related to the president all right very good very good well we'll pick up on some of those themes that we're talking about and welcome very much to a conversation in manhattan network a pleasure to welcome the life to be here let me introduce you to the audience and welcome very much to conversations a pleasure to welcome to the program two people that we've met yesterday last night as a matter of fact at the george polk award which was very good overseen by ralph angle men and their people were there they featured spike lee got an award for the  katrina piece that he did on home box office which i think was richly deserved and the woman whose name i don't recall who's been reporting from darfur was very good for the new york times and i'm from new york times right and we have two guests here now who are involved and if i could i my media right is sam summer sam summer me and he was the president of the new york times news service for a very considerably long period of time and he's got a new incarnation as it were in a sense easy volved with with its website in a development all hollywood stars we're going to talk some about that but he's been involved in the journalistic vineyards as it were with the new york times for a long time we've been going to talk about that and then his journalism and because you've got a very checkered and interesting life but could you share your own background please i like the word triggered check you know i was born in chapel hill north carolina and i was down i went to the journalism school they broke out they were looking for young people who didn't have any family and so i went to volunteered and i went i worked a couple of years in raleigh north carolina with the associated press and then they sent me to new york for a couple of weeks and off to tokyo i was the youngest foreign correspondent covering the korean war for the a p rife with a i was twenty six years with a view that it's a long time and that was a young that was a young thing it was an exciting you were doing just in case they would take a picture so i was interesting in the days of ernie pyle and all that the cameras were much more bulky and that sort of thing much more involved or kept that kind of royale you know that but now it's down to where you've got a camera that's really very very good and it's tiny dick tracy time they got cameras that are really good you could take it easily with you but you had to we were then lucky you know what the technology's advance iowa you know made it available but you were involved you've done jou rnalism is in a certain sense a big field because you can be a journalism and specialize in gardening and put it one hundred you know that kind of thing or writing it's not novel writing it's not that kind of writing it's writing what when how and that sort of thing and i guess and there's also a division between editorial journalism or opinion journalism and just straight reporting where you do can you spell out so the dimensions of some of that as far as the discipline of journalism self say let's say between straight reporting what when where and how and in opinion journalism and where were you in that in that category in those early years let's say in korea well the oh this is in the press is the oldest news organization in the world next to reuters  started when they were about busy eight newspapers in new york ok and they used to always send the cars upon a to the boats coming from europe to get the latest news from europe to get the jump on and so on one guy i don't know who it was pigeons it did yes roy it is they were the pigeon would carry the latest news to paris from london and they had them trained so they would fly over homing pigeon yeah right home pretty good idea actually rob or those began the british news healthy i guess you know but you're good if you want to get a lump like on the markets or somebody if you want to get information earlier or something the communications we can now do it all of a keystroke but in those days shaving off a little a couple of hours or something could make a big difference in terms of financial informational reuters was you know what i'm saying or this was very big and financial news that we got started so the london market in the paris market everybody wanted to know what it was and sure only by sending the homing pigeons somebody should look this up but we look at up and we competed yours and he's focused but it has to do with communication sensitive and that's what journalism is largely about in a real sense and now you're in iraq with a satellite dish and boom it transmit that it's staggering it's real and it's coming exponentially now but this is stark i'm developing you with the a p twenty six years as a pretty good long career and were you doing all that time you were doing what when where how and water what hard dutch to think some people say that it's really hard for people to keep their own personal biases out of things especially what do you think when you think it's different to think journalism has had a terrible slide talk to talking truth to power that's part of it there's a now that that reporting just the facts that's one thing when you get into opinionated journalism or editorial journalism there's a saying that is they should journalists should afflict no afflict the comfortable and bring comfort to the afflicted in our world society and there's a sub quotes is off cited i've got it on my reporting favors the rich and powerful and the most established interests as opposed to let's say those who are afflicted by a social order that isn't well served it serves the rich and powerful and always has i suppose the reporters in that thing because he was talking expos when he called investigative and they were investigating the malfunctions of the katrina handling of katrina in need it was a great film a great work of art but he was speaking and criticizing those in power and that's editorial journalism and if you're reporting straight isn't it hard to keep your own biases out of it even if you're just reporting facts or well i did for a long time you did so  list don't abide by that anymore they want to put their own opinion and you kept your own and you had no opinion let me ask you when he's six years old and you have no thoughts about the way the world was organized or way it should be organized there were the good guys there were the bad you had no such thoughts at all getting a handle as somebody who's got an opinion most of the people that are on the air are either and it's hard right wing left wing or something and the reporting journalism is to be just getting the facts ma'am right i mean i have a hard time how you're not going to have things filtered through your own consciousness even just in the writing you use the word you could use the use of words and so forth i'm just ruminating you're well it's a very delicate bones yes i should think it would be talking about nappy hair holes and he's running into real trouble and then that's going to and that begins to be filtered through there that's going to upset advertisers and that's going to upset the bottom line that's going to upset the economics and economics demotivates a great deal of what underpins the whole communication industry does it not ok so the reporting effect you were proud to be able to report without any of your own nobody would know what your politics were what you thought about the human condition by your reporting for because their cat got run over by a steam engine whether they were not had and they don't get run over by a steam engine but they're acting as though it did in the touching upon thing it's a it's a it's a  way in the human society life is divided into different segments and you leave one way and another you go in a corporate structure if you're on an assembly line when you're pushing lay there all day and you have to do that and then if you go home and if the same value there in terms of the way this social order is set up the year and you go home you apply that to your wife your foreman and you say get those ladies going and you go home you say to your wife get those lanes going but it's interesting terms of journalism a comparison between the two because can you lead one thing eight hours a day and then not have it affect your other life exactly one word well ok ok and you were a reporter did you ever do any editorial reporting or reporting of your own personal feeling we would put it down and report oh i've written four books ok that's a good sort of thing that's different you were with the a p and then when did you get involved with the new york times or i mean we we would some i would send about one hundred thousand words a day over the top type are now over the internet yeah you know through to these newspapers and around the world it was a very profitable business  report he was a good friend of mine and we used to have a wonderful time yeah i know you're in closeness i did a program with him years ago he was the president or something new york times company or something and one of these was vice president but it was good people there and everything but it one of the questions was the electronic thing that was coming and whether or not we're going to and also a multimedia because the new york times is basically print and it's print and then there's alectryon communication is coming that's another division in terms of of the communication and i think you were interested in some of the database things that some of the things that were emerging if i'm not mistaken from our conversation last night and moving into what we call new media and broadcasters but now broadcasters are a big part of the intially both major world news television and now a p is a huge supplier of television news but do you realize what an apple seed pioneer you were in terms of your consciousness in that regard i was too far ahead because they were my daddy but my dad was a lawyer and he said son it's good to be ahead of your time but not too far ok that that's interesting i think it would have been you were there i think probably when i did the private look at up what it was one thousand and fifteen years ago but anyway it was there and back up to that thing where you were at a p and you had you there twenty six years you got there when you were twenty six so you'd be in your prime when you ended that i guess you'd be around mid fifty's or fifty's for and there you would have been in your prime as sort of thing and you were when at the a p you were pressing the idea that we should start a television division within the a p and how are you received as a television dabbling in this television business when they knew that they thought i was a kook they thought you were and so forth and it was a serious the phone on their part that the television or the multimedia was a threat to good responsible reporting of the facts ma'am and if you want something responsible it will be in print and you've got to just thought that their mission was newspapers because it's owned by the news yes please the more i think the more the new york times has all kinds of financial problems and you've read about you know the difficulties and so forth they're putting a big building up around the corner from me and i know that avenue i know but that that's going to work out  order just you know we haven't had anything to convey everything is serious terms except the alphabet for a long time and we want an electricity for one hundred years or something the telegraph and all that is all that now it's coming  from the movie spike lee's movie and then that brilliant reporter for the times when you're good you're fabulous but you know that what those pictures that were taken that she showed somebody are correct that somebody said ok let's show that like that he was really an interesting person he was wired in a really interesting way and he understood things he had a brother maurice that was more welcoming but a lot i could sit in the class and but he said the famous thing the medium is the message and more important than all the message of a particular medium is there merge is the existence of the medium itself in terms of james joyce once said we shape our tools and thereafter our tools so that we create  extended consciousness and environment and then that creates back so that you know he said that's the thing and that we're now being rejoined to nature but i think we're also  sorel multimedia is in a context that we were in the embedded in nature we said we sense that all at once but we also have to be one litter of ground so that we can actually look at people i know when i photograph can way yeah  chief executive magazine yeah there was something dramatic wrong with that person in that i could sense he was completely closed off and hidden so over a longer time when you were taking pictures or was it just  all you know so i think it's that's all that comes i think you have to be incredibly educated to be an art director to be in the arts just as you do you need to read a lot you need to go to the theater you need to have all the arts you paint i started out as a painter in a very and it's how you use the type with the images for instance if i were gathered on you know what would you be wearing and how would i set it up and and helping sam with hollywood stars who you know as a sales tool yeah it's all very valuable and i know with my students all be seeing soon they have to design their own magazine and i give them the tools to start thinking and not just have technology and do the work for them but a computer  does not do the work for you you must think st concept art design that's how it goes that's not a form following function or something in terms of our general but it is that sound in every we've got station here with the kids it really means they're doing can turn out great stuff on their laptop you know parsons the new school for design they have the communication design department which is one hundred years old and then the really cation design and so now that they then they've merge them because where do i need to for instance i just take classes all the time on how to how to work use in design photoshop illustrator the programs there are programs if i don't know them i can't work if what if i do if i don't know them not only can i not work because i don't know the programs that i that you send to a printer but i can't teach well because i can't help my students if you can't use the program exactly and the  basketball team yeah oh that's a zero that's really funny you can do is to do is really interesting you did that in that kind of thing and but this thing is thing with the art and everything the web design more and more the technology is involved in is it a good thing oh it's fascinating for instance or when i was in space have you looked at that chart which is based charles simonyi you know is a microsoft developed microsoft word he has a blog from days he is in the international space station oh he bought a twenty million dollars fly of martha stewart as a friend of his she got the menu that was sent up way there was a picture waving him you know anyway every day i go online and there's there he is january i mean on thursday and the day before i buried a program that i did with a fellow named bristow that would have been on yesterday if people who can get the television we have to get our time shifting and everything but he is about he's going to launch on a schooner that he built himself out of wood from north carolina a blimp tumbler and build it a long time and he's done that already but he is going to launch on the st of april he is going to sail into the ocean and he is not going to touch land be land for a one thousand days for three years and while he's going to be going to be erected they're going to say oh so i just want to mark you followed up on so use and he is now going to be able to report where they really him and with the internet he's going to be able to report on the schooner they're going to be sailing without touching land for a one thousand days it's a record so he's going to have a blog basically is you know i guess you know i'm going to i'm going to see him i want to say goodbye i'm certainly going to be there to wave him goodbye y i mean because he's a great fellow but it's a pioneer that kind of thing and it's a thing of touch to it because you know he has a great feel for the sea and that sort of thing but this technology and that order that's what so and amazing is that's where we are now you are younger and so forth and well kept and you have a good care of yourself and all that and everything absolutely and that all that's all the result of a good clean well led life and i congratulate you on that but as i was growing up getting older when we were growing up  we had practically nothing that we had to program oh now i can remember they used to have a thing called heathkit if you were really clever you could make a radio instead of just buying one off the show but there's another thing st thing that came  was said this before was the v c r video cassette right for c f and seventy percent of those v c r s were flashing twelve people could they just take them out of the box and then it just in you  but they could not figure out how to program them now it seems to me about ninety percent of my life is trying to figure out how to program a new gadget that's coming out gadgets every day there's gadgets upon top of the gadgets and there's engineer they do they have to because when i think it's going to crash if they don't remember the st computers were enormous and bill gates was you know dropped out of harvard and he was using this enormous all the great soon to be dropbox well i think artist now which i resisted because i came to resistor what the scientists i resisted the computers in the beginning i wasn't i was i was before computers i was doing everything by for computer absolutely no i was you know cutting things by hand and cutting my in position you know you know and i love the computer but part of the problem with a computer is that it's you st of all you have to know how to use the program right and if you're not if you're not smart that way then it's difficult to it's a unhealthy for instance new orleans apparently as last night you know we were sort of looking at new orleans is all going to be reconstructed wirelessly as the city well is that not maybe advance i mean there is progress in advance but i don't know what maybe you do with the what are the ramifications of all the you know does it do something to you to have those the rays kamin and i don't think so they said that about the cell phone there was a room is ok there's an anti technological bias on the part of a thank goodness they're going to they're going to be put under ground and there's new materials coming all the nests are you optimistic for the human prospect or you sam are you optimistic for the human prospect and promise you know or do you mean by that well i don't know do we delay for my grandchildren well perhaps that's one way to see it i got four grandchildren i think a little differently a little bit you get older they're kind of stuff but yeah just we live in an incredibly significant transformat times i mean we've been here two hundred thousand years apparently our species become out of the home annoyed line ten thousand generations we now have to extend our technology was such a fish and see on the destructive side that's what's led t technology mafia don political leaders fighting to control other mafia dons in a protection racket kind of way of organizing the world you could see it that way and so now we've got weapon systems that apparently i don't know it's a question to be model that if they're unleashed in some sort of spasm it will mean the end of our species they could mean the end there wouldn't be a survivor new guinea we couldn't do that in the nd world war we didn't have that kind of promethean i don't know if we have it now there might be a couple survivors the us public just does not catch on that we're in a war we're in an absolute unremitting war or we don't wake up to the fact that these guys are out to get us we're going to when you when you at the time of vietnam did you feel the same way that we should be fighting in vietnam because they had the same kind of extensive challenge they were going to come in in vegas maybe in san francisco that would be good we blew it but did you feel amount of threat from that of those who are doing and were you in favor of what we did in vietnam well not the way we did it because of the way we were backing such corrupt leaders that the whole thing fell apart i say you know i think we back whatever it is right now what are we doing now for these communications but people still don't understand what the threat is despite all the news from the me you can kill the roar from every angle and for every you know it's not the cumbersome situation that we when the magnum photographs brought photographs from vietnam and it started to counter blast to the vietnam thing that we're being told now and so people political differences are really interesting and so i think we're challenged by  yeah right and the fact is that we don't really know you know most people they care but they rather it would have a mcdonald's or they they don't they want to watch and of course mathur right you know well there are a lot of the print people because they're not thinking good linear thinking and that one of the problems is even when you've got a whole lot of time we could talk about twenty seven hours a day but we run out of time and we're running out of time we're already forty odd minutes then we got a little clip because you are very hollywood has its own royalty and every year they are slipped into a mid to flourish and celebration of the cademy awards no heads were crowned instead the winners are presented with a thirteen and a half in statuette in the shape of a you'll see close up hears of all the major nominees for this year's oscars i used to watch movies when i was a kid i mean that's what that's where my idea of the world magic and the more and the glamour they all add up to create hollywood's magic night it's a clean sweep the lord of the rings the return of the you've got this interest in nollywood and in the movie and is right and in television and i devise the scripts and you know work on the how to put the show together that's sort of like art directing or happening are directing you have people that are skilled  exporting i saw artifacts asian women i see a new year a new yorker now yes new york a great town fabulous would you rather live in los angeles they have wonderful weather why are you living in new york i asked  said she says you know i worry about the poor daffodils i didn't get snow just a little bud you know sweet yeah but anyway but i think new york is just a great town though really i love new growing the crew to have it here is amazing you think so yeah and you've been you know i go back and forth you go back and you buy coastal my daughter lives in california and it's a good draw for grandchildren and they live in washington much i can't do it i can't do it i need i want eight i would much better you know edison used to just sleep for two hours at a time or something and i think also buck with fuller only slept a couple of i took you take you can thanks we tune in again tomorrow that's it for now but thanks again once very much now we're still going to just run the credits i think and so forth and we should be just about out pretty soon very good thank you will come betty interesting you know the st person i've run that the circumstances and what and the way it was managed was horrendous and i think that you would say that too but that not being there is a bigger problem well that's the question that's a philosophical thing you could say the idea was right or something but in the management then th carrying out of the thing that's actual doing it that's why i did not come with all that at i think i just feel terrible guilt we had four million people that were killed as a result of what mr mcnamara said was a mistake and now that's not have the vision that the future