The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I`m Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is away.

On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this New Year`s Day; then, an assessment of what`s next for Iraq after the execution of Saddam Hussein; a NewsHour report about the loss of 3,000 Americans in Iraq and a look at who they were and where they came from; excerpts of the weekend`s Washington farewell for President Ford; and a Media Unit conversation about a year of changes for new and old media.

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RAY SUAREZ: Hundreds of Iraqis spent this New Year`s Day protesting Saddam Hussein`s execution, which happened early Saturday morning. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Samarra, defying a curfew. They fired guns, chanted pro-Saddam slogans, and vowed revenge.

Saddam was buried Sunday outside Tikrit in the village where he was born. We`ll have more on Iraq after Saddam, following this news summary.

The U.S. began the new year with a grim milestone in Iraq, as the U.S. death toll passed 3,000. At least 113 American troops died in December, making that the deadliest month for U.S. troops in all of 2006.

More than 22,000 Americans have been wounded since the war began.

The United Nations has estimated 28,000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first 10 months of 2006.

We`ll have more on the 3,000 American deaths later in the program.

Americans lined up outside the U.S. Capitol today to pay their last respects to former President Gerald Ford, who died last Tuesday. Thousands filed past his casket in the rotunda. President Bush and Mrs. Bush also paid their respects today.

Ford`s body has lain in state since Saturday evening. We`ll have excerpts from Washington`s tributes later in the program tonight.

And tomorrow, we`ll have live coverage of a funeral service at Washington National Cathedral, beginning at 10:00 a.m.

In Somalia, the last major militia Islamic stronghold fell today. Somali government troops, backed by Ethiopian tanks and planes, captured the southern town of Kismayo. They were welcomed by cheering crowds, after fighting to retake control of the country for nearly two weeks.

Earlier, hundreds of Islamic fighters fled to their base near the border with Kenya and threatened to begin an insurgency.

The U.S. Civil Air Patrol flew over snowy southeastern Colorado today in search of more stranded travelers. A winter blizzard hit the Plains states last week, causing 15-foot-high drifts and closing interstates.

At least 12 people died in the storm, many on icy roads. In Kansas, at least 60,000 homes and businesses were still without power today.

People around the world celebrated a new year today. At the Vatican, Pope Benedict urged people to repudiate war and violence. He told thousands of worshippers that all nations should champion peace and human rights.

In this country, cleanup from last night`s parties began early in New York`s Times Square, where more than a million people rang in 2007.

That`s it for the news summary tonight. Now: what next for Iraq; a grim milestone in the war; goodbye to President Ford; and media revolutions and evolutions.

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RAY SUAREZ: Iraq after the execution of Saddam Hussein. We begin with a look at the former dictator`s final hours.

In the middle of the night on Sunday, in the back of a pickup truck, Saddam Hussein`s body was returned to the people of his tribe for burial. An Iraqi flag draped the coffin and mourners prayed for him.

Before he was buried in his hometown of al-Awja, the circumstances surrounding his execution had become an internationally televised drama. This silent video of the hanging, released Saturday, shows a outwardly calm Saddam Hussein, resigned and ready to accept his fate.

But yesterday, another video surfaced via the Internet, apparently captured on the camera cell phone of a witness. These images are blurred and shaky. The pictures and sounds reveal the chaos of Saddam`s final moments.

As he`s moved into position, the Shiite guards taunt Saddam, a Sunni, with sectarian slogans. Someone calls out, "Go to hell!" At one point, the Shiites can be heard cheering the name of Muqtada al-Sadr, the powerful Shia cleric.

IRAQI: Muqtada! Muqtada! Muqtada!

RAY SUAREZ: Saddam defiantly replies, "Is that what you call manhood?" A judge tries to quiet the room, and the condemned man begins to pray as the floor falls away under his feet.

For more, we turn to Adeed Dawisha, professor of political science at Miami University of Ohio. Born in Iraq, he`s now a U.S. citizen and has written extensively on the Middle East.

And Thabit Abdullah, a Baghdad native who`s an associate professor of history at York University in Toronto.

Professor Abdullah, does this execution mark the end or the beginning of something in Iraq?

THABIT ABDULLAH, Associate Professor, York University: Every single change that would occur in Iraq would have to be measured by very small, incremental steps. So with that in mind, yes, I do think that the execution of Saddam marks a very small step.

And that small step is that it will, in my opinion, give the existing government some flexibility -- not a lot, but some flexibility -- in trying to reach out to some of the alienated elements who had been part of the old regime, of Saddam`s regime, to perhaps draw them into reconciliation talks.

In fact, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, right after the execution, in the statement he made on Iraqi television, openly called for members of the Baath Party -- and he mentioned the Baath Party -- to enter into reconciliation talks, and also stretched out an arm or an invitation to the old officers of the Iraqi army to again enter the fold.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Dawisha, do you agree that this execution marks an opportunity, as Professor Abdullah suggests?

ADEED DAWISHA, Miami University: That may very well be the case. Saddam had been almost like a symbol to the old Baathists. The insurgency had been going on without him for the last three years.

And so we really don`t know here whether new leaders had emerged that would be able to unify this insurgency. All we know is that, of all the leadership of the Sunni community, many of them have left Iraq. The others have gone underground.

And as a result of that, the only person that provided some kind of a symbolic unity for them was Saddam Hussein, so his removal might provide an opportunity.

I dare say, however, I think that`s a very small hope because of the increasing kind of enmity between the two communities -- the Shiites and the Sunnis -- which makes me feel rather depressingly and, unfortunately, that we have gone way beyond the death of Saddam.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Dawisha, what about the status of the Maliki government? The prime minister confidently said, after the sentence was pronounced earlier in 2006, that Saddam would not live to see 2007. He cleared the paper roadblocks; he cleared the security roadblocks, made sure that it happened this weekend.

Is that a message to the country that this government is in control?

ADEED DAWISHA: You know, the government will be seen as being in control when it actually deals with the real problems of Iraq, when it deals with its own problems: rampant corruption amongst its ministries; the infiltration of the militia into its security agencies.

You notice that, for example, in that video, nobody shouted the name of Maliki. They were shouting the name of "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada." That should tell you something about the condition of the government of Nouri al-Maliki.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Abdullah, on the Maliki government, what`s your take?

THABIT ABDULLAH: I agree with what Professor Dawisha said. In fact, when I spoke to friends and relatives shortly after the execution, they were rather resigned.

Many of them who had, and myself included, waited all their lives to see the end of this regime, their joy was rather subdued, because the real matters at hand was the insecurity, the lack of electricity, the corruption, as Professor Dawisha said, and these are the issues that will ultimately make or break the government.

I should mention one other thing: It was rather depressing, also, to see the manner and the haste with which the execution took place. The fact that it took place in such haste gave the impression that, in fact, these were Shia militias who were executing this individual who represented the Sunnis.

And I think this is a terrible mixing and muddling of the whole legacy of Saddam. Saddam`s regime was not necessarily a Sunni versus a Shia regime. It was rather a heinous dictatorship that targeted first and foremost the secular democratic forces in Iraq and, in fact, repressed Sunnis with as much severity.

But the way in which the execution took place, with the shouting of slogans, not only of Muqtada but also al-Hakim`s name was mentioned there, gives the impression that, in fact, these are Shias out for revenge, and this is what a lot of Sunnis, who are not necessarily pro-Saddam, are extremely fearful of.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, Professor Abdullah, does it send the message? Does the message come from that video from the death chamber that there is a Shia ascendancy and you Sunnis better get used to it?

THABIT ABDULLAH: I think some Sunnis will interpret it this way. This certainly could have been avoided. And we can list a number of terrible events that have happened since 2003 which could have been avoided.

And chief among them are the terrible mismanagement and crimes, really, that the American occupation have perpetrated, especially the Abu Ghraib. This is yet another incident that shows the incompetence of both the American administration and now the Iraqi administration in managing what would certainly have been a very turbulent period, the post-Saddam period.

But the execution should have -- I don`t see why it had to take place during the Islamic holiday. I don`t understand why it had to take place with such haste.

The Kurdish population and the Kurdish parties are upset because the second trial that dealt with the Anfal campaign, which killed nearly 200,000 Kurds, is now cut short, or at least the most important element is removed from it.

There are many other issues which could have been dealt with much better had this not taken place under such chaotic and hasteful circumstances.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Dawisha, what about the Anfal trial? That`s the trial that was currently going on, where Saddam was also a codefendant. But he was the star defendant, as it were, and he was taken out of the middle of those proceedings and executed.

Is it important for the country to continue to hear these charges read out, to continue to hear the witnesses? And will they pay as much attention with no more Saddam?

ADEED DAWISHA: They will not pay as much attention without Saddam. The whole limelight was being put on Saddam.

And I can understand the Kurdish complaint that, when you take Saddam away, you`re taking the limelight off the trial, and therefore you`re taking away the ability of people to hear the sufferings that Professor Abdullah talked about, in terms of the hundreds of thousands of Kurds being killed, the gassing of Halabja, and things like that.

The problem that I see is the length of the trial itself now. It`s been going on for two years. And this trial was as messy as the execution itself, where Saddam began to use it as a stage for his own pontification, his own posturing.

And I would have thought he would have done the same thing in the next round with the Kurds. So maybe -- it`s very possible that it was a good thing for the Kurds that Saddam was gotten rid of, instead of giving him the stage to say things about the Kurds that they probably would not have liked to hear.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, gentlemen, before we go, I`d like to get a quick reading from both of you on how this looks in the rest of the Arab world, where Saddam was a big figure for many decades.

Professor Abdullah?

THABIT ABDULLAH: Those that benefited from Saddam Hussein will mourn him. Those which were harmed, who were harmed by him will rejoice.

But above that, right now in the Middle East there is such an intense fear of American imperialism or American neo-imperialism in the region that anyone who stood up to the Americans, even Saddam Hussein who actually came to power with U.S. aid in 1963, or rather the Baathists did, and then received generous support during his war with Iran, was suddenly transformed into some sort of a champion for the Arabs.

This, in my opinion, is a very sad indicator of how confused the Arab world is. To see people mourning such a terrible dictator who harmed the Palestinian cause, who harmed the cause of progress in the region as a whole is a very depressing statement, as to the low levels that the Middle East has sunk.

RAY SUAREZ: And, Professor Dawisha, your quick thoughts, please?

ADEED DAWISHA: Yes, I agree wholeheartedly. I think that the Arab world is divided, probably the Gulf States and, of course, in Iraq where it would be against him. But certainly the West, all north of Africa, Syria, Georgia will certainly be very sad about his death.

There was an opinion poll done about three or four months ago in Jordan, in which it showed that Saddam was the most popular Arab leader. And that tells you something about the confusion that goes on in the Arab world today.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Dawisha, Professor Abdullah, gentlemen, thank you both.

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RAY SUAREZ: Now, the loss of more than 3,000 Americans in Iraq and its impact back home.

In a moment, we`ll hear from three families whose lives have changed after their loved ones died in the war. But first, a statistical profile of the U.S. military personnel killed since the war began in March 2003.

The largest number of deaths for U.S. forces have come in central and western Iraq, roughly 1,100 deaths in Anbar Province alone, home to three cities where there have been fierce battles: Fallujah, Ramadi, and Haditha.

In and around Baghdad, about 800 troops have died.

And the remaining third have been killed in various cities and provinces around the country.

The vast majority, about 2,400, were killed in hostilities. IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, account for more than a third of the deaths. They also account for more than half of the deaths in the last two months.

Nearly 600 were killed in non-hostile situations.

More than 95 percent of American deaths have taken place since President Bush announced the end of major combat operations in May 2003.

Back here in the U.S., the deaths have touched every state and major city, as well as many smaller towns around the country. Not surprisingly, most of the fatalities hailed from major cities and large metropolitan areas, but the rate of loss is disproportionately higher among small towns in the upper Great Plains, Midwest, South and northern New England.

Among the branches of the U.S. military, the Army has suffered the heaviest losses. More than two-thirds of those killed were members of the Army, which includes reservists and Army National Guard.

For the much smaller Marine Corps, the war is exacting a heavy toll, as well. The Corps has lost nearly 900 Marines, including reservists. The Navy has lost more than 60 sailors; the Air Force, just under 30 personnel.

Overall, more than 600 of the 3,000 were reservists. And three military bases -- Camp Pendleton in California, Fort Hood in Texas, and Camp Lejeune in North Carolina -- have lost more than 800 troops combined.

By gender and race, more than 2,900 of the fallen were men. About 2 percent were women. That`s the highest number of women killed in an American war since World War II.

Seventy-four percent of all the fatalities were white; 11 percent were Hispanic or Latino; nearly 10 percent were African-American; about 3 percent were either Asian, American Indian, or native Hawaiian.

About 16 percent of all personnel killed were between 18 and 20 years old; 60 percent were 21 to 30 years old; 18 percent between 31 and 40 years old; and 5 percent were older than 40.

Ninety percent were enlisted members of the Armed Services. About 10 percent were officers.

The number of wounded continues to swell. More than 22,000 other U.S. troops have been injured, many of them grievously, since the war began.

Now, how some of the families of the fallen are dealing with their losses. NewsHour correspondent Spencer Michels has our story.

SPENCER MICHELS, NewsHour Correspondent: Nearly every day, Gretchen Mack leaves her house in rural Wyoming and starts to walk, sometimes for just a mile or two, sometimes for 10. She says the walking is her form of therapy to deal with the death of her 19-year-old son, Chance Phelps, who died in Iraq.

GRETCHEN MACK, Mother of Fallen Soldier: It actually makes me feel like I`m closer to him out there than I am in this house, in any place.

SPENCER MICHELS: It was April 2004, when more than 1,000 people crowded into the high school gymnasium in Dubois, Wyoming, for Phelps` funeral. He had been a private first class in the Marines and was killed in a shootout in Ramadi, just west of Baghdad.

FUNERAL SPEAKER: I want you to know that he died a hero. He never let himself or his other fellow Marines down. He showed great valor under intense weapons fire at him and his fellow marines.

SPENCER MICHELS: After the service, people lined Main Street to pay tribute, as his body was carried by a horse-drawn wagon up the hill to the cemetery. His mother said her only son first started talking about joining the Marines after September 11th.

GRETCHEN MACK: He just told me -- he says, "I got to go." I couldn`t stop him; I didn`t want to stop him. But my heart was just -- you know, I think I always knew, really, that he probably wouldn`t come back.

SPENCER MICHELS: Now, looking back, she said, during those months following his death, she nearly had a mental breakdown.

GRETCHEN MACK: I could not get out of bed, didn`t want to get out of bed, didn`t want to do anything, didn`t want to go anywhere. And it kept getting worse and worse.

SPENCER MICHELS: Mack sought professional help. And in the two-and- a-half years since her son`s death, she has taken steps to move forward. For one, she`s gone back to school to pursue her love of photography.

GRETCHEN MACK: That`s helped, because it makes me focus on something. And Chance would -- you know, he wouldn`t want me feeling sorry for myself and sitting around. And he was always very encouraging, you know? So that`s what I go on.

SPENCER MICHELS: And she and her daughter are also focusing their energies on organizing a walkathon, from 29 Palms Marine Base in Southern California to Dubois, a distance of over 1,500 miles. The money they raise will be used to help wounded Marines and their families.

GRETCHEN MACK: So we thought it would be a great way to just give part of ourselves back to these families and help them, and help ourselves, as well.

SPENCER MICHELS: Thirteen hundred miles away in Cleveland, Ohio, Rosemary Parker and Paul Schroeder have also been spurred to take action following the death of their son. Twenty-three-year-old Augie Schroeder died, along with a number of other Marines, when their amphibious vehicle hit a roadside bomb near Haditha in August 2005.

His parents, who had never been very politically active, decided they had to do something to channel their grief, so they began Families of the Fallen for Change, an organization to lobby Congress to pull out of Iraq.

Both Schroeder and Palmer have quit their jobs to devote all of their time to the organization, because they don`t want the public to forget about the men and women who are coming home from the war in caskets.

PAUL SCHROEDER, Father of Fallen Soldier: It`s so easy for people who lose someone like this to close the door. You want it to go away.

And we decided that, you know, all these guys come back from Iraq who are dead, in the dark of night at Dover Air Force Base, and we were not going to let that happen to our son.

So we opened the door; we turned the lights on; we opened the window shades; we let the sunshine on what has happened. And basically it`s that message. We took his face and put his face on this floor.

SPENCER MICHELS: As they continue to grieve, they take a bit of comfort in the fact that political activism like theirs may have played a small part in the Democratic wins in Congress this fall. But they say their work is far from done, and they worry the Democrats in Congress may not act quickly enough to end the war.

ROSEMARY PARKER, Mother of Fallen Soldier: I think they`re going to say, "Well, we`re working on it." And they can make a lot of activity and a big show of, "We`re working. We`re making these plans," but not much is going to happen.

And that`s what I`m worried about. I plan to keep working, you know, for the exit, by continuing to keep on the congressmen and saying, you know, "I didn`t push to have you elected to sit there and talk about. I want to see some action."

SPENCER MICHELS: On a personal level, they say they are making some slow progress in their healing, as well. This year, they were able to put up a Christmas tree, something they couldn`t bear to do last year.

ROSEMARY PARKER: Christmas was always a big season. You know, like we always had lots of things planned. And now we have almost nothing planned.

PAUL SCHROEDER: You have to find a new routine for the holidays. I met a woman, older woman, who lost a son in Vietnam. She was listening to me speak at some occasion, and she came up to me and put her arms around me. And I asked her -- she told me about her situation.

And I asked, "Does it get any easier?" She said, "No, you just get used to it." And I think that helped me turn a corner, because, "OK, I`m used to this."

SPENCER MICHELS: In Conyers, Georgia, 24-year-old Fabian Rincon says he, too, has been able to turn a corner since his brother`s death in Iraq three years ago. Diego Rincon was 19 when he was killed, along with three other members of the Army`s Third Infantry Division in April 2003.

Born in Colombia, Rincon was a legal resident when he served in the U.S. Army. At his funeral, he was awarded something he had always wanted: U.S. citizenship. And the townspeople of Conyers lined the street with signs paying tribute to an American hero.

FABIAN RINCON, Brother of Fallen Soldier: I will always remember our long talks on our four-hour car rides from Fort Stewart to our home in Conyers.

SPENCER MICHELS: At the time of Diego`s death, Fabian had to be the family spokesperson, since his parents did not feel comfortable in that role. That experience has turned around his life.

FABIAN RINCON: I`m a totally different person. Before I was the introverted one in the family. You know, I kind of stuck to myself. I didn`t really have that many friends in high school.

My brother, Diego, was a total opposite. He was the social butterfly. He had a friend everywhere he went.

I think after that, after his death, then I was pushed, you know, to represent the family. My parents, they were too grieved to speak to the media. It turned me into a totally different person. I can speak in front of people, in front of crowds, and I feel comfortable. I feel at ease.

SPENCER MICHELS: Fabian has just graduated magna cum laude from Georgia State University and is planning on attending law school. He also recently got engaged.

FABIAN RINCON: I think people have been themselves to be better than they think they are. With me, it`s happened because of this tragedy.

And I`m just sorry that it had to happen this way, but I think that played a big role in just who I am now and all the things that I have been involved in school. Tragedy just forced me to challenge myself, and I know that Diego would have been proud of what I`ve done.

SPENCER MICHELS: Fabian says he often feels that Diego is living on through him, and he doesn`t like to dwell too much on Diego`s death. Recently, a freelance writer published a book about Diego`s life and death. Fabian says he hasn`t been able to bring himself to read the graphic descriptions of Diego`s death.

FABIAN RINCON: I felt that all the memories that I had of my brother, all the happy memories, you know, going to high school together, you know, sharing our first car, you know, having him teach me a little bit about women and things of that nature, I feel that`s how I want to remember him.

SPENCER MICHELS: The Rincon family, the Schroeder family, and the Phelps family, just three of the now 3,000 families who are remembering loved ones who have died in the war in Iraq.

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RAY SUAREZ: Now, remembering former President Gerald Ford. Kwame Holman takes us through the weekend`s tributes.

KWAME HOLMAN: Some of President Ford`s former staff members stood in darkness on the tarmac of Andrews Air Force Base on Saturday evening to greet his coffin and escort it to Washington.

A 21-gun salute sounded in honor of President Ford, the start of four days of ceremony in memory of the country`s 38th president.

Mr. Ford`s wife of 58 years, Betty, escorted her husband`s hearse in a long motorcade to the Capitol building, traveling through Alexandria, Virginia, where President Ford lived during many of his 25 years of service in the House of Representatives. Hundreds braved chilly temperatures to watch the procession.

Entering Washington via Memorial Bridge, the caravan paused before the World War II memorial. A boatswain mate came forward to render "Piping Ashore," a piercing whistle used for centuries to welcome officers aboard a ship, and now to honor naval service. The president served as a navigator and gunnery officer in the Pacific during World War II.

About 7:00 p.m., the motorcade arrived at the east front of the Capitol building. Mrs. Ford watched as pallbearers carried the flag-draped casket slowly up to the Capitol entrance.

Once inside, the president`s remains were placed on the same bier used for President Lincoln`s funeral 141 years ago and for President Reagan`s two-and-a-half years ago. President Ford`s family, former congressional colleagues, staff members and dignitaries attended a private service in honor of Mr. Ford.

Outgoing Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert spoke of Gerald Ford`s legacy.

REP. DENNIS HASTERT (R-IL), Speaker of the House: Mrs. Ford, members of the Ford family, Mr. Vice President, members of Congress, and distinguished guests, I don`t think it`s a coincidence that American history seems to be an almost providential narrative, a story about finding the right man at the right time to lead this nation.

Like Abraham Lincoln, another great Midwestern president who confronted a nation divided, Gerald Ford was called upon to bind our country`s wounds. The twin crises of Vietnam and Watergate had crippled America, sapped our strength, shaken our confidence. And with humility and devotion to purpose, Gerald Ford united us once again.

In an era of moral confusion, Gerald Ford confidently lived the virtues of honesty, decency and steadfastness. His example of fairness and fair play, of dignity and grace, brought forth in us our better instincts. He reminded us who we should be, and he helped us to heal.

KWAME HOLMAN: Vice President Cheney, once Mr. Ford`s White House chief of staff, spoke next.

RICHARD CHENEY, Vice President of the United States: In his congressional career, he passed through this rotunda so many times, never once imagining all the honors that life would bring.

He was an unassuming man, our 38th president, and few have ever risen so high with so little guile or calculation. Even in the three decades since he left this city, he was not the sort to ponder his legacy, to brood over his place in history.

Sometimes, in our political affairs, kindness and candor are only more prized for their scarcity, and sometimes even the most careful designs of men cannot improve upon history`s accident. This was the case in the 62nd year of Gerald Ford`s life, a bitter season in the life of our country.

It was a time of false words and ill will. There was great malice and great hurt and a taste for more. And it all began to pass away on a Friday in August, when Gerald Ford laid his hand on the Bible and swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

He said, "You have not elected me as your president by your ballot, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers." What followed was a presidency lasting 895 days and filled with testing and trial, enough for a much longer stay.

This president`s hardest decision was also among his first. And in September of 1974, Gerald Ford was almost alone in understanding that there can be no healing without pardon.

The consensus holds that this decision cost him an election; that is very likely so. The criticism was fierce, but President Ford had larger concerns at heart. And it is far from the worst fate that a man should be remembered for his capacity to forgive.

In politics, it can take a generation or more for a matter to settle, for tempers to cool. The distance of time has clarified many things about President Gerald Ford. And now, death has done its part to reveal this man and the president for what he was.

He was not just a cheerful and pleasant man, although these virtues are rare enough at the commanding heights. He was not just a nice guy, the next-door neighbor whose luck landed him in the White House.

It was this man, Gerald R. Ford, who led our republic safely through a crisis that could have turned to catastrophe.

KWAME HOLMAN: Outside the Capitol, people waited as long as five hours to get into the rotunda to pay their respects Saturday night. Long lines persisted through the weekend.

This morning, thousands more braved rain showers this New Year`s Day for a final chance to view the president`s casket. Mr. Ford`s daughter, Susan Ford Bales, and son, Michael Ford, stood near the casket and greeted some of them.

President Bush and First Lady Laura Bush, who did not attend Saturday`s service, visited the rotunda this afternoon.

The first President Bush and wife, Barbara, entered the rotunda shortly afterward. President Bush and his father will speak at tomorrow`s funeral service at Washington`s National Cathedral.

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RAY SUAREZ: Finally tonight, a new year for new media. Jeffrey Brown looks at how the trends of 2006 may play in 2007.

JEFFREY BROWN: Yes, the big stars of what we can call old media were in the spotlight in 2006, notably when Charles Gibson and Katie Couric traded mornings for evenings.

But another old media mainstay, Time magazine, passed over the anchors and other newsmakers, and instead selected as its person of the year, "You." That`s you, the viewer, reader, listener, and more and more creator of news content.

The media shift is spreading across the Internet on decidedly new media Web sites, like YouTube, which was purchased in October by the dominant search engine Google for $1.6 billion.

All those eyes on the Internet have come at the expense of traditional news sources and forced numerous changes. NBC announced a plan to save $750 million with the elimination of 700 jobs, the merger of its news operations, and an increased focus on digital content.

The nation`s second-largest newspaper chain, Knight-Ridder, ceased to exist, after selling its 32 papers to a smaller competitor, the McClatchy Company, in a $4.5 billion deal.

And shrinking circulation led to staff cuts at many prominent papers. At the Los Angeles Times, the publisher and editor were forced out when they refused to impose hundreds of corporate-mandated layoffs.

The L.A. Times and its parent, the Tribune Company, are also thought to be on the auction block.

BRIAN TIERNEY, CEO, Philadelphia Media Holdings: I really do believe, from the bottom of my heart, that the next great era of Philadelphia journalism begins today, right here in this room.

JEFFREY BROWN: In Philadelphia, businessman Brian Tierney lead a group of investors in buying the town`s two papers from McClatchy, in what may be a growing trend toward a return to local ownership. Rumors of a potential takeover by local investors also hit the Boston Globe.

For old and new institutions alike, the action is increasingly moving online. USA Today, with the nation`s largest circulation, combined its print and online newsrooms. And it, like other organizations, is incorporating more elements of reader-generated so-called citizen journalism.

A recent event in Los Angeles showed the growing power of nonprofessional journalists in uncovering news. Video of the UCLA student being Tasered or stun-gunned by campus police was taken with a camera phone by a bystander. It spread quickly across YouTube and other online sites.

SEN. GEORGE ALLEN (R), Virginia: This fellow here over here with the yellow shirt, Macaca, or whatever his name is...

JEFFREY BROWN: Some of the more memorable video moments of the recent political campaign also played out in cyberspace, chief among them, Virginia Senator George Allen`s "Macaca" gaffe.

Traditional media continued to expand their own online video presence. CBS News, for example, began simulcasting the evening news online, and ABC began posting original 15-minute news broadcasts to its web site in mid- afternoon.

According to a report released by the Census Bureau, for the first time Americans spend more time surfing the Internet than reading newspapers. And a Pew Research Center study found that nearly one in three Americans regularly gets news online, compared to just one in 50, ten years ago.

And we look at some of these developments now with Mark Jurkowitz, associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and a former media critic for the Boston Globe and the Boston Phoenix.

Mary Hodder, founder and CEO of Dabble.com, a video search and social community Web site, and previously a researcher at the University of California Berkeley School of Information Looking at Digital Media.

Adam Clayton Powell III, director of the Integrated Media System Center at the University of Southern California, and a former news executive at NPR and CBS.

And Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and a staff writer on the media for the New Yorker magazine.

Welcome to all of you.

Nick Lemann, starting with you, there you are at a leading journalism school, no doubt thinking and talking about the future of the news media. To what extent does that conversation focus on the Internet and a shift in the business?

NICHOLAS LEMANN, Columbia University: To a huge extent. I mean, it`s this year -- particularly it`s been just about all we talk about. Just this morning, we sent out invitations to our annual faculty retreat after the holiday break, and that will be 100 percent devoted to the question of how we do more Internet in our curriculum. So it`s very much top of mind for us.

JEFFREY BROWN: Adam Powell, is it happening? To what extent do you see it happening, the shift?

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL III, University of Southern California: The shift is huge, and it`s going in a direction which I don`t think we can see yet. By the end of next year, we`re going to be seeing some innovations which are going to be striking, almost science fiction.

JEFFREY BROWN: Science fiction?

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL III: Yes, 3-D visualizations, the ability to do micro-local news down to your block in your neighborhood. But old media aren`t going away.

We still have radio; we still have AM radio; we still have short-wave radio; we still have newspapers; we still have magazines. Life, Look and Collier`s went away, but they were replaced by even more magazines, so it simply becomes more crowded, more fragmented, but still with innovation.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mark Jurkowitz, what do you see? Is it possible to think of a balance of power shift?

MARK JURKOWITZ, Project for Excellence in Journalism: Well, the power is shifting, but it hasn`t shifted yet completely to new media. I mean, in a year when YouTube sells for $1.6 billion, we know where a lot of the energy in the media are going.

But as Adam points out, the old media are not going anywhere. The fight for the future of some of America`s biggest newspapers, between public companies and potentially private owners, still shows they are valuable properties.

The fact that the major networks and CBS gambled on a new evening news anchor for a format that is believed to be sort of heading toward extinction means we are in an evolutionary phase, not a revolutionary phase, right now.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mary Hodder, what do you think, evolutionary or revolutionary? How do you describe it?

MARY HODDER, Dabble.com: Well, I guess coming from the new media side, you know, what we`re seeing is enormous. I know that old media, or what I would call legacy media, is not going away. Bloggers always rely on legacy media sources, and I think this is true as well for video.

You know, much of what`s uploaded to hosting sites like YouTube is traditional media. But the really, really big shift, the hugeness that I see, is the shift in control, its users programming for others what`s interesting.

And, you know, you`re taking it away from the Brandon Tarkentoffs (ph). You know, the legacy media companies in the past would tell us what was going to be on the, I don`t know, Sunday night line-up, but these days it`s users saying, you know, these five minutes out of Comedy Central`s, you know, show is the best thing, and everybody watches that.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mary, what are the main changes that you see in how people, especially young people, want to get their news, or where they look to get their news?

MARY HODDER: Well, I think part of it is, is that they`re going to shows, like the Comedy Central line-up. You know, it`s "The Daily Show" and all of that, and we`ve all heard this before, so that`s nothing new.

But what people are doing, especially younger folks, is they`re grabbing bits of that news from television, and they`re throwing it up online, and they`re sharing it with each other. So that`s a huge shift. They`re essentially doing the programming that traditional media used to do.

The other thing is, is that they`re making their own bits of news. I mean, you look at what happened at UCLA recently, the Tasering incident, which everybody saw. Well, what they were watching was other students` cell phones having shot what, you know, the incident was and throwing that up online. That`s enormous.

So there`s content coming from both places, but I think the real shift is control. Who gets to decide what we watch has gone away. I`m deciding. My friends are deciding. Other folks on the Internet are deciding. And that sort of yanks the rug out from underneath legacy media in a way that we`ve never seen before.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, so, Nick Lemann, how do you see legacy media, old media, whatever you want to call it, responding to these changes?

NICHOLAS LEMANN: Well, everybody is trying to figure it out. It doesn`t have to be an either/or, and this is one of the miraculous things about the Web.

Most traditional media are experimenting on the Web with some format where part of the site, part of the home page is devoted to traditionally produced content, and another part of the home page takes you into a world of reader-generated content, so you really don`t have to say, "We`re going all one way or all the other way." It`s a wonderful medium to do both at once.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mark, how do you see this question of shifting and control and how old media is reacting?

MARK JURKOWITZ: Well, there`s no doubt about it: User-generated content, the idea that everyone in this era can become a journalist, is a very important fact and has knocked away some of the gatekeeper function.

But we have to remember that there has to be some kind of a business model to under-gird journalism. And that`s the real issue now.

As we transform from the traditional mainstream media business model for the online business model, which doesn`t yet support professional journalism in a traditional way or support opening bureaus across the world...

JEFFREY BROWN: Business model just means, how do you make money at this, right?

MARK JURKOWITZ: How do you make enough money...

JEFFREY BROWN: Let`s cut to the quick here.

MARK JURKOWITZ: How do you make enough money? And where is the balance of power? Online ad revenue growing much faster than legacy media ad revenue, but still only a portion of it.

JEFFREY BROWN: How do you see the -- how are people looking to create a business model or make money out of this?

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL III: Well, the central question has been for years: Who is going to pay for basic news gathering? Who is going to pay for all of those newsroom functions that we`ve associated with the traditional newspaper or a large broadcast news operation?

Right now, the online revenues don`t support that, which is why newspapers in particular are beginning to feel it in a very acute way.

But Mary Hodder`s example was an interesting one, the UCLA Taser incident. That shows not just citizen journalism or public journalism or user content, but also it gets to something that Dan Gillmore, formerly of the San Jose Mercury News, liked to refer to when he said, "My readers know more than I do."

There is an example of students with cell phones actually uncovering news. And what does the Los Angeles Times do, if you`re the Los Angeles Times? For that matter, what do local stations in Los Angeles do? Do you embrace it? Do you try to keep it at arm`s length?

That`s really the microcosm of what`s going on very broadly in the industry and in the business.

JEFFREY BROWN: Mary Hodder do you see -- go ahead.

MARY HODDER: Yes, I was going to hop in there. You know, the thing is, is that I think it would be extremely bad for the democracy if legacy media went away. We couldn`t have that, and we need it.

Whether it`s for reporting -- and it`s very expensive, of course, to do investigative and, you know, worldwide journalism -- or whether it`s, you know, creating the "Desperate Housewives" TV show, I mean, these things are really expensive.

I think what you`re really getting at around business media, business models, is that in the media we have developed models that support these very expensive creation tools, as it were. And what we`re doing now, in terms of transforming to the Web, is going from an eyeball model to something where attention is the currency of the Web.

And so, when you start to rethink what advertising means in terms attention, you can parse who someone is or what they`re about without invading their privacy in interesting ways, and actually do something very different.

So the old model was, "Let`s throw ads up either in the investigative journalism report, the documentary, or `Desperate Housewives,`" right? And we just spray the entire audience with an ad. And whether or not it`s relevant to them, they get it.

What`s really interesting about the Internet is that you have the opportunity to have sort of an opt-in model, where people who are really interested in something can opt in. And there`s a sponsorship kind of model that can be attached to that.

And, you know, it`s all a big question right now, I think, about whether or not advertisers and brand managers will be willing to shift from that broadcast spray to something where, you know, they can connect up with the thousand most important users for their brand, and potentially enlist those folks as partners, folks who can give them good feedback, whatever, and in effect sponsor the creation of the content that is so expensive to make when it`s professionally produced.

JEFFREY BROWN: Nick Lemann, I wanted to go back to this issue of democratization and the citizen journalism. What promise and problems do you think it raises, as someone who not only writes about the media but is training young journalists?

NICHOLAS LEMANN: Well, there`s nothing wrong with citizen journalism at all, and there`s a lot of it. And it`s a very healthy development.

The UCLA incident is a good example. The traditional media can`t have a reporter and a photographer at every conceivable place something interesting might happen in the whole Los Angeles basin, so of course they`re going to miss stuff. And now that everybody has a cell phone camera, citizens will catch things.

However, what I haven`t seen citizen journalism do yet is really provide an ongoing, regular report that monitors the activities of government business and so on. It`s a kind of wonderful add-on and corrective to flaws in the conversation, but it doesn`t conduct the conversation, and that`s the value of traditional media.

One other thing is: People just don`t have time to scan an infinitude of news, so eventually people will come up and essentially establish themselves as the folks you can go to because they understand how you think and give you the kind of news they know you`ll be interested in.

So then you`re sort of back in the soup of a few gatekeepers that tend to attract more people.

JEFFREY BROWN: That`s a part of a real big issue here, Mark, right, this whole gatekeeper thing, who`s going to play that role.

MARK JURKOWITZ: Well, editors are going to play that role. I mean, journalism skills are not going to go away. Reporting skills, writing skills, editing skills in any media environment are going to continue to exist.

And what you`re actually finding in the online world is you`re finding some professionalization and some more traditional aspects. Arianna Huffington`s very popular blog recently announced they were going to hire traditional news reporters.

There is an international blog called Global Voices that has editors stationed around the world sort of mediating content. So at the same time that you in theory have all these citizen journalists who can report for you, you`re also starting to get the imposition of some of the traditional forms of newsroom guidance on some of these media outlets.

There`s no doubt about it: The idea of journalism isn`t going to go away; the source of it will change in some ways.

JEFFREY BROWN: But, Adam Powell, you started this talking about science fiction, about the future. Do the standards, these traditional reporting standards, remain, even in your science fiction world?

ADAM CLAYTON POWELL III: Well, the question is: How are journalists and editors going to respond? We`ve seen the rise of Google Earth and similar visualization tools.

In 2007, we`re going to see the rise of microlocal applications of that, where you can go in and construct a 3-D model of your neighborhood or, if you`re walking around with a cell phone, the cell phone will tell the system where you are, far more accurately even than now, and you will be able to get advertising to your cell phone.

If you`re going into a book store, you might get an ad on your cell phone saying, "Well, gee, people who head into book stores like this also liked," the sort of thing we get when we go to Amazon or one of the other online sites. And advertisers are willing to pay a very high cost per thousand for that kind of highly targeted information.

How this intersects with journalism, what the new grammar, the new conventions of telling a story when we have access to 3-D video, what those are, we don`t know yet. We`re barely learning now how to edit 3-D video.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, Nick Lemann, I started by asking you if the conversation is all about the Internet. What do you tell in the end? What do you tell the prospective journalists now about how to approach it or even what medium to go into?

NICHOLAS LEMANN: I get up on the first day of school, and I say, "Welcome to Columbia Journalism School. I know that if you`re devoted to it, you`ll be a reporter, a journalist. But the way in which you`ll be a journalist, I don`t know."

And I say to the students, "Be ready to learn the core functions of accurately reporting and writing the news, and be ready to be very flexible and creative about the means in which you do this, because it will change in ways that`ll be a lot of fun for young people to explore."

JEFFREY BROWN: OK. And we`ll leave it there. Nick Lemann, Mary Hodder, Mark Jurkowitz, Adam Powell, thank you all very much.

(BREAK)

RAY SUAREZ: Again, the major developments of this day.

Hundreds of Iraqis in Samarra protested Saddam Hussein`s execution.

And the U.S. death toll in Iraq passed the 3,000 mark.

We`ll see you online and again here tomorrow morning, with live coverage of the funeral for President Ford, and again tomorrow evening. I`m Ray Suarez. Thanks for joining us. Happy New Year. Good night.