social media, and then news media at 59 . How can we change the conversation among political leaders looking to get elected and reelected . Guest i think its a real challenge. You make a great point, when someone is trying to get reelected, part of what they talk about his partisan politics. But a couple things. First of all, i talk about this, in the end what people want from leaders is an optimistic view of the future. To do that, we need to think about our country and what it means, and have someone who articulates the future for all americans. I will give you, for instance, one of my favorite quotes is from margaret thatcher. First you need to win the argument, and then you need to win devote. All too often today we have politicians trying to win the vote without trying to win the argument. Winning the argument doesnt mean screaming at the other side and telling them how terrible they are. To win the argument, you really have to listen to the other side, to understand what they care about, and articulate your position in such a way that they understand where you are going, and want to join you. Its a very different model. Host lets let viewers join in. Lets start with mitchell, calling from new jersey, democratic line. Good morning. Caller good morning to you. Good morning, ms. Cushman. Getpreciate the need to along with people of different Political Parties. I just spent the holidays with my motherinlaw, who is an avid republican. I spent Christmas Eve with also a bunch of trump supporters, and i grew up with people who were republicans. But under no circumstances in my ofd do i want to make a kind false equivalency argument that their political positions are equally based. They are not, in my mind, and probably not in the minds of republicans either. I dont give it any weight. Im saying politically now, i think they need to be shut down, and i will do what i can to ensure that happens in the next election period. I think the whole impeachment process right now we are engaged thes also sto to set upo fall of the republicans, because they arent going to remove trump. Thats a very real thing. Talking about shutting people down in debate, i used to coach debate in high school and i would have my kids learn both sides of the argument. But what we are seeing, chants of locking people up. Even your father when he was on, running for office, had a very stern tone that was shutting down the other side, even yelling at moderators on talk shows. You are right, we need to get along as people, and i understand what you are saying about that. Need to understand arguments better and filter the news sources better. But at the end of the day, not equal,ing is absolutely their side is this and ours is that and there is a perfect middle. Guest so, im trying to find what the question was. [laughter] maybe you can help me with that. Yes, some people have their own perspectives, but thats part of the process in our country. We, i keep telling people, if you go to a country where everyone has the same opinion and they believe the same thing, go to cuba, russia, somewhere where you have to believe what the government believes. That is not our country. That has never been our country. So im not saying you have to agree with my side, or i need to agree with your side. Thats the point of the book, that we need to have these discussions and understand that they are policy discussions and not personal discussions, and thats where it gets really hard. Host a lot of us have just finished holidays with our family, and those discussions theonly go on, but at dinner table for the holidays. If you cant have civil discussions at home, how do you have them in public . Guest first of all, let me twel you, my husband and i, i call it a mixed marriage from a political standpoint. My father is a former speaker of the house, newt gingrich, obviously you know hes republican. As mitchell mentioned earlier, he is and was outspoken and continues to be, so we know where he comes from. Im republican as well, clearly a little different tone. My husbands family, his grandfather was philip alston, now passed away, but wasnt bassett or to australia under ambassador to australia under president jimmy carter, and was a carter supporter when jimmy carter ran for governor of georgia. Democratic family, very involved in politics. So when we began dating and got serious and became engaged, we were quite nervous about having my father meet his family, in particular his grandmother who was still alive then, the matriarch of the family. But i have to tell you, they did. And theygether, got along famously. Did not agree on politics or policy all the time, but got along so well that my father told my grandmother in law before making the announcement he would run for president , and assured him that even though hes a republican, she would support him. Your question about conversations at the dinner table, my suggestion is to be quiet and listen to the other side, and at least if you dont agree, you will begin to understand why they believe what they do. Host i want to read a little onm the gallup opoll polarization. Reading this, it surprised me because the author says there is a good part of polarization. A strong emotional allegiance t political and ideological Reference Group can have positive effects for individuals who gain meaning and purpose in life from social solidarity with an ingroup railing against threatening enemies. Partisan us versus them perspectives are easier for many individuals to handle cognitively than complex approaches to issues and situations that attempt to take into account multiple pluses and minuses, and there are real economic benefits for businesses looking to take advantage and monetize behavior of emotionally driven partisans seeking reinforcement of their views. So there are some good things to partisan polarization, right . Guest i had not seen that. Thank you for bringing that up. Very fascinating. So, a couple of things, and i talk about this in our broken america. One of the things that happened in the last few decades, we have become less religious as a nation. While we are very spiritual and fewere in god, there are of us who belong to a religion and go every week. Additionally, if you look at people who does notsomebody who follow the current. Thespeaks up, and has strength to do that. I believe her to be a very strong voice in the white house to be able to become a beacon for democracy and decency in the white house. So i am very gra