PBS NewsHour - 2008-10-29
Channel: malgent
Transcript
Language: English (original, YouTube automatic captions)
[0:10] Good evening. I'm Jim Lara. On the
[0:12] NewsHour Tonight, the news of this
[0:14] Wednesday. Then a report on the Federal
[0:16] Reserve decision to cut interest rates.
[0:18] Two politics stories. what the
[0:21] presidential candidate said today and a
[0:23] look at potential voting problems at the
[0:25] polls. An update on the fighting in
[0:28] Afghanistan by New York Times
[0:30] correspondent John Burns and a media
[0:33] unit report on the revolution and how we
[0:36] get the word.
[0:39] Major funding for the NewsHour with Jim
[0:42] Ler is provided by
[0:45] >> The world is changing and how we use
[0:48] energy today cannot be how we'll use it
[0:51] tomorrow. There is no one solution. It's
[0:55] not simply more oil, more renewables or
[0:58] being more efficient.
[1:00] It's all of it. Our way of life depends
[1:03] on developing all forms of energy and to
[1:06] use less of it. It's time to put our
[1:09] differences aside. Will you be part of
[1:11] the solution? Chevron, human energy,
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[1:21] Vestus,
[1:25] the Atlantic Philanthropies,
[1:30] and with the ongoing support of these
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[1:38] And this program was made possible by
[1:41] the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
[1:44] and by contributions to your PBS station
[1:46] from viewers like you. Thank you.
[1:53] The Federal Reserve cut a major interest
[1:55] rate again today. It was the Fed's
[1:57] latest effort to thaw out credit and
[2:00] slow the slide into recession. The
[2:02] central bank cut its target rate for
[2:04] overnight loans between banks by another
[2:07] half point to just 1%. A statement said
[2:11] the Fed acted because the pace of
[2:13] economic activity appears to have slowed
[2:16] marketkedly. China cut interest rates
[2:18] today as well. Major European banks are
[2:21] expected to act later this week. The
[2:24] stock market rallied on the Fed
[2:26] announcement, then lost it all in the
[2:28] closing minutes. The Dow Jones
[2:30] Industrial Average ended up falling 74
[2:32] points to close just below 891.
[2:36] The Nasdaq rose more than seven points
[2:38] to close at 1657.
[2:41] World stock indexes were mostly higher
[2:44] today with gains of 7 to 9%. The US
[2:48] market also got a boost today from an
[2:50] unexpected quarter. The Commerce
[2:52] Department reported a surprise jump in
[2:54] orders for durable goods in September.
[2:57] It was the largest gain in three months.
[3:00] And General Motors stock rose on reports
[3:02] it resolved the major issues in talks to
[3:05] buy Chrysler. In the presidential race,
[3:08] with just six days to go, Democrat
[3:10] Barack Obama planned a 30inut prime time
[3:13] TV commercial. Two major networks and
[3:15] several cable channels were set to air
[3:17] it. Republican John McCain campaigned in
[3:20] Florida. He said Obama has not shown he
[3:23] has what it takes to protect America.
[3:26] We'll have more on the campaign later in
[3:28] the program tonight. Iraq today outlined
[3:31] proposals to change a draft security
[3:33] deal with the US. They included a ban on
[3:36] using Iraq territory to strike
[3:39] neighboring countries. A government
[3:41] spokesman in Baghdad said the Americans
[3:44] must realize that these changes are
[3:46] necessary to persuade the people to
[3:48] accept the agreement. In Washington,
[3:51] President Bush said he's optimistic
[3:52] about finishing the status of forces
[3:55] agreement known as the sofa.
[3:58] >> We received amendments today from the
[4:00] government. We're analyzing those
[4:03] amendments. We obviously want to be uh
[4:07] we want to be uh helpful and
[4:09] constructive without undermining basic
[4:12] principles
[4:14] and I remain very hopeful and confident
[4:16] that the sofa will get passed. The
[4:18] leading Shiite religious official in
[4:20] Iraq voiced concern about that security
[4:22] pack today. In a statement, Grand
[4:24] Ayatollah Al- Salistani said the draft
[4:27] must do more to protect Iraq's
[4:29] sovereignty. Syria demanded an apology
[4:32] from the US today over a Sunday raid
[4:35] that killed eight people. The helicopter
[4:37] assault happened just inside Syria near
[4:40] the border with Iraq. It's been reported
[4:42] an al-Qaeda leader was killed. The
[4:45] Syrians insisted again all of the
[4:47] victims were civilians. The government
[4:50] of Pakistan today formally protested US
[4:53] missile strikes inside its territory. It
[4:56] demanded an immediate end to recent
[4:58] attacks on militants near the Afghan
[5:01] border. The Pakistanis say the strikes
[5:03] are killing civilians and hurting
[5:05] support for the war on terror. US
[5:08] commanders may call for doubling the
[5:10] additional troops into Afghanistan. It
[5:13] was widely reported today the number
[5:15] could rise to 20,000 as planners appeal
[5:18] for more support units. Pentagon
[5:21] spokesman Jeff Morurell acknowledged the
[5:23] deployment could increase. He would not
[5:26] confirm numbers. The US already has more
[5:29] than 31,000 troops in Afghanistan and
[5:32] will have more on Afghanistan later in
[5:34] the program tonight. Rebels in Congo
[5:37] declared a ceasefire today after three
[5:39] days of fighting. It was the latest
[5:41] violence to rack the African nation in
[5:44] recent years. The truce affected the
[5:46] eastern city of GMA as government forces
[5:49] and UN peacekeeping troops fell back. We
[5:52] have a report narrated by Lindseay
[5:54] Hilome of Independent Television News.
[5:57] >> Congalles government helicopter gunships
[6:00] fired on rebel positions north of GMA
[6:02] today, but to little avail.
[6:06] The troops just milled around. They're
[6:09] losing and they know it. They claim that
[6:11] it's not just the rebels firing on them,
[6:13] but that shots are coming from across
[6:15] the border from Rwanda.
[6:19] >> You can see for yourselves the border is
[6:21] over there. All the firing is coming
[6:22] into the Congo from there. It can't be
[6:25] from anywhere but Rwanda.
[6:28] >> Government troops retreated south down
[6:31] the road. They're failing to protect
[6:33] tens of thousands fleeing their homes.
[6:36] Today, people left the camp at Kibomba
[6:38] and started to flee towards GMA. As the
[6:41] refugees searched for somewhere to
[6:43] shelter, government troops were in
[6:45] full-scale retreat, abandoning the town
[6:47] to its fate, expecting the rebel army of
[6:50] Lauren Kunda at any time. The UN forces
[6:53] can't cope. They're supposed to keep the
[6:55] peace, not fight a war. The Security
[6:58] Council is meeting today, but who wants
[7:00] to send more troops to this intractable
[7:02] conflict?
[7:03] >> Is it possible to say in some other
[7:05] forces? I I don't know really uh all the
[7:09] nations are very reluctant uh because it
[7:12] has been done and last time it was with
[7:15] French and Belgium initiative Artimis
[7:18] operation very successful for 3 months
[7:21] or four months is it possible to repeat
[7:24] >> some 45,000 people are on the move the
[7:27] situation is so dangerous it's hard for
[7:30] aid workers to get to them and provide
[7:32] the help needed
[7:33] >> the UN secretary general General Bonkey
[7:35] Kimmoon warned today the violence has
[7:37] spawned a humanitarian crisis of
[7:40] catastrophic dimensions. The US Justice
[7:43] Department today approved a merger
[7:45] between Delta and Northwest Airlines.
[7:47] The decision means the last hurdle to
[7:49] the deal is a lawsuit by air passengers
[7:52] in San Francisco. The combined carrier
[7:55] would operate under the Delta name and
[7:57] become the world's largest airline. And
[8:00] that's it for the news summary tonight.
[8:02] Now, the Fed's rate cut today in the
[8:05] presidential campaign, potential
[8:07] election day problems, John Burns on
[8:10] Afghanistan, and the media revolution.
[8:21] Today's Federal Reserve decision to cut
[8:23] interest rates again. And here to
[8:24] explain the what'ss and wise of that
[8:26] action is Krishna Guha, chief US
[8:29] economics correspondent for the
[8:31] Financial Times. Krishna, welcome.
[8:33] Remind us again what what specific rate
[8:36] it was that was cut today. So Jim, this
[8:39] is the Fed funds rate. It's the basic
[8:41] underlying interest rate in the economy.
[8:44] It was 1 and a.5%. The Fed cut it by
[8:47] half a percentage point. It's now 1%.
[8:50] >> And the reasoning behind that was what?
[8:53] Well, the Fed's going all out to try to
[8:56] offset some of the severe tightening in
[8:59] credit conditions that's happened over
[9:01] the last couple of months with all the
[9:03] turmoil in the financial sector. By
[9:05] reducing the interest rate, it hopes to
[9:07] bring down the actual cost of borrowing
[9:10] for people like you and me and for
[9:12] companies out there in the economy.
[9:14] >> Well, give us the ripple scenario, the
[9:16] good scenario that they're hoping for
[9:18] that this happened today and what will
[9:20] happen in in sequence after that.
[9:23] Well, Jim, every loan in the economy is
[9:26] essentially made up of two halves.
[9:28] There's the underlying risk-free rate.
[9:30] That's the rate the Fed sets, now 1%.
[9:32] And then there's a risk premium. That's
[9:34] the extra you pay because you're a
[9:37] riskier or less risky borrower. The
[9:39] Fed's trying to tackle both of these
[9:41] elements. It's reducing the underlying
[9:43] rate. That's what it did today. And it's
[9:45] also trying to hammer down those risk
[9:48] spreads in the economy. That's why it's
[9:50] doing all these new and often
[9:52] unconventional lending operations.
[9:54] >> Now, is it possible to go below 1%? In
[9:57] other words, is there any more give in
[9:59] this uh in this operation?
[10:02] >> Well, the answer is yes. And here's how
[10:04] it works. If at some point the Fed gets
[10:08] to zero interest rates and wants to ease
[10:11] policy further, it obviously can't go
[10:14] negative. But what it can do is try to
[10:17] bring down interest rates on the longer
[10:19] term. You see the Fed funds rate, the
[10:22] interest rate we always talk about,
[10:23] that's an overnight rate. It's a rate to
[10:25] borrow for a day. But if that rate goes
[10:28] down to zero, it probably still costs
[10:30] money to borrow, let's say, for 3 months
[10:32] or 2 years. So what the Fed would do is
[10:36] it would start to target longer term
[10:38] interest rates in the economy. try and
[10:40] target the three-month rate or the
[10:42] two-year rate, thus making the overall
[10:46] set of borrowing costs in the economy
[10:48] cheaper.
[10:49] >> Yeah. And the whole point of this is to
[10:52] is to cause people to loan money again,
[10:55] right? Everybody in the chain, right?
[10:57] And what what's the evidence that any of
[10:59] this up till now was working that or or
[11:02] is there any?
[11:03] >> Well, the evidence is frankly limited.
[11:05] If you talk to people inside the Fed,
[11:07] what they'll tell you is, look, if we
[11:09] hadn't done this stuff, everything would
[11:11] have been much, much worse. And that's
[11:14] probably true. They've been able to
[11:16] offset what's happened in the markets,
[11:18] this extraordinary credit crisis to some
[11:21] degree, but they haven't been able to
[11:23] get credit flowing in normal ways to
[11:26] households, to businesses, to keep the
[11:28] economy growing. Top Fed officials will
[11:31] tell you today they don't think that
[11:33] interest rates alone can do it anymore.
[11:35] And that's why they were very keen
[11:37] supporters of the federal government's
[11:39] rescue plan, including injecting capital
[11:42] into the banks to make them stronger. If
[11:44] the banks are stronger, they should feel
[11:46] more confident about lending and they
[11:49] should also feel more confident about
[11:50] doing business with each other. And late
[11:52] today in another action, uh the Treasury
[11:55] Department did put money into uh nine
[11:58] banks, right, of $250 billion, something
[12:00] like that.
[12:01] >> Well, the the Treasury is is indeed
[12:03] putting money into a a wide number of
[12:06] banks, uh including
[12:08] some eight or nine large banks, the the
[12:11] key systemically important banks, the
[12:13] biggest national banks, the ones it
[12:14] can't afford to let go under. But it's
[12:16] also providing capital for smaller banks
[12:19] including some community banks.
[12:21] >> All right. Now finally the impossible
[12:23] question Krishna. Why how do you explain
[12:27] Wall Street's reaction to this? As you
[12:28] know it was very level this morning and
[12:31] then boom it suddenly went up to over it
[12:33] went up over 200 points and then the
[12:35] last few minutes it fell down 74 points.
[12:38] Uh a 74 point loss. You got an
[12:41] explanation sir?
[12:43] >> Well half an explanation. No one really
[12:45] understands what's going on with the
[12:46] markets right now. Look, the markets are
[12:48] incredibly volatile at the moment. That
[12:50] means they bounce around and it's partly
[12:52] a combination of fear and greed. People
[12:54] are terrified as to what could still
[12:56] happen to the economy, but at the same
[12:58] time, they see stocks as being really
[13:00] beaten down and potentially offering a
[13:02] lot of profit in the long haul. So, the
[13:04] mood swings from one to the other.
[13:06] Trading is also thin and that means that
[13:08] stocks can bounce up and bounce down.
[13:11] But when we look at today's trading, we
[13:13] should put it in context. The market
[13:15] went up by 10% yesterday and it was
[13:18] basically give or take flat today.
[13:20] That's not a bad development. A lot of
[13:22] people were thinking that after
[13:23] yesterday's bounce, we might have a
[13:25] slump today. We didn't get it. So, some
[13:27] modest reassurance from the market
[13:30] today, I think.
[13:31] >> Okay, Krishna, I'll take your word for
[13:32] it. That's good news. Semi, right?
[13:34] >> Thanks, Jim.
[13:34] >> Okay. Thank you very much.
[13:36] >> Cheers.
[13:44] Now, with just six days to go until
[13:46] election day, the candidates campaign in
[13:48] Florida and North Carolina. And Judy
[13:51] Woodruff has our campaign report.
[13:55] >> After starting the day talking about
[13:57] taxes, John McCain turned to national
[14:00] security this afternoon in Tampa,
[14:02] Florida, where he attempted to paint
[14:04] Democrat Barack Obama as unprepared to
[14:07] lead. My fellow Americans, we're going
[14:10] to get through this economic crisis. We
[14:12] will get through it. And we will even
[14:14] come out stronger without the corruption
[14:17] and arrogance that have overtaken both
[14:20] Washington and Wall Street. We're going
[14:22] to pull through these hard times and do
[14:24] it together, just as our country has
[14:27] done before. But when that day arrives
[14:30] and the worries of financial crisis have
[14:32] fallen away, we will find awaiting our
[14:35] country all of the same great challenges
[14:38] and dangers that were there all along.
[14:42] They mattered before the economic
[14:44] turmoil of the present. They will matter
[14:46] still when it is passed. And in a time
[14:50] of war, in a moment of danger for our
[14:53] country and the world, let it not be
[14:56] said of us that we lost sight of these
[14:59] challenges. With terrorists still
[15:01] plotting new strikes across the world,
[15:03] millions of innocent lives are still at
[15:06] stake, including American lives. Our
[15:09] enemy's violent ambitions must still be
[15:12] prevented by American vigilance, by
[15:15] diplomacy and cooperation with our
[15:17] partners, and by force of arms as a last
[15:21] resort.
[15:23] In his four years in the Senate, two of
[15:25] them spent running for president, Barack
[15:28] Obama has displayed some impressive
[15:30] qualities. But the question is whether
[15:33] this is a man who has what it takes to
[15:36] protect America from Osama bin Laden,
[15:38] al-Qaeda, and other grave threats in the
[15:41] world.
[15:42] And he has given you no reason
[15:45] to answer in the affirmative. The Obama
[15:48] campaign rejected McCain's attack in a
[15:51] statement saying, "When the next
[15:53] president is tested, the American people
[15:55] can have John McCain's judgment of
[15:58] siding with George Bush and Dick Cheney
[16:00] on every major national security
[16:03] decision, or they can have the steady
[16:05] leadership and sound judgment of Barack
[16:07] Obama that has earned the support of
[16:10] Americans like General Powell."
[16:13] McCain's running mate Sarah Palin was in
[16:16] Toledo, Ohio this morning focusing on
[16:18] energy independence. She accused the
[16:21] Democratic ticket of resisting
[16:23] alternatives to foreign oil such as
[16:26] clean coal, nuclear power, and offshore
[16:29] drilling.
[16:29] >> Technology has come such a long way.
[16:32] Again, they don't get it. They need to
[16:34] understand the science behind all of
[16:36] this today. And those cleaner, safer
[16:39] technologies are far likelier to be used
[16:41] in the US and in Canada than in China or
[16:45] India or other developing nations. It's
[16:48] here well there they will be produced in
[16:51] environmentally friendly manners and
[16:53] protecting the workers much more likely
[16:56] here than in these developing countries.
[16:59] So policies that forego domestic
[17:01] production don't protect our
[17:04] environment.
[17:06] They simply accelerate and reward
[17:08] dirtier and more dangerous methods of
[17:10] production elsewhere in countries that
[17:12] apply few if any environmental or
[17:17] workplace safeguards. While our
[17:19] opponents like to posture as defenders
[17:22] of the environment in practice, their
[17:25] refusal to support more domestic
[17:28] production does nothing more than harm.
[17:31] It ultimately harms our environment. It
[17:34] doesn't do any good.
[17:36] >> The Democratic tickets number two, Joe
[17:38] Biden campaigned in Jupiter, Florida,
[17:41] where he said protecting Social Security
[17:44] was a key element to strengthening the
[17:46] middle class.
[17:47] >> It also means ensuring retirement for
[17:50] those of you who have put everything of
[17:53] your lifetime into working hard and
[17:55] playing by the rules. And now look at
[17:58] your 401ks. Now look at where your
[18:00] investments are and people are find
[18:03] themselves in trouble. Can you imagine?
[18:05] Can you imagine if in fact social
[18:09] security had been in the stock market?
[18:11] >> Can you imagine now the last couple
[18:13] months if Bush and McCain had succeeded
[18:16] in privatizing social security? Well,
[18:19] folks, here's what Barack and I believe.
[18:21] We believe there should be no
[18:23] privatization of Social Security.
[18:27] Barack Obama began his day in Raleigh,
[18:29] North Carolina, where he said the McCain
[18:32] campaign had given up a focus on the
[18:34] economy and was resorting instead to
[18:37] negative attacks.
[18:39] >> They don't want to talk about the
[18:40] economy. That's what you want to talk
[18:42] about. That's what affects your lives
[18:44] day in and day out.
[18:47] >> Now, because he knows that his economic
[18:50] theories don't work, he's been spending
[18:51] these last few days calling me every
[18:53] name in the book.
[18:57] Lately, he's called me a socialist
[19:01] >> for wanting to roll back the Bush tax
[19:03] cuts for the wealthiest Americans so we
[19:06] can finally give tax relief to the
[19:08] middle class.
[19:10] >> I don't know what's next. By the end of
[19:12] the week, he'll be accusing me of being
[19:14] a secret communist because I shared my
[19:16] toys in kindergarten.
[19:20] I shared my peanut butter and jelly
[19:21] sandwich.
[19:25] Look,
[19:26] >> that's his choice.
[19:28] >> That's the kind of campaign he chooses
[19:30] to run.
[19:31] >> But you have a choice, too.
[19:34] >> The fundamental question in this
[19:36] election is not are you better off than
[19:37] you were four years ago. We know the
[19:38] answer to that.
[19:41] >> The fundamental question is, will we be
[19:43] better off four years from now?
[19:48] Now, for eight years, we've seen
[19:51] Washington take care of the extremely
[19:53] welloff and the extremely
[19:55] well-connected.
[19:56] >> And now, my opponent's making the same
[19:58] arguments to justify the same old
[20:01] policies that have been a complete
[20:04] failure for the middle class. John
[20:06] McCain wants to give more to
[20:07] billionaires, more to corporations that
[20:09] ship jobs overseas, more to the same
[20:12] people whose greed and irresponsibility
[20:14] got us into this crisis in the first
[20:16] place. And we're here because we know
[20:19] they shouldn't get away with it anymore.
[20:22] We don't need another president who
[20:24] fights for Washington lobbyists in Wall
[20:25] Street. We need a president who stands
[20:28] up for hardworking Americans on Main
[20:30] Street. And that's what I intend to be.
[20:33] From there, Obama traveled to Florida
[20:36] where he planned to meet up with Biden
[20:38] for an early vote for change rally in
[20:41] sunrise this evening.
[20:43] >> Morning. Make it a little bit easier if
[20:45] you have your ID out.
[20:46] >> In fact, many in the Sunshine State are
[20:49] voting early, more even than officials
[20:52] expected.
[20:53] >> Some of those lines have lasted between
[20:55] 4 hours to 6 hours, and those are really
[20:58] unconsionably long lines.
[21:00] More than 10% of registered voters in
[21:03] Florida have already cast their ballot.
[21:06] Those record lines prompted Governor
[21:09] Charlie Christ to declare a state of
[21:11] emergency yesterday to extend polling
[21:14] hours. And Florida is not alone. Record
[21:18] turnouts are reported across the country
[21:20] in the more than 30 states that allow
[21:23] some form of early voting. The weight is
[21:25] ridiculous and they should have more
[21:27] voting booths inside.
[21:29] >> There have also been instances of
[21:31] malfunctioning voting machines. Many
[21:34] states put them in place after the 2000
[21:37] election.
[21:38] >> It's frustrating when we've bought new
[21:40] equipment for this and we are having
[21:42] some problems that didn't show up at all
[21:43] during the testing.
[21:45] >> In West Virginia, Tennessee, and Texas,
[21:48] there are reports the voting machines
[21:50] have switched votes.
[21:52] >> I would feel safer. Democrats and
[21:54] Republicans in some counties are urging
[21:57] voters to use paper ballots to create a
[22:00] trail for a potential recount.
[22:02] >> It's just a matter of having a really
[22:04] fair and honest election.
[22:06] >> Thousands of lawyers from both campaigns
[22:09] are amassing in battleground states and
[22:12] there are already lawsuits. The NAACP
[22:15] sued Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, saying
[22:18] the state was unprepared to deal with a
[22:21] record-breaking turnout.
[22:23] >> We need to ensure that there are no
[22:25] shenanigans at this election. We saw
[22:28] what happened in 2000 and in 2004, and
[22:32] we've said not on our watch in Virginia.
[22:35] >> Kaine defended the state's readiness and
[22:38] said Virginia is better equipped this
[22:40] year than in 2004.
[22:43] In Colorado and Georgia, watchdog groups
[22:46] have raised concerns about the state's
[22:49] purging voter registrations.
[22:51] >> I'm not dead and I haven't moved, so why
[22:55] did this happen? And they said they had
[22:56] they didn't know.
[22:58] >> There have also been some attempts to
[23:00] overregister voters. The Association of
[23:03] Community Organizations for Reform Now,
[23:06] or ACORN, came under fire in Ohio
[23:09] recently for submitting fraudulent
[23:11] registration cards. Now, Gwen Eiffel
[23:14] takes a closer look at those potential
[23:16] voting problems.
[23:18] >> And for that look, we go to two
[23:20] attorneys who have been intimately
[23:22] involved in the process. Barbara Arwine,
[23:24] executive director of the Lawyers
[23:26] Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a
[23:28] voting rights group, and election lawyer
[23:30] Benjamin Ginsburg. He served as national
[23:32] counsel to the Bush Cheney presidential
[23:34] campaigns in 2000 and 2004. He's also on
[23:38] standby if needed to join a
[23:39] post-election McCain recount team. So,
[23:42] we'll be talking about that in a moment,
[23:43] but I want to start with Barbara Arwine.
[23:45] Under a week to go before the election,
[23:48] are we ready?
[23:49] >> No. I think that, you know, states are
[23:52] doing the best that they can, but with a
[23:54] record turnout and the continued
[23:56] underinvestment by our states and by our
[23:59] federal government in election uh
[24:02] procedures that we are not ready yet. I
[24:05] wish that I could say to every voter
[24:07] that every registration role is
[24:09] accurate, that every voting place you go
[24:12] to will have working machines, that you
[24:15] won't have to wait long. None of that is
[24:17] unfortunately true. So what I would like
[24:19] to say is that we are making reforms. I
[24:22] think the fact that 36 states have early
[24:25] voting is in fact a major progress and
[24:28] that that's a sign that states are
[24:30] beginning to think about how to open up
[24:32] the process more, how to be more
[24:34] efficient. But we still have a long ways
[24:36] to go to make sure that we have greatly
[24:38] and well-trained pole workers who are
[24:40] heroes for, you know, volunteering to do
[24:42] what they do for such low pay and to
[24:45] make sure that voters are able to be
[24:47] able to cast the vote and have it
[24:49] counted.
[24:49] >> Ben Giddensburg, are we ready?
[24:51] >> No, we're not. I agree with Barbara
[24:53] about that. It's a system that's built
[24:55] on a couple of things. Number one, it is
[24:57] a human system. We have uh basically
[25:00] volunteers, very well-intentioned people
[25:03] uh who work the polls every day uh every
[25:07] election day and that creates the
[25:09] natural problems that come from human
[25:11] error. And secondly, I disagree with
[25:13] Barbara a little bit on this. Most
[25:15] decisions about the types of machines
[25:17] and the way ballots are cast and counted
[25:19] are really made on the county level. And
[25:22] so you have a great deal of
[25:23] inconsistency amongst the counties in a
[25:25] given state to say nothing of between
[25:27] the states.
[25:28] >> So if we say that we're not ready, let's
[25:30] give it the viewers some understanding
[25:32] of where and how and why. It's it would
[25:35] be easy to imagine that since 2000 and
[25:37] 2004 after everything that we went
[25:39] through that some of the problems would
[25:40] have been identified and fixed by now.
[25:42] >> Yes. You know, unfortunately the Help
[25:44] America Vote Act what people call Hava
[25:46] uh did not go far enough. I mean, it was
[25:48] just an a little band-aid over a huge,
[25:52] you know, gapping sore. And what I think
[25:54] that we need to do is to continue with
[25:57] good election reform to address the
[25:59] problems. The biggest problem right now
[26:01] is that Hava requires that every state
[26:04] creates a statewide database uh for this
[26:07] election and they have to match it
[26:09] against, you know, your DMV records and
[26:11] against the social security records.
[26:13] Unfortunately, human error is human
[26:16] error. So records aren't matching and
[26:18] what that's leading to is that states
[26:21] are not putting people on registration
[26:23] lists or partisans are flagging these
[26:26] voters and trying to you know uh
[26:29] challenge those voters at the polls.
[26:31] These are the issues that unfortunately
[26:33] are there for us. I think that these are
[26:35] issues that shouldn't exist. I really
[26:37] question why we aren't we we are not
[26:40] like other democracies. Most western
[26:42] democracies when you turn 18 you
[26:45] automatically are registered. You do not
[26:48] have to go through this entire process
[26:50] of tracking down constantly registering
[26:53] losing your registration if you move all
[26:54] these problems. You become a permanent
[26:57] registrant in that country.
[26:58] >> Let me ask Ben Ginsburg this question
[27:00] because there seems to be a disagreement
[27:02] on on partisans lines about what the
[27:04] real problem is here. Whether it's a
[27:06] problem that voter registration is
[27:07] flawed or that voter access is flawed.
[27:10] Which is it?
[27:11] >> Well, I think it's both in a lot of
[27:13] ways. Uh I think that there are problems
[27:15] in keeping track of people in in our
[27:18] society because we move so much. We're
[27:20] such a mobile society far more so than
[27:23] than really any other country and
[27:25] because we do have such local elections
[27:27] and it is important to have our elected
[27:30] officials on the local level elected by
[27:33] folks who who live in their in their
[27:35] areas. So you do have to have accurate
[27:38] registration roles in order to have some
[27:41] validity to the system to allow people
[27:43] to have uh a degree of confidence in the
[27:46] validity of the results that come from
[27:48] elections. Now in terms of access,
[27:51] that's a problem that we tend to deal
[27:53] with mostly when we see a problem
[27:56] largely through a recount. And what's
[27:58] frightening about doing recounts is that
[28:00] you realize just how flawed every
[28:03] election must be because once you dig
[28:05] down in a recount, all the problems all
[28:07] the problems with roles and access uh
[28:10] materializes and you see it.
[28:12] >> Well, so how much of the problems that
[28:14] we're seeing are systemic as as you
[28:16] described and how many many how much of
[28:18] it is just people setting out to to game
[28:21] the process? How much of it on purpose?
[28:23] >> Well, I mean obviously there's a lot of
[28:25] problems with that. I mean the right
[28:28] here in Virginia already the flyers have
[28:31] started the deceptive flyers telling
[28:33] people that they can vote on Wednesday.
[28:36] Uh that is after the election.
[28:38] >> Exactly. Those flyers are already in the
[28:40] Tidewater area. They're already in
[28:41] Richmond. People are calling. They're
[28:44] complaining. Uh they're confused. The
[28:46] flyers are really vicious. I mean they
[28:48] look very official. uh they have the
[28:50] seal of the state and they say, you
[28:52] know, two voters that uh that the state
[28:55] uh general assembly met and made this
[28:57] decision because of the fact that the
[28:59] lines were going to be too long at the
[29:00] polls. So, it's a very very vicious way
[29:03] of discouraging voters from showing up.
[29:06] >> Have you seen the same sort of thing?
[29:08] >> Sure. There are flyers. They actually
[29:09] affect both Democratic communities and
[29:12] Republican communities. So, that
[29:14] certainly exists. uh your piece referred
[29:16] to ACORN and its registration of voters.
[29:19] Uh that's a problem when people try and
[29:22] register falsely. But the larger problem
[29:24] is is that we have two sides of the same
[29:26] coin. Republicans talk about fraud,
[29:29] Democrats talk about suppression. It has
[29:32] really become and there are isolated
[29:34] incidents of it on both sides they can
[29:36] point to, but it is also sort of seeped
[29:39] into the get out the vote programs that
[29:41] both parties use to motivate their
[29:43] bases. that leads to a lack of
[29:45] confidence in the system and that's sort
[29:47] of a long-term systemic problem.
[29:49] >> We just saw in Judy's piece the long
[29:51] lines of people signing lining up to
[29:53] vote early that I what one report
[29:56] onethird of voters are actually voting
[29:58] early this time. Is that necessarily you
[30:00] were saying it's a good thing but is it
[30:02] necessarily a good thing if it creates
[30:04] potential for more confusion?
[30:05] >> Well, you know I think early voting now
[30:06] has been used by some states for you
[30:08] know several elections and they have you
[30:11] know functioned very well. I think that
[30:13] early voting takes care of many
[30:14] problems. I mean, if you're a mother and
[30:16] you have to take a child to school, uh,
[30:18] and you have to be at work. I mean,
[30:20] >> does it create more problems as well?
[30:22] >> No, I don't think so. I haven't seen any
[30:24] evidence of that because think about it.
[30:26] If all those people were showing up on
[30:27] for one day of voting, if you got four
[30:30] lines already, what kind of hour lines
[30:32] would you have on one day if that was
[30:34] the only option? It's very good for
[30:36] people to be able to vote on a Saturday.
[30:38] It's very good for people to be able to
[30:39] vote absentee. It's very good to have
[30:42] these options for voting and they've
[30:43] worked so effectively. It's really made
[30:45] a big difference in turnout and in
[30:47] registration.
[30:48] >> Early voting a help or a hindrance?
[30:50] >> Oh, I think on balance it's a help. I
[30:52] think anytime you allow more people
[30:54] access to the voting system that that's
[30:56] good. You need to um it does create more
[30:58] problems and it prolongs the problems uh
[31:01] in the sense that there is a longer
[31:03] period of time when folks may have to be
[31:06] standing online. It does put more stress
[31:08] on the counties and the volunteers
[31:10] because they have to work more days. But
[31:12] on balance, increasing access to the
[31:14] voting booth is is really what it ought
[31:16] to be about.
[31:17] >> Technology, is there a way for
[31:19] technology to solve some of the problems
[31:20] or anticipate some of the problems which
[31:22] we're facing on election day?
[31:24] >> Uh after a number of years, I mean,
[31:27] we're not there yet. I think, you know,
[31:29] Nevada uh has it almost right. Uh but
[31:33] not all the systems do.
[31:34] >> What is Nevada? Nevada has a really
[31:36] nice, you know, system. If you've been
[31:38] watching, they actually have polling
[31:39] places in malls. They have polling
[31:42] places so accessible and people are able
[31:44] to just go and vote and it's making a
[31:46] huge difference because people are
[31:48] finding that it's easier to vote, you
[31:50] know, in these common places where you
[31:52] frequent anyway. Uh, but the, uh,
[31:55] technology is catching up a little bit
[31:57] where it's able to both be electronic
[32:00] and print out some kind of paper ballot.
[32:02] and Ben Ginsburg. As I mentioned at the
[32:04] out at the start here, you are standing
[32:06] by in case you need to do a recount for
[32:08] for the McCain campaign as you did for
[32:10] the Bush campaign. Is is a legal
[32:12] challenge inevitable no matter what
[32:14] happens Tuesday night?
[32:16] >> Oh, I I don't think it necessarily is. I
[32:18] mean, historically, you get a
[32:19] presidential recount about once every
[32:21] 126 years or so. So, I think we ought
[32:24] >> Maybe not a recount, but any other other
[32:26] kinds of challenges?
[32:26] >> Oh, there will be legal challenges. uh
[32:28] as as has been reported frequently,
[32:31] there are lots of lawyers who are out
[32:33] for both parties in the polling places.
[32:35] They are a touch overcaffeinated
[32:37] especially early in the morning. There
[32:39] may be um challenges that take place. Uh
[32:43] so I think that that has now become
[32:45] ingrained in the system. That's not
[32:47] necessarily bad because it does provide
[32:49] sort of a check and balance on the
[32:51] charges that have now become part of the
[32:53] political process.
[32:54] >> Ben Ginsburg and Barbara Arwine, thank
[32:56] you both very much.
[32:57] >> Thanks. Thank you.
[32:59] >> There's more about voting problems on
[33:01] our website. You can also learn about
[33:03] our election day experiment with YouTube
[33:06] called Video Your Vote. We're asking
[33:08] people to film their voting experience
[33:10] and document any problems they may
[33:13] encounter. For more information and to
[33:15] participate, go to pbs.org and then
[33:18] scroll down to NewsHour Reports.
[33:29] And now to that war that won't go away.
[33:31] Ray Suarez has our story. It's been 7
[33:35] years since the US invaded Afghanistan
[33:37] in October 2001 following the 9/11
[33:40] attacks. But the relatively easy ouster
[33:43] of the Taliban government has turned
[33:45] into a long and deadly struggle that's
[33:48] now taking more US and allied lives than
[33:50] the war in Iraq. Now, there's talk of
[33:53] both sending in more troops to
[33:55] Afghanistan and negotiating with
[33:57] elements of the Taliban. New York Times
[34:00] foreign correspondent John Burns
[34:02] recently returned from several weeks
[34:04] reporting in that country and he joins
[34:06] me now. John, welcome back. What are US
[34:09] commanders saying to you about their
[34:11] troop needs in Afghanistan?
[34:14] Well, that the needs are urgent and
[34:16] pressing. Um, unlike the situation in
[34:19] Iraq where for at least uh three or four
[34:22] years, American commanders were very
[34:24] reluctant to say publicly what they were
[34:27] saying privately, which was that they
[34:28] needed more troops in Afghanistan.
[34:31] General McKinnon, the commander there,
[34:32] and General Petraeus, who is uh to take
[34:35] over on on Friday as the overall
[34:37] commander for the two wars, um are
[34:40] saying very clearly they need more
[34:41] troops. They have 65,000 NATO troops of
[34:44] whom about 33,000 American troops. If
[34:47] there's going to be a serious increment
[34:49] in those troops, they're uh
[34:51] unfortunately going to have to be
[34:52] American troops. The European allies,
[34:55] the principal European NATO allies um
[34:57] are simply very reluctant to deploy uh
[35:00] more troops uh and especially to deploy
[35:02] more troops into the areas of most
[35:04] hazard. Did they have a specific number
[35:07] of US troops going in country in mind
[35:10] and a specific mission for them?
[35:13] >> Well, General McKinnon uh said when he
[35:15] was back in Washington to see the
[35:16] president and discuss war strategy um
[35:20] earlier in the month that he would like
[35:22] to see uh at least three more American
[35:24] combat brigades. He's been told he can
[35:26] have one uh that's something like three
[35:28] and a half thousand to four and a half
[35:30] thousand men uh by early next year, but
[35:33] that any increment beyond that will have
[35:35] to come later in the year and will
[35:37] depend on a troop draw down in Iraq. The
[35:39] two wars are now very clearly linked in
[35:41] that respect. Do the generals in Iraq,
[35:43] those running the American effort and
[35:46] telling you they need more troops, uh,
[35:48] in in effect waiting to see what happens
[35:51] November 4th, does the fate of those
[35:53] requests in some part rest on who's
[35:56] elected president next week?
[35:59] >> I think the uncertainties about future
[36:01] American uh military strategy in Iraq
[36:05] than the uh uncertainties about
[36:07] Afghanistan. Uh the principal difference
[36:09] which I think would be evident to to to
[36:11] most Americans would be that there has
[36:13] been a protracted debate in Iraq uh over
[36:15] the Iraq policy now for years. Should we
[36:18] stay? Should we go? Uh at least in
[36:20] mainstream American politics as I judge
[36:22] it uh from my my uh time here in the
[36:25] United States in the last 10 days or so,
[36:28] it seems to me that the general view is
[36:29] that failure is not an option in
[36:31] Afghanistan. U and of course that goes
[36:33] back to 9/11. Um and the recognition of
[36:36] where 9/11 came from from al-Qaeda in a
[36:40] in an Afghanistan ruled by the the
[36:42] Taliban. Um and so it it seems to me
[36:45] that that that all the main players here
[36:47] and Senator Obama are among them are
[36:49] agreed uh that there may need to be more
[36:51] troops and more resources and more money
[36:53] and more aid money and a new war
[36:56] strategy u in Afghanistan um to prevail.
[37:00] Is the state of the mission is the state
[37:03] of the pacification of the country
[37:05] different in Afghanistan from what it is
[37:08] today in Iraq? And you've spent a lot of
[37:11] time in both places. Maybe you could
[37:12] compare them.
[37:15] >> Yes, I think it is. And of course, it
[37:17] comes as a great surprise in a way uh
[37:19] for somebody who spent as long as I did
[37:21] 5 years in Iraq to see how quickly the
[37:23] situation in Afghanistan has
[37:25] deteriorated. And I think you could say
[37:27] that in some respects parallels are a
[37:29] little uh are a little misleading but in
[37:31] some respects the situation in
[37:33] Afghanistan and let's remember 7 years
[37:36] after the fall of the Taliban looks a
[37:39] little bit like the situation in Iraq
[37:41] shall we say in late 2004 and early 2005
[37:45] when all the indicators all the indices
[37:47] or as the metric the the military like
[37:49] to say all the metrics um are headed
[37:52] downward. The trends are not good. uh
[37:54] there is a need for more troops. There's
[37:56] need for a new war strategy. Um and the
[38:00] most optimistic ele uh estimates seem to
[38:02] be that even if more resources are
[38:04] dedicated, it may take may take two to
[38:07] three years to begin to turn this
[38:08] around.
[38:09] >> Is that assessment what you've just said
[38:12] uh the kind of thing that's leading
[38:14] people to talk openly about opening up
[38:16] channels to the Taliban?
[38:19] >> It is. Uh but I think we need to be very
[38:22] wary of that. Of course, if you could
[38:24] engage the Taliban in serious
[38:25] negotiations and bring this uh war to an
[38:28] end uh by by those talks, um nobody
[38:31] would oppose them, but uh at the moment
[38:34] they haven't even had talks about talks.
[38:37] Um there's a lot of talk here um and
[38:40] amongst diplomats about the need for
[38:42] talks. There are some very preliminary
[38:44] sorts of encounters, none of them
[38:46] substantial or substantive. Uh the
[38:48] problem is this. Uh the Taliban are in
[38:51] fact a divided organization to an
[38:53] extent. There are fishes within the
[38:54] Taliban. There are elements in the
[38:56] Taliban that are more uh militantly
[38:58] Islamist than others. There are other
[39:00] elements which are more nationalist than
[39:02] Islamist. There are fishes which go back
[39:04] to the old Mujahedin struggle against
[39:06] the Soviet occupation. Rivalries between
[39:09] different commanders. All of this is
[39:11] true. But those rivalries and those
[39:13] fishes tend to lead uh in the direction
[39:16] of more rad more more more radicalism.
[39:19] Uh that's to say people if they start
[39:22] out bidding each other within the
[39:23] Taliban on this issue, they're likely to
[39:25] outbid each other in terms not of more
[39:27] accommodation towards the uh negotiation
[39:31] and towards settlement of this war but
[39:33] to more militant positions. And the
[39:36] still the dominant at least ideological
[39:38] figure within the Taliban is Mullah
[39:40] Muhammad Omar. uh the leader of the
[39:42] Taliban, the man who as much as any
[39:43] founded the sucker to bin Laden and who
[39:47] continues to declare on uh militant
[39:49] Islamist websites uh that he remains at
[39:52] one uh with al-Qaeda. So that doesn't
[39:55] seem very promising to me. What if you
[39:57] get out into the villages? What do
[39:59] people who have lived with the Taliban
[40:01] and in in some cases suffered with the
[40:03] Taliban uh think about those kinds of
[40:06] ideas?
[40:08] >> Well, there's there's some of the good
[40:09] news. I didn't travel very widely, but I
[40:11] did get outside of Kabell and I did go
[40:13] into villages. I went into a number of
[40:16] villages which had been destroyed by the
[40:17] Taliban shortly after they came to power
[40:20] in Kabell. And there and elsewhere, I
[40:22] found the same uh the same truth. And by
[40:25] the way, it's essentially the same truth
[40:26] that we found in a like circumstance in
[40:29] Iraq. And that is to say, um there are
[40:31] not demands for the withdrawal of
[40:33] American and NATO troops. Quite the
[40:35] contrary. uh people who lived under the
[40:37] Taliban like people who lived under
[40:39] Saddam Hussein do not want to go back to
[40:42] that brutality and repression. Uh they
[40:45] want security above all they want
[40:47] security and they recognize that that is
[40:49] not likely to come by a draw down or a
[40:52] retreat of foreign forces. So the notion
[40:54] that a foreign force is doomed to fail
[40:56] in Afghanistan as we can see from
[40:58] history you can make that argument I
[41:00] think is in this case uh not applicable.
[41:03] They want security. uh they want a
[41:06] little bit more uh if you will
[41:07] moderation some ways some sometimes in
[41:10] the application of uh American and other
[41:13] NATO firepower. I'm talking about
[41:14] civilian casualties uh from bombings.
[41:17] That's true. But uh above all what those
[41:20] people seem to want is um they're very
[41:23] disappointed that uh their lives did not
[41:26] improve in terms of their standards of
[41:28] living especially because of the years
[41:30] of drought. uh food is very much more
[41:32] expensive and the common complaint in
[41:34] those villages is that they are worse
[41:36] off now than they were um five or six
[41:39] seven years ago. Uh that's going to be
[41:41] difficult thing to turn around an
[41:43] expensive thing to turn around and and
[41:45] all the more difficult for the fact that
[41:46] uh so much of the uh hinterland in in
[41:49] Afghanistan uh uh most of it indeed uh
[41:52] south of the Hindu Kush where the
[41:54] Pashtun tribes
[41:54] >> I'm sorry I have to break in there
[41:56] >> but thanks a lot for talking to us. Good
[41:58] to talk to you again, John Burns with
[42:00] us.
[42:01] >> Thank you very much.
[42:09] And finally tonight, more big changes in
[42:11] the world of old and new media. Jeffrey
[42:14] Brown has our media unit report. A
[42:18] landmark legal settlement yesterday
[42:20] allows the internet search giant Google
[42:23] to continue its yearslong project to
[42:25] scan books and make them available on
[42:27] the internet. Google will pay $125
[42:30] million to settle two copyright suits
[42:33] brought by book publishers and authors.
[42:36] The deal will make it easier for all
[42:38] parties to profit from the digital
[42:40] versions of printed books. Google has
[42:43] already scanned 7 million texts, nearly
[42:46] 5 million of which were out of print.
[42:48] Everything from classics to esoteric
[42:51] science texts and how-to books on
[42:53] ancient trades. Until this settlement,
[42:56] users could only see parts of these scan
[42:59] works unless the copyright holder let
[43:01] the entire work be viewed. That will now
[43:04] change for books that are out of print.
[43:06] But even as the deal points to a
[43:08] continued revamping of the world of
[43:10] books, including one where they're read
[43:12] on new devices like the Kindle,
[43:15] yesterday also brought still more tumult
[43:18] to another sector of the print world.
[43:20] Newspapers and magazines suffering from
[43:23] a decadel long drop in readership and
[43:25] advertising revenues are taking a new
[43:28] hit as the economy slows. Circulation at
[43:31] most major US newspapers, dropped nearly
[43:34] 5% from March to September, forcing more
[43:37] cuts. Ganette, the nation's largest
[43:40] newspaper company, announced yesterday
[43:42] it will lay off 10% of its workforce,
[43:45] some 3,000 employees. Time, Inc. will
[43:48] give out 600 pink slips across its wide
[43:51] spectrum of magazines. The Star Ledger
[43:54] of Newark, New Jersey, will avoid
[43:56] ceasing operation altogether, only by
[43:59] cutting its already thin editorial staff
[44:02] by 40%. And the Los Angeles Times
[44:05] yesterday announced yet another round of
[44:07] newsroom layoffs, as its parent company,
[44:10] Tribune, seeks to cut costs further. The
[44:13] paper now has about half the newsroom
[44:15] staff it had in 2001. In perhaps the
[44:18] most dramatic move to date, the century
[44:21] old Christian Science Monitor announced
[44:23] yesterday it would cease daily
[44:25] publication and migrate most of its
[44:27] publishing to the web, the first
[44:29] national newspaper to do so. It will
[44:32] still put out a weekly roundup. And we
[44:35] discuss the gains and losses of the
[44:37] changing media landscape now with Mark
[44:39] Glacer, editor of the Media Shift blog
[44:41] on PBS.org, or where he writes on the
[44:44] intersection of media and technology and
[44:47] Steven Levy who does the same as a
[44:49] senior writer at Wired magazine and John
[44:52] Yema editor of the Christian Science
[44:54] Monitor. Well Steven Levy for those who
[44:56] haven't followed this fight between
[44:58] Google and the publishers explain the
[45:00] importance of the settlement.
[45:02] >> Well Google had a really ambitious plan
[45:05] to digitize as many as possible of all
[45:08] the world's books. all the books ever
[45:09] written essentially is what they wanted
[45:11] to do. And the publishers and the
[45:13] authors objected to this because they
[45:15] felt that Google was illegally making
[45:17] copies of the books and not paying them.
[45:19] They wanted essentially a cut of the
[45:21] action. And that's what this two-year
[45:22] negotiation was about. And the
[45:24] settlement actually turned out into
[45:26] something bigger. Uh it does a few
[45:27] things. It enables Google to, as your
[45:30] reporter said, legally continue this uh
[45:33] activity. They've got 7 million books
[45:35] now. I think they want to go up to 20
[45:36] million uh in the foreseeable future.
[45:39] And uh also that Google's now going to
[45:41] be a distributor of books for sale.
[45:44] They're going to uh set up a system by
[45:46] which uh authors and publishers can get
[45:48] paid when people want to view the books
[45:50] online there. So uh it really puts
[45:53] Google far far ahead of its competitors
[45:55] in delivering probably is what the most
[45:57] significant corpus of information in in
[46:00] the world is in human history. all the
[46:01] printed books
[46:02] >> and Mark Glacer, I mean, we talk so much
[46:04] about the changing economic model when
[46:06] we're talking about new media. How does
[46:08] this play into that? If you're an
[46:10] author, if you're a publisher, how does
[46:13] it change the economics?
[46:15] >> Well, I think it significantly changes
[46:17] the economics because now if you're an
[46:20] author and you have out of print books,
[46:22] you might not have figured out a way to
[46:24] make money. And now through Google,
[46:26] someone could be searching for something
[46:28] that happens to be inside your books and
[46:31] it basically pulls up a book, pulls up
[46:34] that copy. People can preview the book
[46:36] and then they'll be able to buy it. So,
[46:38] it's really giving authors of out of
[46:40] print books um and even authors of books
[46:43] that are in print another revenue
[46:45] stream, another way to make money. And
[46:47] it goes along with this kind of print
[46:48] ondemand that we're starting to see
[46:51] services like Amazon's book surge where
[46:53] a p where an author can basically
[46:56] publish their books themselves.
[46:57] >> Isn't there a downside potentially
[46:59] though for an author that uh you put
[47:01] your work online and then uh you don't
[47:04] get the same amount of royalties that
[47:05] you might have gotten with a real book?
[47:07] >> Well, actually what's interesting is
[47:09] that you do get better royalties when
[47:11] you uh publish and you self-publish
[47:14] online. Um, and in this case with
[47:16] Google, I believe it's a 60% plus
[47:19] royalty for the author, for the
[47:21] publisher. So, I think online, um,
[47:24] you're actually being able to cut out
[47:26] some of the middlemen and go directly
[47:28] from the reader to the author without
[47:31] having to go through the layers of
[47:33] administration.
[47:34] >> All right, we'll come back to some of
[47:35] the economics, but I want to bring John
[47:37] Y because you're you're dealing with
[47:39] another part of this digital change.
[47:41] First, why is it impossible for the
[47:44] monitor to continue as a newspaper of
[47:46] the kind that we can hold in our hand?
[47:49] >> Well, the monitor has a very large na a
[47:52] national circulation that's actually
[47:54] very small. I should say 50,000 52,000
[47:57] readersh scattered across the country
[47:59] and the economics of delivery of
[48:02] printing and delivery to them is very
[48:04] it's it's very difficult for us and has
[48:06] been for decades really. So the advent
[48:09] of the internet where we've seen more
[48:11] people migrating to the web to get their
[48:13] news just seemed to me seem to us to be
[48:16] an opportunity to reach people where
[48:18] they are.
[48:19] >> Okay. It allows you to reach more people
[48:21] where they are. But does it allow you to
[48:24] get more money from those people to pay
[48:26] for the reporting and all the operations
[48:28] of a newspaper?
[48:29] >> Well, I mean our plan is to move towards
[48:31] sustainability and the way that we think
[48:33] we can do that is by having a mix of
[48:35] publications. We have a weekly print
[48:38] publication that will debut in the
[48:40] spring. We have more energy that we'll
[48:42] have on our website now because we'll be
[48:44] able to devote our reporting and editing
[48:46] resources directly to the website. That
[48:48] in turn should make our website
[48:50] csmonitor.com a destination and uh and
[48:53] should increase traffic that should
[48:55] increase revenue. I know it's a tough
[48:57] economic environment. We also have an
[48:59] email news summary that we'll be putting
[49:01] out every day that will be a
[49:03] subscription product. So within these
[49:04] three additions of the monitor, we think
[49:07] that mix will bring in enough revenue
[49:09] and cut enough cost that we'll reach
[49:11] sustainability in 3 to 5 years.
[49:13] >> Well, Stephen, let me let me bring you
[49:14] back on how do you think about the
[49:16] pluses and minuses of the of the
[49:18] economics here, whether it's books or
[49:21] newspapers.
[49:22] >> Well, they have different models. Uh
[49:24] books as as we know and and enjoy don't
[49:27] have ads stuck in in the middle there.
[49:29] That's not the the the the business plan
[49:31] for books. So, it's pretty nice to be
[49:33] able to shift that over uh to the web
[49:35] and and see money for it. Now, Google
[49:37] actually is going to get some
[49:38] advertising money because in the pages
[49:40] you use to preview to see what's in the
[49:42] book, the Google's going to be able to
[49:43] run ads in that. For something like a
[49:45] newspaper or a magazine, things are much
[49:47] tougher because the business model
[49:48] depends on a certain kind of advertising
[49:51] that works well in print but has not
[49:53] worked well on the web. So when you a
[49:56] place is considering advertising on the
[49:58] web, they're more likely to use the kind
[50:00] of ads that uh Google sells, which is
[50:02] ads that are tied to search and they
[50:04] target them to keywords and search uh as
[50:06] opposed to putting ads on a page
[50:09] alongside an article there. Uh so I
[50:11] think it's it's tough sledding for
[50:12] newspapers and magazines uh in in in
[50:15] general. I uh before I was at Wired, I
[50:17] worked for a weekly magazine u for 12
[50:20] years and let me tell you uh weekly
[50:22] magazines are no picnic either. Mark
[50:24] Glacer, same same question. How do you
[50:26] see the pluses and minuses? Uh, stay on
[50:28] the on the journalism side here of
[50:30] newspapers and magazines.
[50:32] >> Yeah, I mean, I think that a lot of
[50:34] people talk about this gloom and doom
[50:36] among journalism and how we're going to
[50:37] really lose serious journalism. And I
[50:39] don't think we're going to lose serious
[50:41] journalism. I think what we're seeing is
[50:43] a change in business models. And I think
[50:45] what the Christian Science Monitor is
[50:47] admitting is that going online is really
[50:50] the way to start thinking about new ways
[50:52] of making money. Whether it's online
[50:53] advertising like Steven said, Google
[50:56] controls a lot of that or whether it's
[50:58] subscriptions like the Wall Street
[50:59] Journal is doing online or even
[51:01] nonprofits like ProPublica or NPR, even
[51:04] PBS right here. These are all different
[51:07] models that people are trying for. Plus,
[51:09] there are experimental ways that
[51:11] journalists are trying to make money
[51:12] going directly to the public for
[51:14] funding. what they're calling
[51:15] crowdfunding, a site called Spot Us,
[51:18] Spot us, which allows people in a
[51:20] community to actually fund the
[51:22] journalists directly without the
[51:24] overhead of a news organization.
[51:26] >> Well, John Yema, I know you've worked at
[51:28] you worked at the Boston Globe and you
[51:29] certainly know the uh the industry.
[51:31] Well, what about the quality question? I
[51:34] mean, even if you can put out more
[51:35] information to many more people from
[51:38] different sources, what about
[51:40] maintaining the kind of uh standards of
[51:42] quality Well, you know, your standards
[51:45] start with your your standards. And the
[51:47] Christian Science Monitor for 100 years
[51:49] has had a certain set of standards
[51:51] that's trying to reach people who want
[51:53] to understand the world. Not unlike PBS
[51:56] viewers, uh people who and our foreign
[51:58] bureaus, our national bureaus. We all
[52:01] have this um this this drive to
[52:04] understand the world and to convey that
[52:06] in a non-sensationalistic way. So, a
[52:08] hundred years of that is the development
[52:10] of some pretty strong standards. We
[52:12] think we can take those onto the web.
[52:13] And indeed, for the past 10 years, we've
[52:15] like every newspaper, we've been on the
[52:17] web, but now we can unshackle ourselves
[52:19] from the constraints of print and devote
[52:21] our time and attention directly to the
[52:23] web, which frankly will help us develop,
[52:25] you know, the right kind of journalism
[52:27] for the web, we think, and and you know,
[52:29] keep fly our flag there.
[52:31] >> Well, Stephen, Levy, you know,
[52:32] everyone's wondering where this is all
[52:34] going. How much do we already know about
[52:37] changing reading habits already? How
[52:40] many people is it is it generational the
[52:43] way we often hear about who's reading
[52:45] the newspaper online? Uh the
[52:47] introduction of the Kindle I mentioned
[52:49] as a new way of reading books. How much
[52:51] do we know about how many changes have
[52:53] occurred already?
[52:55] >> Well, we do know that as you mentioned
[52:56] there is a big generational uh uh
[53:00] difference between younger and older
[53:02] people in reading habits. Uh people
[53:04] complain that young people don't read
[53:05] but they do read quite a lot. they read
[53:07] a lot on the web and uh they don't
[53:12] support the same kind of publications uh
[53:15] that uh their parents read uh because by
[53:17] getting it on the web and by you know
[53:19] grazing uh read an article here or read
[53:21] an article there uh they have a
[53:23] different kind of experience there and
[53:26] uh to be honest it is somewhat worrisome
[53:29] for the kind of really uh serious uh
[53:32] in-depth journalism that some of the
[53:34] great institutions you know that we we
[53:36] know have been, you know, going on for,
[53:38] you know, and delivering us for years.
[53:40] Uh, when you surf on the web, uh, you
[53:42] you get distracted very easily. You look
[53:44] at the top most read articles in a lot
[53:47] of the websites and it's not the ones
[53:48] that are the in-depth investigations,
[53:50] but it's an article about Britney Spears
[53:52] or something like that or or
[53:53] cheerleaders, uh, which which or or you
[53:56] know, a dog that got lost, which tops
[53:59] the story about the investigation, uh,
[54:01] in your local community or, you know, a
[54:03] national story.
[54:05] >> All right. Well, to be continued on the
[54:07] business, on the standards, and all
[54:08] those questions, Steven Levy, Mark
[54:10] Glacer, and John Yema. Thank you all
[54:12] very much.
[54:13] >> Thank you.
[54:22] >> Again, the major development of this
[54:23] day, the Federal Reserve cut a major
[54:25] interest rate by another half point, but
[54:28] a Wall Street rally about it faded.
[54:30] We'll see you online and again here
[54:32] tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lara. Thank
[54:34] you and good night.
[54:42] >> Major funding for the NewsHour with Jim
[54:44] Lara is provided by
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