The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight three views of the new grading of the public schools; a report from Chicago on making school grades part of the license to drive; some perspective on press practices from Haynes Johnson, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Michael Beschloss, joined by press observers Ed Fouhy and Paul McMasters; and a conversation with Morris $ Miller$ Williams, the inaugural poet. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday. NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Two bombs exploded today at a building in Atlanta that houses an abortion clinic. Police said a third explosive device could still be in the building. The first blast was on the bottom floor where the clinic is located. One side of the building was damaged. The second occurred about an hour later in a trash bin outside the building. At least six people were injured, including emergency personnel investigating the first explosion. The five- story building also houses legal, dental, and medical offices. At a news conference officials said they were not certain the abortion clinic was the target of the blast.

KENT ALEXANDER, U.S. Attorney: We are not ruling out the possibility of domestic terrorism unrelated to clinic violence. There were a number of offices housed in that particular office building. This bomb, if it was placed right outside the building, could have been leveled at anyone. If it was abortion violence, the message should be that this is not an issue about abortion rights; this is an issue about rule of law. I think the agency heads, who are standing behind me from all the law enforcement agencies, attest to the fact we are taking this as seriously as we can take anything.

JIM LEHRER: A nearby abortion clinic was evacuated when it received a bomb threat. Additional police were sent to other clinics in the city as a precautionary measure. Special counsel James Cole was to deliver his findings on Speaker Gingrich to the House Ethics Committee by midnight tonight. Gingrich has already admitted wrongdoing but said it was unintentional. He confessed to using tax-exempt donations for partisan activities and providing the committee with inaccurate information. Republicans and Democrats continued to dispute the significance of the charges facing the Speaker.

HALEY BARBOUR, Chairman, Republican National Committee: The charges that were investigated are insignificant and minor. He's been man enough to step up and say what he--that he recognizes that he gave inaccurate information. And even though during the process on more than one occasion he gave totally accurate information about the same subject, as he says, it was his responsibility to make sure that the information was accurate. As far as the tax question is concerned, there's been no finding of any violation of the tax law or any other law.

REP. VIC FAZIO, [D] California: When the third-ranking individual in the governmental structure after our President and Vice President is brought before a committee and pleas to violations of tax law, in effect, the seventh time, the committee has said he has transgressed the rules. I don't think that's an inconsequential issue. I think it's close to a crisis.

JIM LEHRER: Staff members of the Ethics Committee told reporters televised public hearings may be held tomorrow afternoon and on Saturday. The full House is expected to vote Tuesday on punishment for the Speaker. The weather turned cold again in the Upper Midwest today. In Minnesota, Governor Arnie Carlson closed all public schools because of wind chills approaching 70 degrees below zero. Many government workers were also encouraged to stay home. National Guard troops were called in to rescue stranded motorists. In Chicago ten inches of snow fell in the suburbs, closing schools and businesses. The weather in the region was responsible for at least six deaths today. A new report issued today said many of the nation's public schools are ripe with mediocrity. The state-by- state study was released by "Education Week," a trade publication funded by the Pew Charitable Trust. It said 15 years of education reform have not produced the needed progress. Unlicensed teachers, low salaries, large classrooms, and mismanaged funds were blamed for the inadequate school systems. We'll have more on that report right after this News Summary. In the Middle East today the Israeli parliament ratified yesterday's deal to pull its troops out of Hebron. The vote was 87 to 17 and followed nearly 12 hours of debate. In Hebron soldiers began dismantling checkpoints and bases from their 30 years of occupation. When the pullout is complete, most of Hebron will be under Palestinian control. The 27-year-old son of actor Bill Cosby was shot to death early today. Ennis Crosby was found alongside his sports car on a freeway in the Belair section of Los Angeles. Police said it appeared he had stopped to fix a flat tire and may have been the victim of a robbery attempt. Ennis was the only son of Bill and Camille Crosby--Cosby. They also have four daughters. Cosby said of his son, "He was my hero." And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to new grades for education, grades and driving, a discussion of press standards, and the inaugural poet. FOCUS - GRADING SCHOOLS

JIM LEHRER: We go first tonight to the public schools grading story and to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: The report issued today by the newspaper "Education Week" showed that despite a 15-year effort to improve public schools, the states still have a very long way to go. States have made the most progress in designing standards to measure student performance, rating an average grade of "B." But their average grade for the quality of teaching was a "C." And their grades for maintaining a school climate that's conducive to learning averaged out to a "C-." The states also got mediocre grades, a "C" average, in how they allocated money and other resources to education. The report didn't give a letter grade in the all-important area of student achievement. But it said results from the only national tests of student performance were "a cause for genuine concern." In most states only a third or fewer students had attained proficiency in fourth grade reading or eighth grade math. Here to explain and discuss these results are three guests. Ronald Wolk is the publisher of "Education Week;" Gordon Ambach is executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, which represents state school superintendents; and Terry Branstad is the Republican governor of Iowa and chairman-elect of the Education Commission of the states. Welcome, gentlemen. Ron Wolk, starting with you, what's the most important thing, in your view, to come out of this study?

RONALD WOLK, Education Week: Well, I think the most important thing is that despite a lot of state policy activity, we still have not put into place in most of these states a coherent strategy that is focused on those things that really matter, that reallycan improve student achievement, and bring about some improvement in our schools. We were covering education when the National Commission report came out in 1983 and said our systems were threatened by a rising tide of mediocrity. After a year of looking at the data, I think I could say that the rising tide may not be rising anymore, but there's no indication that, that it has turned. And we think that a coherent strategy might help accomplish that.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's get into the substance of this report and help us understand what's behind these letter grades. Of course, there's been a lot of attention focused on the states to--coming up with standards. And you did find I think 22 states had done very well in coming up with standards, but then if you looked across the chart, most of these states were still getting a "C" in the quality of teaching, a "C" in all the other categories. How do you explain this gap say between standards and quality teaching?

RONALD WOLK: Well, first of all, I have to make clear that we were assessing state policy. We weren't assessing schools. We weren't assessing teachers. Standards as a relatively--the kind of standards we're talking about now, what students should know and be able to do, assessments that will really measure whether they can do it, is relatively new. It's a strategy the governors have bought into in most states. It's the centerpiece of a reform system. But it hasn't yet really been put into place. The grade of "B" the states got is more for effort than anything else because the standards aren't--

MARGARET WARNER: In the standards area.

RONALD WOLK: In the standards area. They're defining the standards, but they haven't yet developed the assessment for them for the most part. Teachers haven't yet been trained to teach students. States haven't been associated with them, and so the relationship between standards and the other aspects that we looked at, at this point, is really not existent.

MARGARET WARNER: And then as we go into the discussion, just explain briefly, when you said quality of teaching, the average was a "C," what did you mean? What do you mean by that? What did you look at?

RONALD WOLK: We're looking at what policies the states have in place to assure as much as is possible that they will have good, qualified teachers in every classroom. Right now in this country 40 percent of the teachers are teaching out of field. They're math teachers who are teaching math without a math degree, science teachers without a science degree, 40 percent, and it varies state by state. So what policies the states have to assure that teachers will be well trained in their field, they'll be coming from education schools that are well accredited, there will be entry requirements and recertification requirements and those things. Those are what we looked at because those are the policies that if anything is going to produce good teaching, they will.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Gordon Ambach, from where you sit, do you see this gap between the standards and the quality of teaching, let's say?

GORDON AMBACH, Council of Chief State School Officers: Yes, there is a gap. "Ed Week" is a very tough grader. They've hit us hard with the overall assessment that's been made. They have recognized that there's been tremendous progress made in the past few years on setting standards, but it takes time to move the standards into actual practice. One of the biggest gaps that we have is the professional development of the teachers. This was pointed out by "Education Week," and I think this report shows us lots of places for improvement and the ways to improve.

MARGARET WARNER: Governor, do you agree that there's a long way to go in the quality of teaching, and, if so, why after all these years of attention to the subject?

GOV. TERRY BRANSTAD, Education Commission of the States: [Des Moines] Well, I think there's too much focus on process and not enough focus on results or achievement. In Iowa, we've taken a different approach. We're a local control state. We've led the nation in literacy in the 20th century, and we want to lead the nation in distance learning in the 21st century. And we've really focused on how we can improve student achievement by using the technology that's available and motivating teachers to set high and ambitious goals. But we believe that that should not be mandated from on high but should be developed at the local level, with the active involvement of parents and the community. And because of that strong community support involvement, Iowa continues to have very high achievement, even though we don't get the highest grades on process.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, I don't want to get into this. We wanted you on to talk about the national picture, but in the achievements- -

GOV. TERRY BRANSTAD: Well, it's state by state. I think you need to recognize the traditions are different. Some states, like Kentucky, are trying to do this on a statewide basis. They have been a week state in education, are making some major modifications and changes. Iowa, on the other hand, we've been a strong state. We've been committed. We provide tremendous resources to education. We've been a leader in equity in providing funding more equally to the rich and poor districts. And so I think there's a danger of trying to go with this one-size-fits-all and everybody going with the latest fad.

MARGARET WARNER: Well, let me ask you this, Governor.

GOV. TERRY BRANSTAD: We try to focus on basics.

MARGARET WARNER: Governor, are you satisfied with the quality of teaching in Iowa? Do you think--you don't deserve a "C," as you got?

GOV. TERRY BRANSTAD: We--actually I think that we've done some very innovative things to improve teaching in Iowa. In most cases in Iowa we have teachers that are teaching in their field. I think more can be done to improve teaching. I want to attract more of the best and brightest to the teaching profession, but I would say in Iowa, we've got some excellent, dedicated quality teachers.

MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let's turn to the resource question. And, again, Ron Wolk, sketch out for us what is the problem, what's behind the "C" grade overall that you gave in the resources area?

RONALD WOLK: Well, we didn't actually give a "C" grade overall.

MARGARET WARNER: I know. You gave three different ones.

RONALD WOLK: We gave three grades. And one had to do with are the states spending enough money, are they keeping up with inflation, are they making an effort that's compatible with their wealth? And secondly, we looked at equity, and we used a government index, which led to some great inflation and some anomalies. And we recognized that. And the GAO is coming out with a better, a more improved index. And then finally we looked at how money is spent and their indicators under that. Of all of those the thing I would point to most is equity because in this country--and this is another one of those bottom lines you asked for earlier-- a child's education, the quality of a child's education--is still largely determined by the color of his skin, where she lives, or the relative affluence of her parents. And in the country which is the freest in the world and the richest in the world, that's really an intolerable situation.

MARGARET WARNER: Gov. Branstad, would you say--would you agree that's a problem nationally again, not in Iowa, and what will it take to correct it?

GOV. TERRY BRANSTAD: State after state is addressing that. I know, for instance, some of the states have had a major divergence. I can think of Michigan, for instance, Gov. Engler has made some dramatic changes to increase the equity and funding, change it more from being property taxes to more state dollars going into it. I think that's made a big difference. But you have to look at it state by state. In my state, we started very early back in the 1970's to equalize between the rich and the poor. And just last year we put $85 million more state dollars in to replace local property taxes, so it does vary from state to state. Some states have done a much better job of equalizing and having more equitable funding sources. I think moving away from local property taxes to more general funding from the states is a way to do that. We've done that in Iowa, and still maintained local control and local decision making.

MARGARET WARNER: What do you think is the most important finding here about resources, Gordon Ambach?

GORDON AMBACH: Well, I think it's a two-part finding. One part is related to the teacher quality, and that is that there have not been sufficient resources put into the quality of teachers, either preparing them or continuing to keep them prepared. And the other aspect of the finding is on the equity, the distribution. As the governor has pointed out there are many states which have taken great strides in attempting to try to build up their resource and the equitability. But if you take the country as a whole, and I think that's what's important about this report, we find not enough progress in this area.

MARGARET WARNER: Ron Wolk, explain one other thing in the resources area. The report suggests that perhaps too much is being spent on special education. Can you explain that?

RONALD WOLK: That was certainly not intended. There was no intent to suggest that the children who are special needs children should not get the resources they need. The point we are trying to make is that of the increases in expenditure that are causing a lot of taxpayers in this country to say we're spending too much and scaring a lot of politicians away from talking about new sources of revenue, the money, the increases have gone to such things as keeping up with the echo of the baby boom, enrollment, with increasing salaries of teachers, we're an aging teaching force, and their salaries are automatically going up as they're in grade, and finally the very expensive business of educating about 12 percent of the kids who are in special education. That may be fine. It just should be recognized that those dollars that we are increasingly putting into education are not always finding their way dollar for dollar to the classroom, where teachers and ordinary students are struggling to learn.

MARGARET WARNER: Governor, what's your view of the resource situation in terms of the willingness of taxpayers to spend more?

GOV. TERRY BRANSTAD: In our state nearly 60 percent of the budget goes for education. And what we find is people are willing to invest in quality education, but they're also fiscally conservative. They want to see results. They want to see achievement for the dollars that they put in. I think that the federal government in its mandates in the area of special ed has driven up costs needlessly. I think that needs to be reviewed. I want to see every child have an opportunity to learn. All special ed children do have a right to an education, but to spend tens of thousands of dollars on kids that really are not going to be able to support themselves or be able to really learn a great deal at the expense of the general education of the rest of the students is not fair. And so that has to be addressed. A lot of people are afraid of it, of being, you know, accused of being insensitive or whatever. I was in Sioux City, Iowa, yesterday, and I heard from a Teacher of the Year, Nancy Mounts, who had been Teacher of the Year, and the superintendent there about how their school is being squeezed because of the federal mandates in the area of special ed and how there needs to be more flexibility and latitude given to local school districts in that area.

MARGARET WARNER: Do you agree with that assessment?

GORDON AMBACH: The funding of special education is a very particular issue all away across the country. You have to remember that 25 years ago there would be a million less children in school than there are now because of the special education laws. There are adjustments that need to be made. I think the special education teachers and administrators know that, but I think that what's very critical on our funding issues overall is not to single out the special education program but to think about what we have to have overall. There are huge construction needs, $120 billion the GAO says. There are very, very strong professional development needs. It's not just an issue of looking at one part of the population but right across-the-board against the overall finding of this report with respect to where our achievement is related to where we want to be in the 21st century.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Before we start--let me get to student achievement, if I could, because you all found that there's no state, it doesn't seem, that has--almost every state only 35 percent of the kids, at the most, are what you call proficient say in reading in fourth grade or math in eighth grade. I mean, did you find a sense of alarm in the states about this?

RONALD WOLK: Well, I think you have to start worrying about a nation in which fewer than half of its students can read proficiently, and fewer than that can do math proficiently. These kids are going into a high-tech information society. If we expect them to be good citizens and vote and understand the issues, they're going to have to be able to understand and learn. If we expect the to succeed as workers, they're going to have to adapt to changing circumstances. And if we can't get a higher percentage of our students achieving, I suspect that this nation is in for real trouble. Either our economic and political systems will continue to be jeopardized, or other forms of education will emerge to replace the traditional public school.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, Governor, very briefly, your state and all the others don't do better than this 1/3 proficiency. Is that good enough, or does a lot more have to be done?

GOV. TERRY BRANSTAD: Well, I would just say the last tests we scored right up there with, with Korea and with Taiwan, some of the highest achievers. But we're not satisfied. In fact, I'm putting together a task force on educational excellence for the 21st century. We want to use the technology that's available to motivate kids to achieve at a higher level. And I think governor after governor around the country is trying to improve education, but you have to do it in tune with the traditions of your state. I'm a strong believer in local control and parental involvement. If you get the parents and the community involved, you're going to see improvement in education. That's what we've seen in Iowa, where we have involved and committed parents and community, we see the schools doing quite, and I think that's a lot of it, is to get people involved, that they can make a difference at the local level.

MARGARET WARNER: Thank you, Governor. We're going to have to leave it there. Thank you all very much. FOCUS - NO PASS - NO DRIVE

JIM LEHRER: Now, another angle on school grades. It comes from Chicago. Elizabeth Brackett of WTTW-Chicago reports.

DRIVER'S ED INSTRUCTOR: Between the lines. Keep it between the lines. Good job. Keep coming. Keep coming.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: It was a cold late afternoon in Chicago. A light snow made the pavement slippery, but that didn't matter to these young drivers. It was the first night behind the wheel in their high school driver education course.

DRIVER'S ED INSTRUCTOR: Put it in park. Be careful. Good job.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: They were on their way to getting what most teen-agers value highly, a driver's license.

DARRON JOHNSON, Student: A driver's license is a big thing to, you know, us because once you get your driver's license, it shows freedom kind of, and it also gives you the ability to go places, you know, without having to bug your parents about it, or, you know, having to take the bus there. So it's a lot of responsibility too.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Concerned with high failure and dropout rates in the Chicago public schools--44 percent of Chicago's high school students dropped out last year--Illinois legislators decided to take advantage of kids' strong desire for a license.

DRIVER'S ED INSTRUCTOR: Now we want to look left, right, and left again, slowly pull out. There you go out. Go hand over hand to your right, hand over hand to your right. To your right. To your right, honey. To your right. Relax. Relax. Good job.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Legislators signed off on the "no pass-no drive" law. Kids in Illinois have to pass eight courses in two semesters, or they can't take the driving portion of Driver's Education, thus, no license. The head of Driver's Education for the Chicago public schools likes the new law.

ROBERT MILLER, Driver Education Administration: Most students want their license, and that's an incentive to do better in school, you know, hold back the license until you pass eight course. I think that's a great incentive.

DARRON JOHNSON: I'm working hard to make sure--I mean, I'm not borderline but I like to make sure, be assured that I'm getting my driver's license.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Darron Johnson is a sophomore at Bogan Public High School in the far Southwest side of Chicago. At Bogan reading and math scores are below state and national averages. And 13 percent dropped out last year. The school adopted a uniform policy this year. Principal Linda Pierzchalski says that plus the "no pass-no drive" policy, new last year, has begun to make a difference.

LINDA PIERZCHALSKI, High School Principal: In June it did make a difference overall. There were fewer failures than there had been the previous year.

SPOKESMAN: Do you want me to get a list of the driver ed classes who have failed eight or more subjects?

OTHER SPOKESMAN: Yes. Let's get a list of--

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: At Bogan, the process begins in the programmer's office. The day we were there programmers were getting ready to identify kids who would not beable to get their driver's license.

SPOKESMAN: Linda.

LINDA PIERZCHALSKI: How are you?

SPOKESMAN: Good. Maybe you can handle this. This is the driver ed problem, and I don't know you're going to--maybe you want it in front of the whole class so everybody knows about it? I'm not sure what the best way to-- LINDA PIERZCHALSKI: No. I think we'll take em down to Mr. Kilcoyne's office.

SPOKESMAN: Okay. Whatever.

LINDA PIERZCHALSKI: --to come down and take em one by one. I hate to do it in front of the clap :

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Counselor Ed Kilcoyne was given the unpleasant task of telling kids they wouldn't be able to get their license.

ED KILCOYNE, Counselor: Do we have Clifford Edwards?

TEACHER: Yes.

ED KILCOYNE: Let me see him a moment.

TEACHER: Clifford.

ED KILCOYNE: Cliff Edwards. Cliff. Come on with me a second, please.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Sophomore Cliff Edwards was pulled out of the classroom portion of his driver's ed class. In Illinois, driver's education is required for graduation whether or not the student qualifies to take the driving portion of the class, which enables them to get their license.

ED KILCOYNE: Now, this was from last year, and it indicated here that you had failed one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine semesters. Okay. Now, the law in the state of Illinois now says you have to pass eight semesters in order for you to get your permit.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Do you think it's fair?

CLIFF EDWARDS, Student: Yeah. It's fair. I mean, I should have done my work last year.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Are you going to try do it differently this time?

CLIFF EDWARDS: Yes.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Sophomore Firsa Asfur also got the bad news. Asfur didn't think there was anything fair about the new law.

FIRSA ASFUR, Student: I already got my car. I just need my license. That's it.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Counselor Kilcoyne thinks withholding a license is a great way to motivate students, but he concerned about what not getting a license might mean to students like Asfur. ED KILCOYNE: It's just almost like playing sports in school. Some kids come solely to school to play sports, and when they don't pass, they have a--they're really reluctant to come to school, and sometimes you may lose students.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: But you're saying some kids come to school just to get their driver's license?

ED KILCOYNE: Oh, yes, definitely, definitely.

DRIVER'S ED INSTRUCTOR: You did great today. You did really well. You really improved from last week. Do you have the keys?

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: The head of driver's education at Bogan also has some concerns about the new law.

JAMES ARTESE, Driver Education Teacher: The big drawback I see if they can't take driver education, are they not going to drive? I'm not so sure they're--they're not out there driving illegally, with no driver education.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Illinois is the only state where a student's license can be suspended if they don't pass. But 15 other states have state laws that say a student's license can be suspended for poor attendance. Illinois has such legislation pending. Principal Pierzchalski hopes Illinois will join other states in suspending licenses for poor attendance.

LINDA PIERZCHALSKI: It's difficult for them to adjust to high school. And sophomore year, I kind of call it the terrible twos. They have a tendency to try everything and take a lot of time off from school. So if their license was suspended because of attendance, I think we'd see a big difference in the average daily attendance of students, which would also lead to passing more classes.

JAMES ARTESE: We're fearful of overkill.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: Which would mean?

JAMES ARTESE: That means now the kid's a junior in high school, and he has a driver's license, and he misses ten days, you say, okay, you've missed ten days of school this semester, we're going to have your license revoked. The guy's been driving a year. Now you tell that kid he can't drive anymore? He'll still drive.

DRIVER EDUCATION TEACHER: [in car with student] Keep coming. Keep coming. Keep coming. Watch that stop sign.

ELIZABETH BRACKETT: For now, Illinois students just have to worry about passing eight courses in order to get a license. The students here say that's enough motivation.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, press standards and practices and poet Miller Williams. FOCUS - PRESSING ISSUES

JIM LEHRER: Now some thoughts about the way the press goes about its business these days. There have been several recent events that have called that into question: the Richard Jewell Atlanta bombing case, printing the Gingrich tape, covering the Paula Jones story, the Food Lion Vs. ABC case, among many others. We talk about it now with NewsHour regulars Presidential Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin and Michael Beschloss, Journalist and Author Haynes Johnson, joined tonight by Ed Fouhy, former network news producer, now director of the Pew Center for Civic Journalism, and Paul McMasters, formerly with "U.S.A. Today" and other newspapers, now the First Amendment ombudsman for the Freedom Forum. Doris, is the press of America experiencing a standards and practices crisis now?

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN, Presidential Historian: Well, what I think is happening, it reminds me to some extent of what happened at the turn of the century, which was at the turn of the century you had a progressive movement where people were concerned about conditions in the factories as we moved from a farm situation into a city situation. And a whole new breed of magazines developed as a result, sensational magazines which had investigative reporters on their staffs. And you had people using essentially undercover techniques at that time. You had Lincoln Stephens exposing the shame of the city; you had Ida Tarbell exposing what Rockefeller was doing and blowing up other people's oil lines. And you had a meat packing industry exposed by Upton Sinclair, who posed actually as an employee of a slaughterhouse to show what terrible conditions were undergoing in those meat packing industries, which led them to federal regulation to help do something about it. But in those days there was a concern about these new sensational magazines, the old magazines that were sedate said what are we doing, getting into this superficial public relations stuff, but on the other hand, there was an end that was being worthwhile to be exposed for, and that end was that conditions were being exposed and were being changed. What I think we're seeing today is those same investigative techniques much different because of technology, micro cameras, videotapes are allowing us to expose things we might not have been able to do before, but sometimes you have the feeling that the end is not really in sight, that it's simply because it's a commodity being driven, people will watch these exposures. And you don't feel the same sense of the end justifying the means. But it's the same undercover techniques, and investigative reporting we've had for a long time which can be worthwhile, so we shouldn't throw it all out just because we're mad at some of the techniques that are being used.

JIM LEHRER: Ed Fouhy, do you agree it's the ends that change, rather than the techniques?

EDWARD M. FOUHY, Pew Center for Civic Journalism: I think, yes, perhaps that's a good way to put it, Jim. I think there's an awful lot of pressure now on people in the news business to be hyper competitive. I think we have so many more outlets now than we've had before. I think there's a bottom line pressure that's much worse, but I think this perspective that Doris has just brought to it is very important. Is there a big crisis right now? I don't think there is. I think there's a very serious problem, but I think the press has a self-correcting mechanism, these kinds of discussions being a good example of that mechanism, that will bring people back to the very important values that we all think are absolutely basic to journalism.

JIM LEHRER: Haynes, as somebody who has been in this business a long time, do you detect a change in the practices and standards and values?

HAYNES JOHNSON, Journalist/Author: Absolutely. Sure. And what Doris said is very interesting. Those were the muckrakers they were so called, the Stephens, Tarbell, and all those people at the time. And they would look rather conservative now. If you go back to the 20's when the tabloid culture came in and then you had real scandal and sex stuff, and that was the great mass circulations. And now that has translated itself into the mainstream press through television, through papers that are printing stuff. When the "Atlanta Constitution Journal" ran that story on Richard Jewell, it jumped into double banner headlines before he was charged or anything. That's different. That's taking the tabloid culture into the mainstream press. And I think the real problem, Jim, isn't so much the standards of whatever--we can argue about that. It's all you've got is your good name. And if you've lost your good name and people don't believe you, then the whole thing, the whole institution has lost its own credibility. I think that's what's in danger.

JIM LEHRER: Your job as ombudsman for the Freedom Forum, you deal with complaints that the public has about the press. Are we losing our good name?

PAUL McMASTERS, The Freedom Forum: I think our good name has been damaged considerably not because we have changed so much in the media as I think that the public is much more sophisticated and demanding today than it was 50 years ago and what they see in the media. Also, the media has broadened to include something more than the local newspaper. Now, it ranges from a home page on the Internet to all-day talk radio, to talk shows, to mainstream newspapers, and to television. And that creates this massive media mall to fill each day, and it's no longer a 24-hour news cycle. It's a one-hour news cycle. So you see some practices and some standards that Haynes mentioned deteriorating somewhat in that race to the deadline which some people see as a rush to judgment.

JIM LEHRER: Michael, put the public perspective of the press in some kind of historical perspective for us. I mean, have we always been loved and now we're not loved anymore, and it's upset us, or what's going--

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, Presidential Historian: No. There's been a lot of anti-press hatred in American society throughout the last 200 years. But this is something that really does touch on debates that took place during our founding period. One of them was: How do you assure the public interest? And the Founders had two views on this. One was that every citizen should think very carefully about the country and do things responsibly, with great self-restraint. The other view was if that's not the way that human nature so that the best way to assure the public interest is to have a wild, free market, a lot of competition, and, therefore, out of that kind of competition truth would somehow emerge, and in a way you're seeing that now because we no longer have a situation where you have very dominant media outlets, particularly in television. From the 50's to the 70's you had essentially three television networks that were near monopolies. Now you have all sorts of cable channels that in news terms are following different practices. I think the other thing that gets back to the founding period is, you know, how do you deal with the result of--the results of some of these sort of harem scarem methods we've been talking about? And that gets back to this old debate over how do you deal with factionalism? You know, do you try to outlaw it, or do you deal with the effects? We're not going to be able to outlaw these practices. We wouldn't want to. It violates the First Amendment, so the best thing you can do is make sure the American public is as educated, sophisticated, and skeptical as possible, so that they're not taken in by a lot of what they read and here.

HAYNES JOHNSON: One of the things you had in those early days you had a party press. Remember, they were organs of the political parties. Then we evolved over a long period of time into supposedly mainstream. You were a journalist; you were a newspaper man. You were a newspaper man, and we all were--not you, Michael--but we all came up with this idea that we were now sort of, we had certain standards. We're not licensed; we shouldn't be licensed. But that's not very murky, as you look at how the practices have changed enormously. And I think one of the things that's happening now in the press, itself, the so-called mainstream press, it's become politicized also. You have people who are not journalists, who are spokesmen for their ideology, and there's nothing wrong with this, except it's changed. The public looks at it and says, where are they coming from.

JIM LEHRER: Well, Ed, just be specific here. We've had the recent--the last week or so, the "New York Times," one of America's leading newspapers, publishes on its front page a transcript of a recording of--a telephone recording involving the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Now, and there's been some question that eventually it will probably get resolved, whether or not even the publication of that was a violation of some kind of legal standard; however, if I am an official of the United States Government and I give you a classified document and you go publish it in your newspaper or, or print it--or broadcast it, that's a different kind of thing. And the public I believe does not really understand the differences and what's involved in that, right?

EDWARD M. FOUHY: That's right, Jim, but we all remember the Pentagon Papers case.

JIM LEHRER: Exactly.

EDWARD M. FOUHY: Michael is the historian here, but we all remember that it was a nine to nothing vote. The national interest was in favor of publication. We have as a democratic society a prejudice in favor of disclosure even when as in that case the government was arguing national security, national security was not at stake here, so I think Adam Climer, who's a very good congressional correspondent for the "New York Times," probably ran it by the--certainly ran it by the editors, but probably ran it by the lawyers as well. But I think the lawyers probably gave them the proper advice, let's go with this. The crime is not in publication. The crime, if, indeed, there was one, is further back in the possession chain.

JIM LEHRER: Yeah. But what about the public perception thing on this story?

EDWARD M. FOUHY: Oh, very important, Jim, and very--just what Haynes said--I just saw a poll last week. The public is very angry at some of the press practices. Well, as we all know, sometimes you have to do things that are going to make the public angry, but the price we pay is that support for First Amendment becomes very thin then. The public has to support the First Amendment. It's not ours. It's theirs.

HAYNES JOHNSON: That's the real danger because the blaring of the scandal journalism into sort of the mainstream does affect the public's view. They say we're all tainted, we're all scandal mongers; you can't trust them. Why should they have a license to lie?

JIM LEHRER: Yeah.

HAYNES JOHNSON: And with that understanding that, in fact, it's one of the elements of the society to have a free, unfettered press--we all agree with that--Michael is right--and yet, you're in danger of maybe losing that or being inhibited by it, by the very practice, like the autopsy pictures, when those kinds of things of the young girl who was murdered turn up, are sold, and they're published in a scandal magazine, that--all of us are tarnished by that, even though it may be unfair.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: But, you know--

JIM LEHRER: Yes, Doris.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: --to a certain extent, I think the anger at the press may be misplaced in a certain sense, which is that in this last month think of the stories that have come out of Washington. No. 1, we had the Gingrich violation of ethics. And then we have now the cellular phone taping and whether or not it was fair to tell what he said. On the other hand, you have the fund-raising violations on the Democratic side. Nothing positive is coming out of the government, so I mean, I think the public upset is not simply that the press is reporting these things, but I think back to the days when I was in my 20's in 1965, a summer intern in Washington. What were we talking about? We were talking about civil rights. We were talking about Medicare. We were talking about aid to education. The great public issues of our time were our private conversation. Now it's these process issues. It's corruption issues, and the press has to report what's going on. But nothing else is coming out of the government right now. So I think we should be mad, and I think the public is at the government, as well as at the press. But it's getting put on the press.

JIM LEHRER: You're nodding, Paul.

PAUL McMASTERS: I agree totally with what Doris was saying, but what troubles me about that, Jim, is this survey that, and poll that was conducted by Harris showed that three out of every four people would support the court's fining the media for irresponsibility and that sort of thing. That really troubles me because I don't think people go to the next step and start thinking of what that means in an open society. Do we have, for instance, in the Ramsey case, a situation where we want public officials--

JIM LEHRER: The Ramsey case. That's the Colorado case.

PAUL McMASTERS: The Colorado case.

JIM LEHRER: The little girl.

PAUL McMASTERS: The young girl was killed.

JIM LEHRER: Right.

PAUL McMASTERS: Do we want in an open society a situation where public officials tie the case all up in a neat package and settle it up with a pretty ribbon and then say, here it is to the public? Of course, we don't. The price we have to pay for that is the kind of egregious activities that some of the tabloids and others get involved in.

JIM LEHRER: Michael.

MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: It's another problem also with the free market approach because if you've got media organizations that are owned by corporations where there's heavy profit pressure, the instinct is going to be oftentimes to settle a case and not stand up for a principle. And the more that happens, the more difficult the climate is for doing things that are courageous and necessary.

JIM LEHRER: But, Ed, you know, one of the ironies of this is a lot of people within the press will tell you the press is cleaner now than it's ever been, I mean, in terms of taking freebies and all those things that used to be "ethics issues" in the newsroom. And yet, that's not the perception outside.

EDWARD M. FOUHY: No, it's not, Jim.

JIM LEHRER: Because of these other things.

EDWARD M. FOUHY: And you're dead right about that. The values that we've just touched on are what I think--the bar has been lowered. For some reason--and I don't know where it started, and I don't know why it started--maybe, as Michael suggested, it's the bottom line pressure. Maybe there are people in the corporate sweeps now who are the bosses and the word gets passed down to the editors, to the news directors, to the executive producers. The journalistic issues aren't quite as important as they used to be, the bottom line issues are much more important, thus, the rush to judgment.

HAYNES JOHNSON: We're conditioned to disbeliefs. I mean, what Doris said is you go back to Vietnam, you go back to Watergate; you go back to the scandal stories. And they're real. I mean, remember, we were all horrified. I mean, when the Pentagon spokesman said we have a right to lie, oh, my God, we said in this country, members of the press they have a--well, now everybody says they all lie, everybody else lies, and the public thinks we're lying too. That's the problem, how you separate it; it's very delicate.

JIM LEHRER: Yes, Doris.

DORIS KEARNS GOODWIN: I think what's bothered the public is while I think there's a great support for the tradition of investigative journalism that arose out of Vietnam and Watergate, thank God the press was there. To some extent in recent years the focus of that investigative journalism has been on private lives of our public figures without really understanding as to whether it's relevant to an understanding of whether they are good leaders or not, so people when they get upset about the things that they shouldn't be upset about, like the Food Lion investigation, I think had a real worthwhile end if they discovered tainted food as a result of it. They're mixing all these issues together. Now, to be sure, there should be better standards. Maybe when the journalists decide whether to print a suspect they should wait until the police actually name them as a suspect before they put the name in the paper unless they've actually been caught in the middle of the crime. And maybe they should decide when they're using deceptive practices is this end really worth the means, is there any other way we can find out about this corruption than to use hidden cameras, but those things are worthy of discussion. It doesn't mean we should just blame the press wholly and say that they're the ones that are at fault.

JIM LEHRER: And we're going to continue this discussion some other time. Doris, gentlemen, thank you. CONVERSATION - OPENING WORDS

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight a conversation with the inaugural poet Miller Williams. I called him Morris Williams at the start of the program. Elizabeth Farnsworth talked with him earlier this week.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Miller Williams is the third poet to recite his work at a presidential inauguration. He follows Robert Frost, who read for John F. Kennedy in 1961, and fellow Arkansan Maya Angelou, who recited for President Clinton's four years ago. Williams has written 26 books, including poetry and criticism and a history of American railroads. Among his many awards are the Henry Bellam and poetry prize and the Amy Lowell award in poetry presented by Harvard University. He's director of the University of Arkansas Press and Professor of English and Foreign Languages at the University of Arkansas. Thank you for being with us and congratulations on this great honor.

MILLER WILLIAMS, Inaugural Poet: Thank you, and thank you for having me.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I understand that you met Robert Frost shortly after he read for President Kennedy in 1961. Did his experience then have any lessons for you?

MILLER WILLIAMS: In August of 61, I was a fellow at the Breadloaf Writers Conference. He was a staff member and as you may know founded the conference some decades earlier. Yes, he was already one of my great teachers, without his knowing it. He was generous with his time. He talked to me about poetry, about how to make it work and why it often doesn't, and shared insights that I think I wouldn't have had anywhere else. He sent me home from the Breadloaf experience a very different person and different poet than I had been when I went.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As I remember, the pages of his poem flew off the podium, and he had to recite it from memory.

MILLER WILLIAMS: Yeah. And then he switched to an earlier poem that he knew was appropriate to read because he had not had time to memorize that one. It was--there was also a fire on the platform. A space heater ignited something flammable, and he had that to deal with while he was reading. I'm going to try to read without any pyrotechnics. But I do hope that I can read with the kind of composure that he had. I will tell you one thing I haven't mentioned to anyone else. I am taping my poem down to a hard piece of cardboard so that it can't blow around in the wind.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I don't blame you a bit for doing that. How have you approached rating this poem? It must be quite different from other poetry that you write. You're having an estimated audience of 200 million people watching you.

MILLER WILLIAMS: It is very different from the way one goes about writing a poem most often, certainly different from the way I do. This is not the first occasional poem, as we call it in the trade, that I've written. Fortunately, I had some practice. When Jimmy Carter came home from the White House, I was asked by his family and friends if I would write a poem to read in Plains to help welcome him home. Jim Whitehead, the poet, and I read there on that occasion. When Sen. William Fulbright was dying, I was asked by his family and friends if I would write a poem to be read as an elegy at his funeral. I only had four days to do that. And I'm finding that what I had to do then is working now.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you do?

MILLER WILLIAMS: Well, I put myself in a spiritual and physical place where I've learned from experience the synapses are likely to fire and the juices are likely to flow, and simply begin to write. I sit in a leather chair in my study after the rest of the household is asleep and maybe with the little shitzu between my feet on my foot stool with a lap board in my lap actually, a yellow legal pad, and a real fountain pen, and I start writing, trying to keep in mind what I'm writing about, what I'm trying to do, and maybe for two or three hours there would be nothing but nonsense on the page, and things begin to come together. This is very different from the practice that we usually find, and I usually follow, of simply walking down the street and hearing a phrase or picking up a rhythm or seeing something visually that is interesting and ironic and going home and beginning to use one's knowledge of craft to build that into an experience of language that a reader can engage. The main difference, though, is that when one is writing a poem like that, just spontaneously, the poem can go where it wants to. You may think it's going to be a love poem, but it may turn out to be a poem to your granddaughter, or a poem about the futility of carrying out the trash every day of our life, no matter what you thought it was going to be. When one is writing an occasional poem, one is not at liberty to let the poem have its head and go where it wants to, you've got to stay on the subject at hand. That's the main, the main difference.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is it much harder because of that?

MILLER WILLIAMS: I think it's much harder. It's harder partly because of that and partly because in a case like this, considerable attention attends the situation, and it's been a little bit difficult to find the time to hide away as much as I'd like to, to let all this poem come together. But I don't really mind this. I don't mind the class of schoolchildren from Texas who are going to be at the hotel lobby where I'll be staying in D.C. and want to meet me and talk a little bit about poetry. I don't mind the group at Howard University who asked me to come over and chat with them for a little while because I truly believe that when one accepts an appointment like this, the inaugural poet, one to a certain degree, to an important degree, enters the public domain. A part of me belongs to the American people for a while, at least for a while, and I think that it behooves me to give them as much of the inaugural poet as possible. And so I'm interviewing and answering phones and shaking the hands of grade school children. It's really a wonderful experience.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You mentioned a poem about your granddaughter. Would you read for us "A Poem for Emily."

MILLER WILLIAMS: Let me say that this has been in a number of anthologies and textbooks. One of the textbooks in which it appears has an appended note saying the poet wrote this at the crib of his granddaughter on the day of her birth. I wish I could write that fast. I got the idea then. I finished it six yellow legal pads and six months later. But it's written as if it were there, as if I were still standing there, and I want it to be read that way. "A Poem For Emily." "Small fact and fingers and farthest one from me. A hand's width and two generations away, in this still present, I am 53, you are not yet a full day. When I am 63, when you are 10, and you are neither closer nor as far, your arms will fill with what you know by then, the arithmetic and love we do and our. When I by blood and luck am 86 and you are someplace else and 33, believing in sex and God and politics, with children who look not at all like me, sometime I know you will have read them this, so they will know I love them and say so and love their mother, child whatever is, is always, or never was. Long ago, a day I watched a while beside your bed, I wrote this down, a thing that might be kept a while to tell you what I would have said when you were who knows what and I was dead, which is I stood and loved you while you slept."

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It's a beautiful poem.

MILLER WILLIAMS: Thank you.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: You've distinguished between poetry which is close to plain talk and poetry closer to pure ritual. Which is this?

MILLER WILLIAMS: I don't think I can say which I would prefer or which is better. I like to think that the best poetry is or involves a contest between ordinary conversation and ritual. There is something about the best poem that wants to set it in the--in a pattern like a Gregorian Chant. And there is something about the best poetry that makes it want to seem like a cocktail party conversation. It's partly in the tension between these two tendencies that a poem gets its energy and its life I think.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: I asked because I wondered if your--if your inaugural poem would be much closer to what you would consider a poem of ritual with rhyme and end stops, as opposed to a more conversational poem like this is somewhere between the two.

MILLER WILLIAMS: Yeah. This poem is in rhyme and meter. I like the fact that many people don't realize the rhyme and meter consciously until they look closely at the poem printed on the page. I think it's heard. I think it's subliminally effective, but I don't want it to jump out. The inaugural poem, yes, will be a formal poem. It will be in measured lines and have a rhyme scheme. I think that the rhyme scheme will be something that will grow on the listener slowly if the poem as heard. I don't want to read two lines and someone says, hey, this rhymes. I would like to hide the fact that it does because if the ideal situation is that a word does rhyme but it is the word you would have used even if it doesn't, even if it didn't, and then you realize later on, hey, that rhymes, there's a pattern here, there's a growing sense of ritual. And ritual is important to us as human beings. It ties us to our traditions and our histories. I don't like poetry that doesn't give me a sense of ritual, but I don't like poetry that doesn't sound like people talking to each other. I try to do both at once.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, Mr. Williams, I look forward to hearing your inaugural poem. And thank you very much for being with us.

MILLER WILLIAMS: Thank you for having me. RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, two bombs exploded at a building in Atlanta that houses an abortion clinic. At least six people were injured. Special counsel James Cole was to deliver his findings on Speaker Gingrich to the House Ethics Committee by midnight, and the Israeli parliament approved yesterday's deal to turn over most of the West Bank town of Hebron to Palestinian authorities. And before we go tonight, a follow-up on the story of black English, also called Ebonics. The school board in Oakland, California, amended its policy last night. The board said it did not recognize black English as a separate language but, rather, as a pattern of speech. It dropped a reference to Ebonics as being genetically based and said all subjects would be taught in standard English. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with Shields & Gigot, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.