6 minutes now past 12 programming a Minnesota Public Radio is supported by standard heating and air conditioning the Twin Cities Home Comfort Experts for 69 years featuring York Heating and Cooling products. And good afternoon. Welcome back to mid-day on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten. Glad you could join us. We now have many more sources for news when we used to television radio news papers magazines the internet of cars by Michael Baron says, even with all these new media maybe because we have all these new media to choose from are the news were getting is far less objective than it used to be. Mr. Barone is the senior staff editor at Reader's Digest is also a farmer writer at US news world report and the Washington Post and he's a frequent commentator on television news programs. Michael Barone says, the media has forgotten its job of Simply reporting the news study says the media is too busy ramming skewed political viewpoints down the throats of the American public Michael Brown was in the Twin Cities this spring to address a floureon moderated by form. Dinosaur Congressman Ben Webber and Tim Penny Forum sponsored by the center of the American experiment about the subject of cultural politics and media fever. Are they causing good people to shun office? That's the official title. It reminds me of the title in Lord Bryce's the American Commonwealth published in 1888. He has a chapter called why great men are not elected president this despite the fact that he later became a friend of Theodore Roosevelt who was who didn't I become elected president. But Bryce's chapter is a reminder that if we're talking about we're not talkin about something that's just a current problem. But that rather the kind of I would submit to you that the kind of media atmosphere we have today and the perhaps the the effect of it that of discouraging many people from participating in electoral politics. Not just a current problem or situation but a longtime characteristic of American public life. It's something that's been going on a long time and we have to in order to understand what's going on. We have to put these things in perspective to get a historical perspective on where we are or as I like to say, I look Beyond Al D'Amato to El de tocqueville referring Kristen Alexis de tocqueville the author of of the book Democracy in America the French rustic retro three propositions that I have about American political history and then take a look at where we are today. The first is the politics in my view more often splits Americans on cultural Garden economic lines, despite the historical narratives of the progress of the New Deal historians who tend to emphasize economic Division. I think this cultural splits of the sort that we see Are something that are typical the norm in American history the second proposition is that cultural variety? And I'm going to avoid the word diversity because I think it's been used as a sort of emblem of a whole set of arguments on issues that that I don't agree with myself. And then I think we're all so misleading but the cultural variety that just started yesterday and they were suddenly have a white bread America suddenly confronted with diversity a cultural variety has been a condition of American life from the very beginning from the colonial days from even before the Revolution and the third one is that the politics of cultural variety country of such characteristic has the capacity to split the nation deeply and grievously the most of the time happily to paraphrase the historian Robert wiebe Americans manage American we Americans manage to live together because we can live separately. So what's I mention to talk for a moment ago? And I did so because I think today's post-industrial America in many ways more closely resembles the pre-industrial America tocqueville describe the Democracy in America in the Jacksonian era in the 1830s. Then the industrial American which most of us grew up that industrial America was Big Unit America big government big business Big labor. Those were the organizations that made most of the decisions that Society The Men Who had those organizations and of course, they almost all we met Together made decisions that told everybody else what to do in generally they did. So it was a conformist America in America is literally in uniform in World War II in which 12 million men a new one time remembers the armed services a country of organization in which people work for the most part harmoniously and productively together as Small units in a lot in large organizations we were we've Customs ourselves to thinking of ourselves as his organization men is the term was and this American came into existence as a in part as a result of the industrialization the creation of the big factories you think of the big grain mills here in the Falls of Saint Anthony. Also, it was a creation of an unusual episode of war of World War war brings us together dragoons. This puts us in uniform causes us to create larger institutions to make big decisions for everybody and I submit to you that that industrial America that big unit America wasn't America, which was very much not just the typical America over a long history but in America that was a result of some very specific and unique events in particular World War II and the post-war Cold War. This was an American which it was good to be normal healthy ordinary. You didn't want to be eccentric. There was four Englishmen or something and it was an America in which politics it to a considerable extent an unusual extent. I would have submitted American history was a struggle over economic issues and in which we had relatively few cultural divisions. And those we did have we tended to paper over this was an America where blacks were mostly ignored and by the media as well and it was In America which by the end of the 1950s the percentage of immigrants as a percentage of the population. What's the lowest percentage since tocqueville time since the 1830s? It was an American where we basically abolished immigration for the most part in the 1920s and the number of immigrants and emigrants children was very low by our historic stand. This was in America were church-going was high and it was dominated by the mainline Protestant denominations. There was a sense that the religions were coming together and buy a discipline cohesive Catholic Church are there was a sense that we were moving to sort of one kind of standardized Christianity and that just about everybody believed in that. This was the American which I think most of us in this room instinctively take to be the norm the Baseline the Earth that the the the America as it as it usually is but it really wasn't if you compare it with the Americas of earlier times as I've ever tried to do it at 6 at least suggestively hear. This was an America that was brought together in a kind of cultural uniformity or apparent cultural uniformity because we tended to ignore things like the existence of blacks in the South the way they lived most Americans just didn't pay any attention to this talk. The this American was actually an unusual. And I think what's happened in the 40 years since the 1950s is that we have sign of silently Without Really realizing it not very well covered by the media recruit to our Norm we're back to where we were to the kind of country that we have more often been historically and you can see this in a number of events that that weren't really recognize perhaps as such at the time the Baby Boomers we all talk about the Baby Boomers. Now, this was not the 30 years ago. The term was not in general circulation, but as early as 1964, there was a clear signal that baby boomers did not like this conformis lifestyle did not want to be part of large organizations to Berkeley student riots 1964 this weirdo for the Vietnam War The Herd to know large shipment of American troops to Vietnam. There were about not wanting to be part of a large organization one of these student slogans. There was do not Bend. Fuller mutilate. Now how many remember what that means the Punch Cards number, but we'll have to explain to our grandchildren will punch cards are and so far. It's just as well have to explain to them why you use the word dial to indicate what we do to a telephone. The the fact is they didn't Clark Kerr the President of University of California had just read a book called The multiversity of what she proclaimed how terrific it was that you had this huge organization the University of California in the students were saying we don't want to be part of this huge organization. We want to be individuals. We want to be our own selves now so I can do the individuals all where exactly the same uniform Pierce exactly the same here for exactly the same blue jeans, but there was clearly something different going on here. American submerged in open view in the 1960's in the Civil Rights Revolution, which proclaimed its goal is in integration of desegregation, but soon to society you have this calls for black power. And of course you had the riots in the street immigration started again after the 1965 Immigration Act change the law opened up a immigration from Latin America in East Asia. It wasn't very much notice that the time when I wrote the first Almanac of American politics in 1971-72. The idea of the immigration we were concerned about was the The Echoes of the immigration of. Up to 19 21 24 x what he had Polish people here awaiting over the swedes in the Norwegians having an ethnic Civil War or whatever and the the fact is that we were just starting this. Of immigration, which is now changed the character of the society in many ways or change. Composition II Society brought us new people with new New Attitudes, but people who in many ways actually resemble the earlier immigrants the response the political Society. The new immigrants was to say Well, they're just like blacks. Their problem is going to be racial discrimination. The solution is government action, perhaps racial quotas and preferences at least and I discriminate chinois certainly and perhaps a lot of government spending was in fact, I think what's happened is that and this was something that was never well covered by the media. I think was the experience is pretty much more like that if your earlier immigrant groups are migrant groups to America that in many ways the I like to say that the blacks of the blacks in the 1990s are many ways like the Irish of the 1890s the Hispanics in the 1990s room for him. Anyways, don't not all like the Italians of the 1890s Asians of the 1990s are very much like the Jews. 1890s lot of common experiences a lot of similar. They're not identical behaviors in the Civil Rights model is not particularly applicable to most of those new immigrant groups in my view. What else has changed religion religion tocqueville taught us that religion is one of the most important forces that shaped American society and he recognized even as he said so that there was not just one religion in America, but that there were a whole bunch of them and there was Sometimes some conflict rivalry between them in the American the 1950s. We we have this idea that we were coming together on one religion idea that I think they ignore the Catholic Protestant division. What is exhibiting politics in the 1960 presidential election when one candidate got 78% of the Catholic vote in the other candidate got 63% of the white Protestants have it? It's obviously if some clear division but has been sixties and seventies came on Catholicism changed and became more of a multivarious religion itself less discipline mean one Protestant denominations lost members and new religion group. Some of the groups that existed for many years like the southern baptist others newer off shoots. The Assemblies of God, whatever is does evangelical church has started getting many more members. We had a different religious mix in the country the DMV articular to lead which tends to dominate the media at the same time move to become really a more secular Elite became adopted a kind of adversary posture to the larger society. I when I went by book our country. It was reviewed by James Q Wilson in the in the new Republic and he said that one of the things I hadn't sufficiently explain to him. This was the sort of review that was really very favourite review for a man. I respect gratefully, but there was a certain element in here up. Why didn't you write the book I wanted you to write Wilson said is why the elite in the 1960s moves against America why the elite people the products uses the same people who from the same background is the wise men is the ivy league-educated people who are the Elite people in the state department in the median and nineteen forties and fifties and put together the policies of World War II in the Cold War and who identified completely with American of the understood that their own background was unusual and privileged in different ways. Identified with the country by the time that we get going as the Vietnam War some. We have their children and grandchildren are basically spelling America with a K. They're leading Revolutionary movements at the great universities, which is almost assertive anomalous weird kind of sort of sort of you know that the revolution run from it's kind of strange and there is a real tension in the way. I think you can say in the late sixties early seventies the. Of Richard Nixon the country turned right and the elite turned left. You got a real Divergence between the two and the media, of course at 10 to be part of the elite tent to being articulate part of the elite into a lot of Detention of the last 25 years now has been between an elite media which does not entirely sure the values. Ordinary People in some cases considers itself to be quite adversary to them. They want to lecture to teach to instruct of the ordinary people and they think it will lift when they don't take instruction are properly in that same. We started to get a certain amount of chaos and turmoil in the society. We had riots in the cities, which we didn't seem to be able to stop the Detroit. Right? I work for the mayor of Detroit during the riot of 1967 that went on for 6 days Los Angeles, right 1992 by way of comparison was a day and a half and it wasn't the only ride that went on for six days the war in Vietnam that we were unable to stop and unable to win. You have that. Between 1965 and 75 when crime and Welfare both triple mean. It's a little hard to get back into the head of what was happening then but to have triple the number of crimes 1975 that you hadn't 65 triple the number of welfare. Faces that you had a 1975 and 65. This was a terrific change in some ways the elite media explained it is saying well in an unfair country like this where there's lots of poverty. What can you expect in fact the country in response to the Civil Rights Movement had become much more racially tolerant and stuff and non-discriminatory and the economy overall during that period was growing and never the last we had these two kinds of negative behavior increased terrifically soap. Overall. We had a country in which the big units the old big units that have been done so well and getting us through the depression winning World War II and building postwar America big government big business Big labor basically started lost their governmental economic and moral author. 40 in many ways and the increasingly in a country became a country of cultural variety as we've been I think in most of our history Americans in a prosperous country Americans are free to seek their own niches. And so we go to wear on churches patronize. Our own shopping malls are catalogs. We have our own cable TV channels and we increasingly have a choice of medium. We've had a proliferation is latest the 19 early 1980 late 70s early 80s, you had the the ordinary Norman American life you watch one of the big 3 network television newscasts every night. Most people dip that viewership is declined vastly because people have other Alternatives they turnt they don't want to watch the the news generally or they don't want to watch the particular news that the three big three networks all staff dumb fault located on the west side of the borough of Manhattan all staff by a people who are well to the left on Economic, but even more important cultural issues than most Americans they people have gone away from that and have seen instead. We have an increasing variety of different media. These cultural differences have naturally emerged into politics in a way you might say that the amazing thing is not that they've immersion of politics with Lee Hamilton Morris sell. One of the key Catalyst was the Roe v Wade decision in attempt by Elite judges to bring it to impose a consensus as they thought they'd done in some of the civil rights cases. I think we're always kind of them accident the fact that you had this decision resulted from the fact that it was a sign that the only one of the hundred and eight just Supreme Court Justice in our history. You spent most of his career working for doctors Minnesota's Henry Blackman Harry blackmun some of the audience of representative in Congress, I guess, Rochester, Minnesota. The states were already liberalizing there abortion laws 14 states that already done. So with 41% of the population decision came down in January 73 just as legislators in almost every state we're going into session. The process was happening the Court Justice blackmun felt themselves obliged to intervene. However, and really it was Roe v Wade, I think more than anything else that gave birth the political process to the two forces which are now the major forces in the political process the religious right and the feminist left. They are now then I'm speaking of groups not in the narrow sense, but if people that share a wife right if use which I think most of us could identify pretty readily who are now the leading sources of energy and enthusiasm in a lawn and the two political parties you go to the Republican National Convention, you will run into lots of people who you characterize as the religious right and they represent very many people out in America if you go to the Mccratic National Convention, you will see the feminist left or raid in great numbers again. They represent many people many millions of people in America back in the 70s. We're looking didn't either of these was significant political forces. The feminist groups were so we can 1972 Democratic National Convention at the McGovern Campaign, which needed to lose one of the challenges that some of the people were bringing to the delegations in order to set of parliamentary pressing that they would enable them to hold onto their majority for California challenge that the group they decided to roll was the feminist of women's challenge to the South Carolina delegation this at least people are you know, they secretly communicate to people were going to lose this challenge the religious right? 1976 Republican party nominated Gerald Ford grow choice for president in United States. The religious right vote to the extent. We can measure it from polls and surveys went for Jimmy Carter the Democratic candidate. This was just 20 so years ago now nowadays, it's inconceivable that either of those two things could happen, but they did happen within living in recent memory. I think the religious right. West is a political force. Part of Me by opposing abortion by feeling that they had to mobilize themselves tremendously because you have the Supreme Court decision that was trying to take this issue totally out of the political realm that you had to go to the extraordinary lengths which our constitution requires to change the Constitution. And so they became a movement they were also bothered by our actions during the Carter Administration IRS closing a private schools of the feminist left after going down the sort of cul-de-sac of trying to get the Equal Rights Amendment passed the Equal Rights Amendment interesting ly is an attempt to let issues be decided by judges to to state a general sort of Charter which then sends all these issues to judges in the judges decide how to got it put women in the military for example, the terms and conditions something that we're not doing it for the Strait of life. 1983 they basically a rose to fight the the abortion the anti-abortion movement. The religious right? There was a sense in both cases of being of having your Turf invaded of having the whole process go so heavily against you that you must fight back of going on the offensive because you feel very much on the defensive and both of these movements really split and changed the shape of the two political parties to the point where it's it seems inconceivable to us that a Republican presidential candidate can be nominated without opposing abortion Democratic party in 1992. The governor of Pennsylvania highly popular Democratic governor was not allowed to speak at the Democratic National Convention. I went up to Bob Casey. I went up to see him he was up in the Pennsylvania delegation, which was ceded very far up there. And if you got an oxygen mask on you could go up an interview Bob. Casey they were keeping him away from the floor the coalition's of the parties have changed and this is really it has changed our politics. It has brought a sort of urgency and moral fervour into politics. It has gotten us on many issues where the difference between the candidates where the difference is on the issues in Practical terms are very marginal. If you look at some of the abortion issues that come up in the legislative context parental consent rape and incest the exception of partial birth abortion, ban. Those are all compared to the 1.3 to 1.5 million abortions to take place in America every year you talking very much at the margins and wishes that have been major issues in America in the 1990s gun control the issues there were talking about the assault weapon ban, you're talking about banning the few weapons of a certain description doesn't really have any measurable impact on the on the supply of guns in the country one way or the other tobacco again word. Talking about relatively marginal things in terms of affecting people's behavior, even with it a big tobacco text. What's more important is that these are sort of these are none-the-less symbolic issues of considerable importance and I think one has to say that that that because of moral principles which people strongly hold which are mutually exclusive in many cases in which you're by no means frivolous. I think there's a Tennessee certainly in the part of a lot of practical politicians who were trouble by their coalition's being split on these issues of saying hey, why can't we just be practical and not worry about a little small numbers of cases affect the moral issues. There are not are not insignificant and and they do engage people mobilize many people keep them fighting. This is led to a politics in which people defend their niches fiercely by going on the offensive and defend them against people very often. in this increasingly separated and devolved into centralized country people of whom they know very little people if they may live in the same neighborhoods with them in the same zip code, but they don't really spend very much time with people of substantially different issue a different views on these issues. And in the process we get these Fierce attack some politicians. We have people feel justified in doing this because they believe the moral Stakes are high. We have the the sort of attempted it kind of delegitimization for many people President Reagan in the 1980s to some extent I think of President Clinton in the 1990s people many people many of the ponitz just feel that they really aren't legitimately pressing. There's something just not really that they're about them that they're just not really going to accept all we have the attacks in the Supreme Court nomination process the attacks on Robert Bork. Clarence Thomas and I think the assault on work was particularly an unscrupulous one in which the intellectual dishonesty of his opponents. It's really kind of breathtaking the starting from Ted Kennedy saying that though he was going to bring back the coat hanger abortion. When it all bork stood for was Sissy That abortion laws should be a matter of state legislatures to handle. It is clear that most the very large majority of state legislatures are going to allow abortions that has provoked set a precedent for retaliation against some democratic appointees. We've gotten to the point where the practically not very important but symbolically important position of Surgeon General could not be filled for two or three years. Nobody got to wear this terrific uniform and if the you know the Clinton The surgeon general's work were controversy on their time because the abortion issue Solace as people may not recall is dr. Everett Koop. Who was the Reagans Surgeon General? He's now because of his nana. Tobacco a hero's many on the cultural left. He was then I'd because of his position on abortion to Hero on the couch will write a he's just stay in the same place on all these issues that he's been on all along but he said he's he's had his head the he's he's got a different set of political champions in each case. We've had the kind of scoring Express by Republicans of class of 1994 of those new Republicans elected to congress for Washington and a can of scorned by democrats in Congress who seem to the same basically think that the idea that somehow there is a provision in the Constitution that says that the Congress should be eternally Democratic and that these people amount to the French revolutionaries or something for coming in This sort of notion of broad that somehow Newt bombed Oklahoma City. I finished the sort of March in there that because people were expressing anger with the public policies that were passed by Democratic Congress. Somehow that had something to do with the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City. I know that you can make just as strong that is where I should put it this way just as weak a case that you know about Gord in his book on the state of the Earth was the inspiration for the Unabomber, but the fact is that many people felt that they somehow connecting the 94 Republicans with the Oklahoma City bombing was a kind of legitimate a thing. Where is the median all this and we talked about them too much here in the field. Some people don't like to say that some people don't understand the function of the media in a free Society. Our function is that we probably the battlefield Shoot the wounded. The fact is that I think again. What we take to be the norm in American history is misleading here is in fact the exception not the rule and what we're seeing now is much more like the rule the norm in looking at the media is the idea of an objective media it is what is almost all the main line media people will tell you that they still run objective news organizations. Hey, we're just out here to use the fax. We not trying to give you any spin on it at all and so forth in American history. I think they are part of the regulation of broadcast industry. If you look back at the 19th 18th 19th century, you will see that the media were so partisan mean they were created by the political parties. One of the things you do when you get an office has to give your printing contract to your parties newspaper and take it away from the other parties newspaper and you know it If they didn't go on with the party line, then you take the printing contract away from them. Just the fact is that it was expected that papers would be partisan. You had a New York 1920s. You had something like 12 13 Daily Newspaper. People didn't read every one of those. I mean the guy that did the Press criticism from The New Yorker me of sat down and read every one of those nobody else you agree with you read the one that represented your party for you you rent the one that would affect was giving you your marching order and that those partisan media weren't sweet little man Peep and Big Eyes the partisan media was vitriolic and vicious and in many cases on fear. It wants to charge tax on people the other side and without very much in the way of any way of restraint the Objective meeting I think starts off into the idea that there can be such a thing and if there should be such a thing as objective media gets going I think in the 19 thirties and forties it gets going with the emergence of new National magazines of different kinds of kid gets although some of the magazines found form of the 1920s like time and my own employer Reader's Digest do have a kind of point of discernible point of view of times has changed over the years the broadcast industry starting with the radio Act of 1930 was regulate in such a way that said you had to be objective. If you weren't the government could yank your license away naturally, none of these people wanted these licences which they've gotten for free or fly pink bunch of Washington Communications lawyers didn't want these license is taken away and the broadcast networks promoted the idea that they were objective that they were Fair mind that they didn't have anybody person acts Metropolitan newspapers increasingly. Reddit doing that too in particular as they would get in Monopoly situations in their town. They wanted the basic idea of the Metropolitan newspaper as a business to everybody or sell to everybody who can buy anything because then people will advertise in your paper. So you do not want to have a partisan till to it. So by the 1950s early 60s, we have a media which says that it's some objective which does not go in for the most part into the scroll us attacks which in a society which at least professes to have a sort of cultural uniformity tends to not pierce the veil of people who may be violating that morality but pretends at least that everybody is pretty much going along with it except for us for a few entertainment industry celebrities. We've come to think of it the norm. It is actually unusual. And what we've got today is a media that is mostly there's very much on one side of the cultural battle and very much standing against the other the media is really I think it's more of a protagonist in most cases the main line media that it is an objective referee onlooker bystander or record the in addition. We have a media switch since the Watergate has a stake in in Scandal and pulling people down and then one of the career if you drive by the gates of one of Bob Woodward's several homes, you will get an idea of what the incentive is to cover that the people that wrote that Richard Nixon was at that put out with the Nixon White House said was happening and just kind of wrote it up objectively White House deny second-rate burglary had anything to do with it. They are not living in million dollar houses. Stay Bob Woodward. Pop bring about the coverage of the Watergate scandal is this is not lost on people in the press. The fact is that, you know, finding the Scandal being one of the ones deleted as one of the ways to get ahead in the business and people are ready to do that. They're ready to do that for both parties. Although I would submit that people have a in the Press 10 to have a hearty appetite for scandal in a republican Administration than a democratic Administration. You can see it in the coverage of the the Clinton scandals. The Clinton of course thinks that he has the worst press of any president of all time. He is I think the 41st president that has had this idea. They all said mean I don't I think Reagan mean that may have adopted. Mrs. Thatcher's think it just don't read the Press, you know, if bad press weight by and just pretend it's good that that most of them think they're press is terrible. But in fact if you look at the sequence of the coverage, the the appetite for Scandal is not quite so hearty of the FBI Files 900 FBI files were found one day in the Clinton White House now, it is possible that FBI Files down the FBI building at 10th and Pennsylvania grow little feet and walk over to White House in 1600, Pennsylvania Avenue. It is more likely that they were caused to be brought there by somebody that should have done that York Times article on page b-29s with the late publisher Eugene Meyer of the Washington Post said where the bomber Pages they said. What do you mean? He said? Yeah B-29 b34 the farmer pages. Bureaucratically was bureaucratic snafu results in FBI files in the White House. I submit to you that was story would have been very different and would have been differently placed if it's been a republican administration because reporters being mostly on the left basically don't think that Democratic administrations are the kind of people that would violate your civil liberties by invading records should be kept private. They think Republican administrations are there was but they don't seem to it that he takes a while for it to click with them in a democratic Administration could do this and then you ought to give it coverage. They figured it out eventually but it does come in there. The fact is if surveys have shown about 90% press about 90% Democratic about 10% Republican. It's somewhat even-handed on issues like economics because the Press haven't gone to college and take a neck one has discovered what the economics profession has the one academic discipline this moved significantly the right in last 30 years. And the rest of the world is discovered that markets very often work, but it's the it's totally skewed on the cultural issues mean I have describe the religious, right? The feminist left. The fact is the feminist left is the is the dominant the thought in the in the in the among members of the press a feeling on abortion is Unum 95% the pro-choice or however, you want to phrase it some people he once said to me that the feminist thought police patrol every Newsroom and you can see it in a lot of the coverage of the press is really off off on one side. Now you have the leaders of the press saying hey, this really doesn't make any difference. We're objective. That's obviously nonsense. Of course, it makes a difference. I mean you you look for stories where you think stories are going to be you think where it where you think stories are going to be is going to be a second an important way still not totally determined by how you think the world works and that's related to your political orientation. Of course, it does, you know, the fact is that if you Advanced as a theoretical proposition, you came forward and said look we have to have this entity and society called the press and people are going to depend pretty heavily on it for information about politics and government and the way we're going to have a fair press is that we're going to have 90% of the people in The Press from one of two political parties and 10% for the other at that point particular. If you didn't know which party was going to get the nighty you might see a lot of people would say chi maybe that's not the best way to do it. The fact is the fact is that obviously it isn't the best way to do it. I want to advance tree for one of our press leaders and Washington the proposition that we bought it if we have had affirmative action to include blacks and others in the newsroom's who weren't previously their intended result in and coverage that many case. Some cases was actually interesting Illuminating and helpful for all of us to see that might not have existed. Otherwise, perhaps you want to go for quotas for the Christian right Republicans exotic groups like that that you seldom see a newsroom. This is Alan Murray the virtual Wall Street Journal Washington bureau chief. I'm glad it doesn't wear dentures cuz I think at that point they would have fallen out when I suggested this any sort of sputter degrees is why we couldn't do this that it would be unfair. He said that you'd be asking people personal questions. I reflected on the fact that recently there was a caucus in the news from The New York Times that it's listed with the new reporter on Edsby be somebody who is hiv-positive and I thought well, maybe that's kind of a personal question to ask. Somebody beat the fact is that that I obviously you have a skewed pressed. In fact through the marketplace through new technology, but also old technology people have responded to this and we get the we get we get the alternative media. So we have a sort of right-wing media. Now which ranges from the sort of August precincts of the Wall Street Journal editorial page to the populist a thunder of Rush Limbaugh on talk radio, you get funeral George will the American spectator whatever there are a lot of local radio personalities. We had a lot of people on the left talking for a while about hot talk radio was a danger to The Republic. In fact, it was a danger that was sort of Monopoly if the kind of ABC NBC CBS Monopoly of the news it's giving people what they want fascinatingly. Some of the technology is new The Intern At all that stuff Summit Technologies Freehold when you get Rush Limbaugh on AM radio AM radio started broadcasting in 1920 communicating with you through it technology called the book. We we had we had that you know, Guttenberg was publishing a book in 1454. So it's not just new technology. It's new ways of reaching out. What is the solution of the fact is that this kind of harsh political debate based on strongly-held moral differences radiated throughout all sorts of decentralized media. This is going to be harmful for some people. Is it to drink some good people from being in politics? I'm sure it is and we're here and we're here in lecture series headed by two former members of Congress both of whom left at Young agency. Although they could easily have been re-elected. So he had to turn his good people from from politics. We haven't had any seat in Congress go vacant because nobody ran for it, but one can imagine improvements on some of the current income. It's not speak about Minnesota certainly, but the whatever the the fact is though. I'm not sure that there is entirely a solution. I mean remember Lord Bryce was concerned about the same problem in this kind of a country. We tend to get this kind of this kind of a media and we tend to get this kind of fractionation. I think the best that most of us can do is sometimes in our partisans. He'll take a step back take a deep breath. Seriously that other people try to exercise every so often of putting yourself in the mind up some good-hearted person who takes a position exactly the opposite of your own an issue that you feel really strongly about trying to figure out how a decent person could come to that conclusion because decent people do that gets an interesting exercise and something we should try. I think it's something we in the Press should try because very many of us can't even possibly imagine how people Take the kind of points of view they do and in many ways, I think I think the problem in the Press is that we're not doing a good enough job of understanding at a part of doing a simple job of reporting an understanding accurately over too busy being championing our particular causes and as part of an elite trying to jam our values down a cut the throat of a country that doesn't entirely I share them with that in the spirit. I think might my time is expired. I almost sense that. I'm in the position of the actress Greer Garson. She was awarded the Oscar for the movie. Mrs. Miniver in 1941. She gave a acceptance speech that lasted 54 minutes with that. She was never awarded an Oscar again. So with that I will conclude. Thank you. Journalist and commentator Michael Barone speaking at a Tim Penny and Vin Weber distinguished fellows program sponsored by the center of the American experiment in the Twin Cities following his formal remarks. Michael Barone took some questions from the audience. My question is How can the media Define who is faithful and who isn't? How can such a definition be applicable when both personal relationship as well as perhaps of corporate expression of faith is the dynamic of an individual's life. How can the Press Define who's faithful and who isn't? The answer is I guess should try to listen to do the best we can and to either in being informed by the spirit of your question, which I think it's an X1 meet in public opinion surveys. We do know the pollsters have been struggling to ask intelligent questions that get at the the degree in character who which is fake because it's over in the politics that used to be proud of some sort of Runway Catholics voted another you know. And you can kind of see that 1960 presidential election. Now, it seems that if I can use some loose terms Loosely and I hope sympathetically tradition-minded people of whatever denomination tend to vote more for the Republicans traditional minded members of both of the Protestant Catholic Jewish, whatever tend to vote more for the Democrats. And so we're trying to understand what that is, but obviously, you know, an individual's faith and character changes over time. I think this room in the public opinion profession and would look to the academics and public opinion polling who can do a lot of this stuff more intensively to try and understand the character. It is important in public life. I were a little uncomfortable with that but it is mean if you read that Paul Johnson's recent history of the American people. He says he identified Does the Great Awakening a religious movement of the 1740s made possible the American Revolution but the Second Great Awakening 19th at the 1830s brought out the Abolitionist Movement and also the movement toward southern baptist churches and help very much to explain the Civil War. So we have more to learn about this and I think we ought to try to do so intelligently respect what thank you buddy, Do you know I would like the key points that you were using us traditional just in terms of describing for the behavior that matters is much less the denomination that someone says that they subscribed to them. That's when when you when you're organized politically you find out that's the huge division goes to the issues that goes to church every Sunday is much more likely to oppose abortion then say a Catholic who attends only on Christmas and Easter despite the fact that people think of Methodist Church is taking it pro-choice position Catholicism. Church attendance rightly or wrongly is our great dividing line and American politics. Thank you. My name is Wally Johnson a question concerning values. Delete press is here to stay I suspect what do you see as the values that undergird delete, press what what what values are compelling in the minds of those who would be identified as the elite press. I think there's similar to what you might call sort of the University Elite are and they're not in variable in every case. I mean, you know Cokie Roberts are against abortion. For example, people wouldn't necessarily know that but they are they're probably two or three other members the national press that are as well. I'll try to think of them. I think the values tend to be so there are obviously exceptions secular and in in terms of religion of sort of Voltaire view of the world that the history of the world is he history of a slow Liberation from the enslavement and religious wars caused by religious faiths a belief that a sort of skeptical believe that maybe some government programs can help 30 years ago the same gritty 5 years ago the same group had a sort of absolute faith that lots of money spent on government programs was the key to getting people out of poverty discrimination. Now, there's a kind of hope that some of those programs can do some good but some skepticism as well. It kind of a lot of people left out that America was an evil force in the world imposing tyranny on people who wanted to have socialist type governments now, I think we have a different View It's been helped Along by the fact that we have a Democratic president out of this baby. Boom liberal generation. Who so suddenly America is not spelled with a K anymore by these people but a sense that the American Motors are still a little suspect that we are much more moral if we act two International organizations and are joined by, you know, the people in Zaire and stuff. Give us moral sanction China. Is it that somehow that's morally preferable to just America acting alone, but environmentalist. Tobacco was terrible marijuana's maybe okay, you know, then you go to go someplace like Nashville where there's smoke in a way like crazy, but you better not get caught with illegal drugs and we just have these different America's with people having a sort of different taboo weeds. Different ways and you see this gun control absolute belief in gun control weird is that in this sort of centralizing country. We have asserted to tracks on gun control. Nationally. We have more gun control laws. They tend to be very marginal in their effect Banning certain kinds of cosmetically Define weapon. But the movement is that way on the dialogue in the political dialogue, is that way in and some of the big States like New York, California, Illinois. That's probably the popular way to go locally. We have his list of the States states not have these carry concealed weapons law. If you have one of Minnesota entitled basically law and biting people to have a right to carry guns all the time the back to be smart claim that they help to reduce crime because you get fewer attacks on people if people see if the criminals think potential criminals think that the Robbery person might be armed and that also armed people in in cafeterias or schools where you have these people attacking people with guns could disarm a person and perhaps deter somebody from doing so it's at least a serious argument with a agree with her or not. And in fact of the local level, we have a proliferation of gun ownership, so it's a fascinating country. Michael Barone, who is the senior staff editor at Reader's Digest in a frequent television news commentator. He was in the Twin Cities for an event this past spring sponsored by the center of the American experiment. Well that does it for a midday program today should like to thank you for tuning in a reminder at 9 tonight. We're going to be rebroadcast in your 11-hour which in case you missed it was pretty interesting discussion of a new study that's out done by the public agenda research organization that surveyed the attitudes of black parents and white parents for public education. See what difference is there were in fact the organization found that there aren't many differences at all and will be rebroadcast in that program at 9 tonight tomorrow over the noon hour. We're going off to the National Press Club Steven Brill, he of the New Media review brill's content the publication that caused such an uproar with the first publications of first edition rather that talked about the Lewinsky coverage that will be over the noon hour tomorrow Talk of the Nation coming up next. stay tuned to Minnesota Public Radio news all this week for a focus on education and the impact of this Fall's election on Minnesota schools explore the issues this week on Minnesota Public Radio channel W FM 91.1 You're listening to Minnesota Public Radio. We have a cloudy Sky 71° ikena W FM 91.1 Minneapolis. And st. Paul cloudy through the afternoon with a shower possible high temperature could hit 80° cloudy tonight with a low around 60 partly cloudy tomorrow the high temperature mid to Upper 70s. It's a minute now past 1