The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I`m Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight a look at the new South Africa visited today by President Clinton; a report on the race commission`s stormy meeting in Denver; some perspective on whether the Arkansas school shooting was a fluke or a trend; and a Roger Rosenblatt essay about 75 years of Time Magazine. It all follows our summary of the news this Thursday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton said today the United States wanted and needed a strong South Africa. He was there on the fourth stop of his eleven-day tour of Africa. He spoke in Capetown to the country`s first multiracial, democratically-elected parliament. He praised South Africa for ending its apartheid system and making a peaceful transition to black majority rule.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: I am deeply honored to be the first American president ever to visit South Africa and even more honored to stand before this parliament to address a South Africa truly free and democratic and last.

JIM LEHRER: We`ll have more on South Africa right after this News Summary. In Iraq today weapons inspectors searched presidential compounds accompanied by diplomats appointed by the U.N.. Sites were previously off limits. A German diplomat said they saw everything they wanted and called Iraq`s cooperation "fantastic." The inspectors are searching for weapons of mass destruction banned after the Gulf War. In Washington, Secretary of Defense Cohen spoke about the matter.

SEC. COHEN: We should not be fixated or mesmerized by the notion that the presidential palaces are going to provide a plethora or wealth of information or materials that pertain to the development of weapons of mass destruction as far as the Iraqis are concerned. What I do think is important is that the inspectors obviously be allowed to go anywhere in Iraq that they deem is important to carrying out their mission.

JIM LEHRER: In Yugoslavia today U.S. envoy Robert Gelbard charged Serbian police with not leaving the Province of Kosovo. The six-nation contact group that includes the United States has threatened economic sanctions unless the forces were removed. Gelbard said the Serbian leadership appeared unprepared to take the steps necessary to end the violence. Serb forces killed 80 people earlier this month in a crackdown aimed at suppressing Albanian separatists. In Jones boro, Arkansas today students returned to Westside Middle School. Four classmates and a teacher were shot and killed there Tuesday. Counselors were on hand to console and answer questions. The suspects are eleven and thirteen-year-old boys who are students at the school. In Washington, Attorney General Reno said she was working with local authorities to see if federal charges might apply in the case. Yesterday, the president directed her to look into Jonesboro and two other recent incidents of school violence.

JANET RENO: Attorney General: I have asked our office to identify experts who are-can be helpful and provide relevant and thoughtful information on this subject. And we will be working with the Department of Education through a working group that has been established previously to consider this issue-what specifically we can learn from these three incidents that can help us craft appropriate legislation or appropriate initiatives that can avoid it for the future.

JIM LEHRER: We`ll have more on school violence later in the program. New federal guidelines for organ transplants were proposed today. Health & Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala said the sickest patient should be first on the list, not those who live closest to the donor. The current system is based solely on geography and is operated by the United Network for Organ Sharing. Shalala said it will have five months to devise a new way to assign liver transplants, a year for all other kinds. And that`s it for the News Summary tonight. Now it`s on to South Africa, race in America, school violence, and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS - BEYOND HATRED

JIM LEHRER: President Clinton went to the new South Africa today. Kwame Holman begins our coverage.

KWAME HOLMAN: The president and Mrs. Clinton arrived in the city of Capetown in South Africa this morning. It`s the fourth stop on the their six-nation African tour. Mr. Clinton`s trip to South Africa, the first state visit, by an American president, is meant to celebrate the country`s transition from apartheid to black majority rule. The key figure in that transition-President Nelson Mandela-greeted Mr. Clinton at a red-carpet ceremony. The celebration continued as South Africans lined the streets of the poor suburb of Cape Flats to welcome the Clintons to a housing project. It is being built with some American money as a part of a program to help local women escape squatter camps and construct their own homes. The Clintons got directly involved in the construction. Later in the day, Mr. Clinton returned to Capetown to address the Thursday, March 26,1998 South African parliament. As the two men came down to the assembly floor, Mr. Clinton clutched President Mandela`s hand, apparently to help steady the 79-year-old leader. After a rousing welcome, the President addressed the South African parliament.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: You have every reason to be hopeful. South Africa was reborn, after all, just four years ago. In the short time since, you`ve worked hard to deepen your democracy, to spread prosperity, to educate all your people and strengthen the hand of justice. The promise before you is immense, of people unshackled, free to give full expression to their energy, intellects, and creativity, a nation embraced by the world whose success is important to all our futures. America has a profound and pragmatic stake in your success, an economic stake because we, like you, need strong partners to build prosperity. And we have a moral stake because in overcoming your past, you offer a powerful example to people who were torn by their own divisions in all parts of this earth. Simply put, America wants a strong South Africa. America needs a strong South Africa. And we are determined to work with you as you build a strong South Africa. (Applause)

KWAME HOLMAN: Tomorrow, President Mandela will take the Clintons to Robben Island Prison outside Capetown, where Mandela was held for 18 years for opposing the apartheid regime.

JIM LEHRER: And to Margaret Warner.

MARGARET WARNER: We get three views now: Dennis Brutus is a poet and professor of African literature at the University of Pittsburgh. He was in prison with Nelson Mandela on Robben Island in the 1960`s and was exiled in the 1970`s until the end of apartheid. John Chettle was born and educated in South Africa. For nearly 20 years he was U.S. director of the South Africa Foundation, one of the country`s major business organizations. He now practices international law in Washington. And Xolela Mangcu worked at South Africa`s Development Bank from 1989 to `91 overseeing urban development. He`s currently a visiting scholar at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was in South Africa last week introducing Americans to business and government leaders there. Mr. Mangcu, how successful, how complete, to what degree do you think South Africa has made the transition from white control to a biracial majority black control?

XOLELA MANGCU: Urban Planner: Well, there`s definitely been a tremendous amount of progress over the past three years, three or four years. And if you think about it, we`ve been able to deliver a certain amount of housing. The country has made a stable economic transition. There has been a lot of rule making and rule changing. So it`s been a pretty much successful transition in that respect. But there`s still a lot of work to be done, especially in the economic arena.

MARGARET WARNER: Would you say that politically and economically they should run different tracks so that there`s been more progress maybe politically than economically?

XOLELA MANGCU: There`s definitely been more progress politically and, I might add, culturally. I mean, there`s a certain sense of self-assertion. There`s a tremendous amount of self-confidence amongst black people in South Africa. Economically, people are beginning to consolidate some of the gains of the past. In one of the meetings we had with the business leaders, some of the leading business people in the black economic empowerment movement, we got a sense that does there`s this consolidation.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Chettle, what`s your take on this, how well they`re making-how completely or how far along they are in this transition?

JOHN CHETTLE: Former Director, South Africa Foundation: I think they`re remarkably far. You know, one of the things that we really don`t take enough account of is just how much has been achieved, and largely I think because when the transition took place, both apartheid and the Marxist- Leninist philosophy of the ANC Communist Party of South Africa had been exhausted. And they both had to look for something new, and I mean, one of the things that`s quite remarkable is not just the peacefulness of the transition, and how well it has gone, and how much reconciliation, genuine reconciliation there has been, but also how much the government has embraced what can only be called a free market philosophy. I mean, just this week it was announced that the airports were to be privatized, something which has not even been received here.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Brutus, how do you see it?

DENNIS BRUTUS: University of Pittsburgh: Well, I think I`m somewhat less optimistic than the bankers and the corporations. I think for the mass of the people there has been some progress, particularly removal of the apartheid legislation. But in economic terms I think many people are disappointed, and I feel that their expectations have not been meant. So there`s a long way to go, and I think the notion of a market economy and privatization is actually going to work against the mass of the people, rather than helping them.

MARGARET WARNER: You said there`s a lot to be done. I mean, what isn`t happening that you think after four years should be?

DENNIS BRUTUS: Well, I hope that President Clinton will see some of the shanties and the shacks, the homeless people, the squatters, who are still hoping to get water and light and electrification and housing, particularly housing. There`s a great deal to be done, and unfortunately, some of it came at the end of the apartheid system because with the removal of the apartheid controls, you had a great influx of people from the rural areas into the urban areas, so that has compounded the problem.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Mangcu, to what degree, how much are black South Africans participating in this free market economy that Mr. Chettle mentioned?

XOLELA MANGCU: Well, let me just back up a little bit. You know, with all due respect to Prof. Brutus, whom I hold in very high regard, and I`ve always followed him from afar, it`s been three years, it`s been three or four years, and it`s too soon to expect a lot of the economic and service delivery changes to have taken place. What needs to be done, what has been done very successfully in the past few years is setting in place the institutional environment for those delivery mechanisms to come to fruition.

MARGARET WARNER: I`m sorry. What do you mean?

XOLELA MANGCU: What I`m saying is, for example, you know, things have to be done through parliament, you know. You have to appropriate for the budget system. And so there`s a certain process that is involved in getting things approved. Now, in terms of the free market participation of black people that`s true. I mean, black people have not been able to participate in the free market system that`s being embraced by the government.

MARGARET WARNER: And why is that?

XOLELA MANGCU: Because there`s a skills gap. Because there`s a legacy that we`re dealing with, and government will have to have an active role. We can`t just leave it to the free market. It has to be a partnership, a partnership between government, business, and civil society organizations. And that`s why the president`s visit actually could have a tremendous amount of influence.

MARGARET WARNER: Is that right, Mr. Chettle, but there`s a big skills gap?

JOHN CHETTLE: There is a big skills gap, and the statistics show that of the developed countries-and of course, South Africa isn`t really a properly developed country, but it`s pretty near the bottom, both educationally and in science as well. But-

MARGARET WARNER: And that`s because under apartheid, really blacks were not educated.

JOHN CHETTLE: I know. You had a huge educational gap. But over and above that, of course, Mr. Brutus is quite right, something like 50 percent of poor people don`t have jobs. And when you think that in the worst years of the Depression in this country the unemployment rate was 25 percent, now we`re talking about something closer to twice that, the pressures that that puts on ordinary people and on the government to find some ways of dealing with that are enormous. And so some ways are going to have to be found to find a solution to that. And quite clearly nobody`s very clear as to what can be done, other than there should be as much new investment as possible, that a climate should be created for money to come into the country; that there should be as little regulation that increases the costs of jobs and so on.

MARGARET WARNER: Yes, go ahead, Mr. Brutus.

DENNIS BRUTUS: I think John Chettle is right, that for many blacks as of now the massive population, the chance of participating in the market economy is very limited. What is troubling, I think, is that for a small segment of the black population this participation is possible. And people are now sitting on the boards of corporations and benefiting from a very affluent quality of life. But unfortunately, this is for a very small segment. They, of course, would say that things are going very well in the country. But it`s only true that things are going well for them.

MARGARET WARNER: Is that true, Mr. Mangcu, that there`s essentially a big gap now opening up in the black community between a small elite and the great majority?

XOLELA MANGCU: That`s true, and that has certainly been the case, for example, in the United States following desegregation. And the challenge really for the government is to develop public policies, and this is where, again, President Clinton`s visit becomes very important. What can we learn from some of the job initiatives in the United States? What can we learn from other places in the world for that matter about how you connect the main people in main street to the mainstream economy? And that is a great challenge. And, you know, following the conversations we had with business people, that is sort of the next step. But the consolidation, itself-I mean, people have been sitting on boards for a long time, and some of them were really token appointments to these boards, but now there`s a greater sense of self-assertion, as I said earlier on. People over the past four years started to grasp some of the skills of managing those companies. So the next step in black economic empowerment actually is a whole question of how do you operationalize economic development, black economic development beyond just the access of a few business people, how do you develop those linkages, and that`s a practical question that we have to grapple with as a society.

MARGARET WARNER: Yes, Mr. Brutus.

DENNIS BRUTUS: Thank you. I think the most alarming future of the current situation is that it`s likely to get worse, that through privatization and the application of market principles there will be, in fact, increased poverty. And I think this pattern will extend not only to South Africa but to the rest of Africa. Trade which benefits the corporations, the multinationals, but not the people-Congressman Jesse Jackson has been very critical, so has Randall Robinson, and both of them have said that these are opportunities for the corporations to increase their profits. But these are not opportunities to improve conditions for people either in Africa or in South Africa. And that, I think, is the most troubling aspect.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Chettle-let me ask Mr. Chettle something related to that. The deputy president Umbeki-in fact-said that to some degree in a radio interview that was reported today in South Africa, where he said that the administration`s new-you know, it should be trade not aid-he said that`s wrong. Is there something to that? Is this administration and this Congress in danger of overemphasizing trade?

JOHN CHETTLE: No, I don`t think it is, because if you think about what aid actually consists of, we`re talking about 600 million dollars over three years. That`s not an awful lot of money. Trade is potentially much greater than that and can lead to much greater results. What we have really is a philosophical difference of opinion. I mean, there is what you may call the European model, which essentially has provided 11, 12, 13 percent unemployment, a high degree of regulation, relatively little in the way of new jobs over a long period of time, and you have the American model, which is a much more laissez-faire, free market model, which over the last 18 years has produced something like 40 million new jobs. Now, there are still big problems in this country, there`s still a lot of poverty in this country, but if you have to compare the results, it seems to me there`s no doubt which South Africa ought to follow.

XOLELA MANGCU: Can I just interject?

MARGARET WARNER: Yes. Please.

XOLELA MANGCU: I think that, you know, there needs to develop-we need to develop an African model which is where the African renaissance comes in. True, globalization has got a lot of problems. You know, we can`t let people just sink and swim. So it`s important to develop new partnerships with foundations, new partnerships with academic institutions, policy institutions around the world, so that we can strengthen the capacity of our people and our institutions. So globalization, yes, has very-a lot of problems go with it, but there are also some opportunities that we can take advantage of in developing not a European model, not an American model, but an African model of economic development.

MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Brutus, do you see that prospect?

DENNIS BRUTUS: I`m afraid not. I would like to think of such a possibility but when I hear talk of capacity building, which is what the World Bank talks about, or globalization, which also means downsizing, out-sourcing, privatization, I think the prospects are that things are going to get worse both in South Africa and in the continent of Africa. And our chances of developing an African alternative either to the western model or to the American model, I think the chances are not very good. We can try to develop sustainable economies, but my hunch is that right now we`re not strong enough to try, certainly not to make it successful.

XOLELA MANGCU: One of the problems, Margaret, is that there`s been a tremendous amount of polarization in the discourse. People-we talk about privatization or government or, you know-and what we need to do is to develop new partnerships, new ways of developing linkages.

MARGARET WARNER: All right.

XOLELA MANGCU: South Africans are very pragmatic in that sense.

MARGARET WARNER: Okay. Mr. Mangcu, thank you very much. Mr. Brutus. Mr. Chettle.

FOCUS - RACE IN AMERICA

JIM LEHRER: Now, race in America. President Clinton`s race commission ran into some unexpected turbulence during its two-day meeting in Denver this week. Betty Ann Bowser reports.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: This was the seventh in a series of forums the president`s Commission on race has set up around the country. Denver was chosen because of the changing demographics of the city. The Hispanic population is growing rapidly and is currently at 25 percent. The African American population is growing more slowly and makes up 14 percent of the city. And the number of whites is decreasing, although they are still in the majority at 68 percent. - where organizers of community leaders would lead a dialogue on stereotypes. But the discussion didn`t quite go as planned. When the commission`s chairman-John Hope Franklin - was introduced, dozens of native Americans yelled out from the audience.

GLENN MORRIS: How can you have a national dialogue on race without one American Indian on your board?

JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN: You raise a question which I cannot answer because I have no appointive power at all.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: They were angered that the seven-person race commission appointed last June does not include a Native American. Native Americans make up 1-percent of the population of both Denver and the country as a whole. Energy Secretary and former Denver Mayor Federico Pena tried to intervene.

FEDERICO PENA: Let us have a constructive dialogue and give the doctor, the chairman, an opportunity to present his position.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But the shouting continued. For several minutes moderators lost complete control.

MODERATOR: Would the President`s initiative on race staff please help us out here.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The protest ultimately forced Franklin to abandon his remarks. He turned the microphone over to Hispanic actor Edward James Olmos, one of the scheduled speakers.

JAMES OLMOS: We have really not been able to understand our roots in this hemisphere because the indigenous people have not been given a voice ever. If-if only our children were allowed to understand-but we can`t because 92 to 93 percent of all the history that we study from the first grade to the twelfth grade is European American studies, period.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The actor`s speech did little to quiet the protesters. Finally, the moderators abandoned any hope of proceeding with the planned discussion. Instead, they invited members of the audience to come forward.

GLENN MORRIS: There can be no national dialogue on race without dealing with the first peoples of this hemisphere.

TINK TINKER: What Indian people insist on is a nation to nation government that respects who we are as peoples, respects our nationhood, respects our sovereignty, and begins finally to listen to who we are.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Several community leaders who had been scheduled to speak sympathized with the Native Americans` complaints but they said the forum needed to move on to other issues.

REV. GIL FORD: Sitting around here complaining isn`t going to change a thing. We haven`t changed one thing today in this time we`ve been up here for these several hours because we haven`t been able to look beyond our own self.

SAUL ROSENTHAL: No one on this stage questions the pain and suffering of the nations that we have caused as Americans to others. That`s not the question. The question is the healing question, and we haven`t gotten to that yet. And I wanted to hear what these other folks thought, and I wanted to hear what some people out in the audience who were not Native Americans thought.

LYNN ELLINS: It should be the Anglos who should be listening. But, you know, they can`t hear you, and they probably won`t because of the noise.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: One panelist left the stage in frustration. The following day Native Americans moved their protest outside, where they were joined by about a dozen whites, Hispanics and African Americans. Inside, the commission went ahead with its plans to hear from a panel of experts from around the country.

FEDERICO PENA: We confront this morning the issue of stereotyping, which is only a small step from racism.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Most of the discussion by the panelists was an academic presentation of their research on racial issues.

FRANKLIN HOPE: One other thing that stereotypes can do is to essentialize group differences. And these are things that can-when they`re identified with a group or linked to a particular group-

WOMAN: Could I ask you to just define for the audience what you mean by essentialize.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: But there were a few moments of contentious debate.

CHARLES KING: University of Colorado: I`d like to discuss one thing that`s very important in this-that`s affirmative action, which does exactly what stereotyping does. It doesn`t take account of individual differences. No matter what the-whether the Hispanic is a rich Argentinian, who just arrived here-he gets the benefits, he gets racial preferences. He is-in a sense-the government calls him culturally and socially disadvantaged over some poor white fellow like me.

JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN: When you speak of affirmative action, affirmative action, does not, it`s my understanding, does not apply to a whole group. It merely makes an opportunity available to individuals within that group. So that you don`t-you don`t have-

CHARLES KING: What you`re just saying is just, more or less, empty rhetoric, Dr. Franklin. I heard you before.

PHYLLIS KATZ: I`m going to exercise my prerogative as moderator here. Affirmative action is certainly a worthwhile topic for discussion, but it`s not quite relevant to the topic of how stereotypes are acquired.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Many audience members felt it was time for them to start participating in the discussion. They didn`t want to wait to speak during the allotted 30 minutes at the end of the meeting.

MARY VIV LAWSON: And you can tell that there is a tremendous need for people in this group to talk, to have all of our voices heard. And this format of a panel of power brokers and the citizenry is just not working, (applause)

JAI ROGERS: You are all educators. You exist in the world of academia. You can`t expect people who maybe have never attained their master`s or Ph.D. to understand everything that you`re talking about. I have a bachelor`s degree, and some of the stuff you`re saying is going right over my head.

MICHAEL BERRY: Unless you have a lot of money, it`s very difficult to fight discrimination in this state. So, I guess, my recommendations would be, for one, to have more of these types of dialogues, that if the president is really concerned about racism and diversity, that you have these type of forums more often.

VALERIE DANA: I`m the child of an indigenous woman from the Rapahannock Nation in Virginia and an African-American father. I`m married to an Iranian, and I have a Chinese daughter. Now under all the of stereotypes that makes me a double savage married to a terrorist with a scientifically gifted sneaky child, (applause) What I want to say, and I ask you to take this back: We must look at racism as a disease. It is a cancer. It is very good and noble that the President has started this initiative. But you cannot put a band-aid on to treat cancer.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: As the meeting concluded, the board members said the people`s message had been heard.

GOV. WINTER: We understand that there is no quick fix; that there is no band-aid solution. But what I have seen and heard here in Denver, has instructed me beyond anything that you can imagine.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Chairman Franklin said in spite of the disruptions, he thought the meeting had been worthwhile.

JOHN HOPE FRANKLIN: I do think that the whole experience that the people are having is going to have a salutary effect on the problem of race; that is, that even when they don`t listen to what we`re doing up here, or even when they are thinking about some of their own problems, the fact that we have some kind of joining of issues, of the audience with the panel, and the audience with the board. That means that they take away something.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Early next month the Commission holds a series of forums on college campuses around the country.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight school violence and a Roger Rosenblatt essay.

FOCUS - SCHOOL VIOLENCE

JIM LEHRER: Was the Arkansas school shooting a fluke or a part of a pattern? Spencer Michels begins our look.

SPENCER MICHELS: Most of the students at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas, returned to their classrooms this morning for the first time since Tuesday`s shootings, which killed five and wounded ten others. Forty-three of the school`s 250 pupils stayed home. School officials tried to run the school as normal, but that didn`t include a return to studying just yet.

KAREN CURTNER: Principal, Westside Middle School: We are not doing academics. We are in the classrooms with counselors and answering questions.

SPENCER MICHELS: More than 40 counselors met with students, parents, and other members of the community, helping them to deal with their grief.

DR. SCOTT POLAND: National Organization of Victims` Assistance: There`s a lot of looking for answers. And what I`m telling them is that we`re probably never going to have those answers. And instead of spending a lot of time trying to figure out why, we have to recognize that it happened and how can we move forward and how can we help each and every child in that school to get better.

SPENCER MICHELS: The incident began on Tuesday afternoon when two Westside students-one 11 years old and the other 13 years old-reportedly pulled the fire alarm. As their fellow students and teachers poured out of the building, the two opened fire with semiautomatic weapons, killing four classmates and one teacher. The grandfather of one of the boys told ABC that the guns had been stolen from him.

DOUG GOLDEN: (ABC News "Good Morning America") They were desperate to get a hold of the guns. They broke into the basement door, broke the glass out of the door, went upstairs. They got three rifles and ammunition for those rifles, and four pistols.

SPENCER MICHELS: The shooting in Arkansas wasn`t the first time in recent months that children have killed other children at a school. In December, a 14-year-old boy opened fire on a student prayer circle at Heath High in West Paducah, Kentucky, killing three students and wounding five others. The teenager reportedly brought an arsenal of stolen weapons with him to school on the day of the shooting. Two months before that in Pearl, Mississippi, a teenager murdered his mother and then went to school, where he killed his ex-girlfriend and another student with a rifle. The 16-year- old also shot and wounded six others in the attack. Yesterday, President Clinton asked the question that has been on the minds of parents and educators. Are there any common elements between the most recent shootings?

PRESIDENT CLINTON: This is the third incident in the last few months involving young children, violence, and schools, and I`m going to ask the attorney general to find whatever experts there are in our country on this and try to analyze this terrible tragedy.

SPENCER MICHELS: The two boys in Arkansas were arraigned yesterday on murder charges as juveniles and are being held in a detention center in Jonesboro until a hearing scheduled for April 29th.

JIM LEHRER: More now and to Elizabeth Farnsworth in San Francisco.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And joining me are Dr. Debra Prothrow-Stith, an associate dean at the Harvard School of Public and author of "Deadly Consequences," a book about teen violence; Franklin Zimring, professor of criminal law at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California- Berkeley and author of the upcoming book "American Youth Violence;" James Mercy, an associate director in the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control; he worked on a 1996 study about violence in American schools; and Ronald Stevens, executive director of the National School Safety Center at Pepperdine University; he is a former private school administrator in Portland. Mr. Zimring, is the incident in Jonesboro part of a new trend in youth violence, do you think?

FRANKLIN ZIMRING: U.C. Berkeley School of Law: Well, I think that there`s a major distinction between a tragedy and a trend. On the one hand, the cluster of fatal incidents-there have been three-and non-fatal shootings, counting one that came after the Arkansas one, there have been five-I think they`re related to each other because I think that there`s some copycat phenomenon going on and that is to say kids, suggestible and disturbed kids, will hear about the firearms violence in school and will fantasize about it, and some of them will do it, so that I think that there is a linkage between these and that we`d better get four or five months under our belt without these imitations and keep them off the media, and then I think that it might fall of its own weight. But there is no trend toward much younger kids-and thirteen, twelve, eleven is much younger than any significant risk for homicide in the United States. And there is no up- surge in adolescent gun violence in this part of the 90`s. Indeed, the news, to the extent that there is any, is good news. The last three years there`s been about a 1/3 decrease in gun fatalities.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay.

FRANKLIN ZIMRING: So tragedy, yes, trend, no.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Dr. Prothrow-Stith, tragedy, yes, trend, no?

DR. DEBORAH PROTHROW-STITH: Harvard School of Public Health: I think tragedy, yes, and trend, possibly. What we`ve had is an epidemic of youth violence in the United States that hit mostly urban poor minority communities in the early 90`s. And that epidemic seems to be waning a bit. National crime rates are down. Rates of violence are down. But if you begin to look at younger adolescents and juvenile arrest rates, and girls and violence, you get the sense that there may be a second wave or even a third wave to this epidemic: small towns, rural areas, and girls being the third wave. It`s too early to tell, but I think a prudent approach would be to say with other epidemics we often see a second and third wave. And in this case, it`s better to react with prevention strategies than wait and see.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Jim Mercy, you`ve done a study on violence in schools. What do you think, trend or not?

JAMES MERCY: Centers for Disease Control: Well, I think I would agree that tragedy, yes, trend, maybe. We have to look at this problem in the context of youth violence as a whole. And I think that we can`t really be certain, given that we don`t have data systems to track this problem in schools, whether this is an increasing trend. What we do know, however, is that while the youth violence epidemic has waned in our larger cities, it is still raging in medium and smaller size cities.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What do you mean, raging?

JAMES MERCY: The homicide rates are still escalating and going up among youth in medium and smaller size cities in the United States. So this problem that we see may be a reflection of this epidemic spilling over into suburban and rural areas of the country and the smaller cities.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Ronald Stephens, how do you see it?

RONALD STEPHENS: National School Safety Center: There`s a couple of trends in this particular instance that I see. Whenever you have an incident like this, clearly a single incident can be a message, but a series of incidents can develop and create some specific trends. Two or three of the top issues here seem to be that, first, we`ve transitioned from single victim killings to multiple victim killings. A few years ago we had already moved from fist fights to gun fights in and around the schools. But has been unique in some of these more recent events is that the fire power of the weaponry has increased, resulting in much more carnage, and then, of course, most recently, looking at the age of the victims being so young in this particular case, it`s almost as though the next crisis that appears is designed to be a one upmanship or one ups-personship on the last one that took place.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. I want to continue with what you just did. Looking at these three events, in particular, and Dr. Prothrow-Stith, going to now, the president said he wanted Janet Reno to look at these, or to get some experts to look at these and see what`s similar, what`s not similar, what do we learn from these in particular, these three, what do you learn looking at them?

DR. DEBORAH PROTHROW-STITH: Well, there are some apparent similarities to adolescent violence that we experienced in urban settings. For instance, the acquaintance nature that the victim and the perpetrators know each other; that they are in and about areas where there are children, like schools, though in school is actually unusual. I think the other thing that is unusual is that you do have this multiple killings. And that`s something that we didn`t see very much with the epidemic in urban settings. One of the risk factors that we are learning over and over again is that children who witness a lot of violence or are victims of violence are often at greater risk. So when we talk about vulnerable children, we are talking about that set of children. And that may be a common factor here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay.

DR. DEBORAH PROTHROW-STITH: But we don`t have all the details.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Zimring, what do you see when you look at these specifically? And this will also give you a chance to respond to what your colleagues are saying about whether it`s a trend.

FRANKLIN ZIMRING: Well, the only similarities between the sorts of things that have happened in Paducah and Mississippi and in Arkansas and the general run of lethal youth violence in the early 1990`s was that people who nobody thinks should have guns had guns available. I don`t think that when you look at killings by teenagers, even young teenagers, that the prevalence of multiple deaths is up. I think those are the characteristics of these three cases. And I think that`s important. Even the copycat shooting that we had in Daley City yesterday was.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Tell us just a bit about that.

FRANKLIN ZIMRING: A school child took a shot at his principal. Why did that happen? Obviously, he`d been listening to the media.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But you really see these as aberrations, bizarre phenomena?

FRANKLIN ZIMRING: I see them as linked to each other and so far not importantly linked to general patterns of adolescent violence in the United States. And I think that when Jim Mercy talks about increases in violence in smaller towns, that`s composed really of two things: a very relatively small increase in absolute numbers in juvenile involvement in homicides in smaller towns and outside the big cities that were the main arena, and large increases in aggravated assault arrests. And because the only surveillance system we have is the police statistics that are gathered by the FBI, we`re living through a very artificial youth violence wave. And that is that police have been lowering the threshold at which they consider assaults aggravated, and for the last ten years they have been creating enormous apparent increases in youth violence because they`ve been arresting people for more serious grades of assaults. But the number of very serious assaults hasn`t gone up. It`s the sensitivity of the police that have changed.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Mr. Stephens, I think parents out there are asking a real basic question, and that is: Is my kid safe when I send them out the front door in the morning? How do you answer that question?

RONALD STEPHENS: For the most part, children are safe at school. In fact, they`re safer at school than probably just about anywhere else around the country, although it may be difficult to convince parents of that actor we`ve had a tragedy like this that receives such broad attention. But I think one of the main points to realize even in this case and the others is that typically youngsters don`t just go on to a campus and start shooting a weapon. There`s been some type of early warning, some type of indication, a rumor, a threat, or some indicator that a problem is likely to occur. So for the most part, I wouldn`t want parents to think that simply because they`re sending their children to school, they`re now placing them at significant risk.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Mercy, how do you answer that question to a parent?

JAMES MERCY: Well, in our study we found that less than 1 percent of the homicides among school-aged children and adolescents occurred in and around schools. And the risk of homicide in and around schools was many, many, many times smaller than the risk on the streets in the average community. So I would say the data really bear out that schools arc a very safe place for children to be and the right place for them to be.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. And Dr. Prothrow-Stith, whether this is a trend or something which is a copycat phenomenon or unusual, how does it-how can it be prevented in the future?

DR. DEBORAH PROTHROW-STITH: Well, I think especially parents, but society generally has to take into consideration that there are prevention strategies that can occur within schools, that parents can and the media can watch very carefully what we`re showing children. I think the increase that we`re seeing in girls being involved in violence is a direct reflection of new media images of women getting beat up and beating others up. We have a responsibility here to look at those cultural issues. I think another point that was made very well is that there are some children at risk. And the schools see these children and they know early on that because of a warning or because the child is withdrawn, or because the child has said something bizarre, that the child needs some attention. And we need, if we`re going to spend millions of dollars on this problem, to give schools the capacity to respond early to those children and give them that attention. And thirdly, we need to deal with guns in this society, another issue that has come up. Children do not need to have that access to guns. I`m not sure adults need it, but I`m positive that children don`t.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Mr. Stephens, do you have anything to add to that on what should be done to prevent these incidents in the future?

RONALD STEPHENS: Well, even` school should develop a safe school plan. We need to encourage parents to get much more involved with their children, find out what the day has been like for them at school, talk with them, invest time with them, and then secondly, I think we`ve also got to look at some ways of continuing to address how we can best supervise youngsters. Some of the indicators that have come even from the perpetrators of these crimes, we`ve seen that a large percentage of them had a previous record of criminal misbehavior. Several had a significant involvement with drug use, others formally gang affiliated. But the most important indicator was that individuals who perpetrated these crimes had previously taken weapons to school. So I think continuing to place the issue of weapons prevention on the education agenda and continuing to monitor students--because even with all the high-tech strategies out there, still the single most effective way to keep our campuses safe is to have the physical presence of a responsible adult in the immediate vicinity.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Mercy, what do you have to add to that about how to prevent this in the future?

JAMES MERCY: Well, I think we have to recognize that no school is an island, that the violence and the levels of violence we see in society as a whole are inevitably going to spill over into our schools. And we need to take a comprehensive approach. This is not a simple problem to provide students, children, and parents with skills that they can use to resolve conflicts, and to provide adolescents with meaningful job opportunities and enriched educational opportunities, and has been emphasized before, it`s inappropriate for children to have unsupervised access to lethal weapons, such as firearms.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Zimring, Janet Reno said today, the attorney general said that it might be possible to try these kids under federal law, which would allow them to be tried as adults. Would that help?

FRANKLIN ZIMRING: It would help if holding them longer in a penal facility would in any way directly respond to this, but my advice would be to quote the great media savant, Eric Severeid, who said, that the chief cause of problems is solutions. And what I think he meant in this context is that it`s very hard for Americans, who are extremely optimistic and who see problems as things to solve, get solved, to just take a deep breath and stand back and think a while and hope that this mini epidemic of copycat gun misuses blows over. In general, I think that American schools are awfully safe places and maybe we ought to just worry about our grief, rather than getting into an excessive problem solving mode if it`s going to change the character of our schools or our relationship to our kids.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Well, thank you. Thank you all very much.

ESSAY - THE REAL THING

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, essayist Roger Rosenblatt considers the 75th anniversary of Time Magazine.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Time Magazine is celebrating its 75th anniversary, an achievement for any institution. I`ve written essays for Time over the past 18 years, and if I strike an inappropriate note of admiration, chalk it up to chauvinism. But even if one does not admire Time, one has to be impressed with the fact that it is the original news magazine and, thus, is looked upon as the genuine article or collection of articles. Author Kurt Anderson wrote a book called "The Real Thing" about products like Coca- Cola, Budweiser, the Ford automobile, Kellogg`s Cornflakes, and, of course, Time. Very few things in life are so unlike anything else that their names become nouns. To make the cover of Time is synonymous with prominence, good and bad. To be Time`s Man of the Year, Charles Lindbergh was the first in 1928, is the very symbol of prominence. Like many brainstorms, time started with the simplest notion, how did they choose the name? This is from Henry Luce`s original prospectus. The name "Time" would be brief, simple, easy to read, and say. It is a well-known word but little used in capital letters. It is dignified for people who demand dignity and catchy enough for the general public. When Luce and Briton Hadden founded Time America was between world wars and was yet to lead the American century that Luce later envisioned. Along with that vision went an odd, sometimes combustible mixture of genius, racial prejudice, jingoism, sophistication, and a heavy portentous journalistic style that was God`s gift to parodists. Time and entered a fairly world, as compared with Time today, which, like all news print organizations, has to compete for speed not only with TV but with the Internet. How does that competition affect the nature of news magazine journalism? I asked Walter Isaacson, Time`s managing editor.

WALTER ISAACSON: Managing Editor, Time: Well, when Henry Luce invented the magazine with Briton Hadden, in their prospectus they said, you know people being bombarded with information, they`re being bombarded with headlines, and yet they`re less informed. That was true back then. It`s much more true now, with the Internet, All News Radio, TV cable channels, all that sort of thing, so you get more and more news and more and more headlines quickly.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: Norman Pearlstine is the editor-in-chief of Time, Inc. He oversees all the company`s magazines, including People, Sports Illustrated, Life, Fortune, and Money. If people can get their information from the visual media and radio, why should they bother to read?

NORMAL PEARLSTINE: Editor-in-Chief, Time Warner: Well, lots of people don`t read, and lots of people do get all their information from television and radio. And while it`s perhaps a declaration against interest, I increasingly look on people who read as a niche audience. It`s a large niche, and it`s a particularly influential and important one. And it`s one that is really for people who want a level of synthesis, of analysis, of making sense of information that I think in many cases video and even radio cannot provide.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: And then the question that should be asked in the light of Princess Diana`s dangerous paparazzi, and the recent hounding of Monica Lewinsky, Henry Luce used to defend the wall between church and state, between the editorial and the business sides of a publication. Has that wall crumbled, and does money drive journalism excessively?

NORMAN PEARLSTINE: There are economic pressures. Money does drive journalism. If we`re not profitable, we don`t have money to invest. And we have to make those judgments every day. Beyond that, I think there`s also a question of getting the balance right between what readers are asking for and what we, as editors, think readers ought to know.

WALTER ISAACSON: I think when money starts to corrupt journalism, it undermines the journalism, and it undermines the credibility of the product, and you end up not succeeding.

ROGER ROSENBLATT: On March 3, 1923, Time came out with its first issue with Speaker of the House Joseph G. Cannon on the cover. The magazine cost 15 cents, consisted of 32 pages, and, another first, compartmentalized the news into 22 departments. It was intended to be read at a single sitting from the first page to the last. Luce looked it over and said it wasn`t bad at all; he had invented the real thing. I`m Roger Rosenblatt.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Thursday, President Clinton pledged U.S. support to a new South Africa in a speech to its parliament in Capetown. U.N. weapons inspectors, accompanied by diplomats, searched presidential compounds in Iraq, and the federal government proposed new rules requiring donor organs to go to the sickest patients first. We`ll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening with Shields & Gigot, among others. I`m Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.