In Focus; Reverse Press Conference 1998

well coming out of the community leaders in the tables on the media for a change in to find out how they go about the business of gathering names and intimate communications and animal reverse a press conference next to know he's a teenager hello and welcome to

focus on mars each other tonight we present it in focus special program women in communications tenth annual reverse press conference during the next hours some prominent community leaders will turn the tables if you will on some members of the news media and asked them questions about how they carry out their mission of gathering and reporting the news we hope that this event will educate you about the inner workings of the news media about community concerns involving how the news is gathered and covered the rivers press conferences become an important part of public dialogue and mexico and jamie is pleased to bring it to you for the third year in a row before we begin here are some words of welcome from diane fury president of the albuquerque chapter of the association for women in communications good evening i'm diane fury president of the association for women in communications i'm so pleased that the albuquerque chapter is

collaborating with kate and emily tv to present our tenth annual reverse press conference chapter is the resource in new mexico for the advancement and support of women in our communications feels through education networking professional development and leadership in the community i reverse a press conference is an excellent example of that leadership with this event which is unique in new mexico we're trying to educate the public about the inner workings of the news media and to educate the media about community concerns involving how the news is gathered and reported we hope you enjoy the reverse press conference tonight it likes to carry an emmy tv for tonight's telecast and thank you for tuning in

thank you diane and now let's begin the reverse press conference with us today or five community leaders into press conference style they are here to ask the media questions and not to engage in a discussion of the issues we welcome rabbi joseph black of albuquerque is congregation albert dr wallace ford executive director of the new mexico conference of churches mary so would get as director of the new mexico democratic party's legislative campaign committee mr mohan chairman of the board of the mine where low crime insurance agency and chairman of the new mexico economic development commission and judge wendy york from burma leo county's district court division twelve these community leaders will be questioning these four members of the new mexico news media tim coder state editor of the albuquerque journal canada lang news director cbs tv thirteen that the lean of a us reporter producer with public radio play you an am fm

and i'm as russell city editor the santa fe new mexican thank you everybody for joining us we'll begin with the opening statements from our news media analyst and i think we'll begin with you tim the albuquerque journal of the daily newspaper our mission are going to solve today's news in today's newspaper we're storytellers we tell them as accurate and fair way as possible and as your goals are too informed and to educate and to spark discussion on the tartness can we like to or afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted top and above all we want to be as fair and accurate blockbuster's possible thank you

tom lange well that's interesting because we're adam i was cbs thirteen ten and six today's news tomorrow's headlines wheeler i like to pride ourselves in presenting news that is interesting and relevant to our viewers our everyday viewers in their everyday lives we strive for fairness and accuracy at all times and we also have a policy of presenting good news along with the bad news and when there is bad as we try to be a solution oriented on there's a lot said in our world today and we try to present it to our viewers in a way that is is compelling to them and relevant i am a reporter in his producer it came a man and as a public radio station there were licensed to the university of new mexico we really see ourselves as a community radio station and that means

since we are volunteer driven we try and get people from the communities to hear us on to our air and that means any new viewers who disobey you're invited to show baking animal trying to join the delight is access to the medium and being responsible to the communities and the issues in the communities are fighting out in an actor weigh on my mission personally as a working as one of color really there are all to feel the sand the media and i feel very committed and responsible to try and represent under represented waits is on cue in time thank you and we have nine as russell i know that the new mexican we have a really straightforward initially it's much like the journals in the sense that we're a daily newspaper we come out every day every day we want people to find interesting stories to read in the newspaper it's very important that they get the newspaper of the town's speak with authority about the community that the people we employed the newspaper

understand santa fe and recognize the roots of the community and the people of the community when someone who reads the new mexican i want people to know that this is a newspaper that cares about it's a town that knows its towns and covers it better than anybody else and that's a we try to do every single day thank you and i thank you very much and now it's time to a good question from our community leaders and will start with their rabbi joseph black congregation robert thank you it up recently read an article that talked about the fact the discussion on society is rapidly being replaced by debate that news programs in particular seemed to relish placing individuals with diverging opinions and conflict with one another on camera our side by side on the page and rather than discussing issues rationally we're seeing more and more of a tendency to degenerate into a shouting match on my call to jerry springer ization of the news how can we combat this trend and that we

combat by being by being rational and then by being sobel they are there issues in our society the new discussion on from the press' standpoint we are free press are and for democracy to survive they need a free press and that's for about civility and his rationality time i you know i have tabloid tv has become popular its i can speak from the television side of things it does pose problems for what we liked called a legitimate and news organizations or television news organizations because yes the fella jesse's that are very confrontational as as a jerry springer so we have a responsibility and and many of the networks and local news cason news programs recognize that responsibility too to have discretion to be fair and accurate to hear both sides of the

story and fortunately the headline sometimes are grabbed by arm them were flagrant and the more controversy all shows now to one of the problems that we face and being television is to be interesting and compelling the viewers are watching jerry springer in the last ratings but the jerry springer program had a lot of viewers and that's what television is about is getting viewers and constant pain the bells so we we try to distinguish between the more legitimate news programs that we like to consider ourselves versus the more on entertainment kind of programs and as as more bills come online that fine line defined her mom and people are making a distinction between what is the entertainment program they i often think of it is as it is so we as that what we like legitimate have

it have a real obligation to continue to explore both sides are very issue in incomplete way you won an element to ask the question answer them ok well conflict is sexy and it's good the year i think that's one reason why it's very attractive to have those kinds of confrontations in me of a news item i think that if we are committed to our function in terms of informing the holiday we have to take the responsibility to try and create interest by by looking carefully at the issues by by talking about the various sides of story it in terms of the things people care about every land back to deliver interest to compel the listener or the viewer and it really did trust the public annette i really

feel that that that's one reason why the public so greatly distress and dislikes the media that we serve assumed that they're not in a watch if we dont on screen each other or get angry or do something theatrical we need to trust that they gave you wanna hear the real story one thing that's nice about the newspapers it's sort of hard to scream at somebody or have a fight on our television which we don't do that but i do think that in newspapers we have a real responsibility to go beyond the event that happening and try to give some answers to people when i got the santa fe four years ago a five under the new mexico that i'd lived away and i've been working in albuquerque when i got the job as city editor of the new mexican we just had a police shooting our town that had really polarized city that had been a series of incidents over that the last twelve months and at that time where you had the community the newcomers the so called anglo rich people really against the native hispanics the native indians and there was a lot of division in the

town and one of the reasons i went to work at the new mexican is that they covered those stories in a row that the stories the outcome of which is that we elected our daddy had a meal is the mayor of santa fe that was one of the direct outcomes of the shooting perhaps the day newspaper also went beyond just reading about the stories and got together to try to have some community forum for people of different kinds of people different walks of wives got together to discuss what's happening in the town and to really talk about solutions and ways to bring the community together and i don't think that the newspaper was making the news but it was certainly going beyond the headlines to try to find out what was happening why it was happening and how community that had to get along was going to learn to live together and i think a newspaper is never a particular responsibility not to just cover the news but to really look at what's happening in our county and to look at what we've done and not to be so defensive because a lot of times that will come in the paper and i'll say but we were right and you can't do that when someone has a complaint you really have to look at yourself and say are you serving that community are

you really giving the best news to your readers thank you in the us and now an ex community leaders dr wallace for most public opinion surveys indicate that by lars the vast majority of americans are deeply interested in spiritual religious matters and even some surveys suggest that they would like to see i'm more extensive coverage of religious matters spiritual matters and yet the local and regional media don't seem to respond to that in any significant way and both in print media and on television and radio we have people who are trying to interpret their sports events and done sense or more people who are really interested in what's going on in various faith communities and yet the media does not providing any consistent coverage of

these events or what's going on there nor do they buy large epperson juror trying their skill and how to gather that news or to interpret the news certainly there are times of course when matters most scandalous content make the news there are times of course the special holy days are covered but for example i've seen almost no coverage of what's going on in the muslim community here in new mexico and as a consequence most people live with the stereotypes of what muslims or people from the middle east are like my question is why in the face of this interest and why in the face of a widespread acknowledgment of our spiritual matters are important people does the media gets a little coverage to it

talk on how when you have a religion reporter at the journal whose name was paul logan how we have religion page can hong we do try to we do try to go from our coverage to a spiritual matters a sort of things along i believe that we did stories on confrontation over their hundreds anniversary along we have coverage we have covered extensively hong kong the aisle the sex scandals and charges the catholic church are for better or for worse that needed that needed to be covered when he didn't have things in the opened arm we do the best we can here and sometimes sometimes that might fall short we may be falling short perhaps on the muslim community but it is something that we will take the better job tom and the other thing

and i see this subject comes up a lot in the town in our discussions about coverage right now we we try to cover the some of the values of some of them their religions we try to be family oriented we tried it but we also cover some of the religious aspects of our community that were much closer i can tell you we are much closer to designate a beat reporter for the town for the religious community i'm an inmate in many communities for television his data they are getting it and you know cbs affiliate where with cbs and we know that sunday night is one of the more our morris most important nights and that's because the test by an angel in and some of those family value programs and asked viewers come to those that's going to encourage more and more of that kind of reporting i think you'll see more and more as well as we get down the road here

thank you with cain am i think to some degree ate what happens is we don't have really the resources in terms of staff i'll weep basically don't have a full time professional reporter at the station a lot of our reporters are either a workspace tunes or freelancers like myself we have one reporter in santa fe and so you here the day they let the legislature at in a funny way that it's also related to this survey cultural habit we have that you know somehow discussing religion doesn't get on the dinner table of our newsroom which is something we do indeed need to a cat and a lot of times we tend to rely on just looking at what the faith communities are doing on various issues and having those people included in the story for instance on immigration there's been significant involvement there

but it isn't something we really specifically seek out other than kind of relying on our eclectic a programming schedule the fact that there are parts of our program we'd like the gospel show on sundays where were folks will spitz will focus the valley from the faith communities but they focus on the news it's of interest to those people who are tuning in at that time but that you write is something that when could together and that's i think the answer is is that newspapers tend to do what's easy it's easy to go to the courthouse and get a story it's easy to go to a city council meeting or go to the police station and i think we're still struggling with how to cover stories that someone doesn't hold a press conference or someone doesn't have a building for us to go to where there's a document to take out and look out and i think that at the new mexican we also have a religion page us inside the city editor

weekend working parts of different people's needs to have more religious spiritual is because i think it's very important especially in santa fe to not necessarily be centered around a church necessarily been around people spirituality because there are a lot of people who who's the daughter nate would everyone to call in a different way than necessarily going to church we also work really hard at covering the catholic church more consistently beat has it's very lonely thing that was in the news for years was the scandal and they do a lot of other things like charity and i want good works there's a lot of really interesting faith communities very communitarian churches united church that we try to cover but i think in general we generally terrible job because it's just not something that we can go to and get a story easily it's a very hard story to cover well and we try to do better and we should do better but one question like how tough finding joy and spiritual orders that feel good pal yeah well if the phillies have a lot of people feel real good to go to them

and if it certainly max of spears was a much more than a lot of tv in these days so i'm an attack it does attract people with family values we hear from him regularly and our next question is going to be coming from marysville with paris thank you my question now will be directed toward tim carter at the albuquerque journal the albuquerque journal does not allow public access in their decision making gains in policy editorials are endorsements etc so then how does the journal defend its refusal to settle the lawsuit filed by the foundation for open government and an editor although whether the search for new university president was done properly it seems to me that you looked at the university and our community in a very embarrassing situation

well first of all all my understanding this and that's what i read in the newspapers that journal didn't attempt a celeb last year and half i know that there'd been some real disparaging remarks about the journals role in fact the journal of scotland this whole search prop all process i think that's hogwash fact is the universe didn't follow the consent decree a hand and because of that they tried they tried to deliberately go wrong and so it's an unfortunate situation there were some good candidates and now they're back to the drawing board but so it wasn't a general's decision not to work to do this if the university had that right we wouldn't be in this position right now next question is now coming from edward macmahon this questions for the whole mammal

you know there's a difference between news and opinion and i'm going to follow up on what mr bloch was certainly in with and we have more of that now or talk shows show most of the time and it is my belief that it's ninety five it's an opinion and five percent news and they cover comic and true that it is lose and every visit but it also an idea for all human beings reporter of our human as anybody else and they do have opinions on non moves and the news articles in on that on those events very difficult it threw to separate but i do know that the primitive or has an opinion page editorial page and very clearly says the strong opinion when you look at the story many times it's very difficult i asked to separate the mousse from the opinion in the way that that their stories are written this

my question is to all of you what is the policy and how do you go about working with your reporters on radio mediating dish know what his nose and what his opinion and capable of support i want to start this one and give me a break will once again alan them and the talk shows and we get back to that fine line where opinion is actually wanted an entire news organization we want to be fair and accurate and if we have a controversial story we always try to get both sides are in advocacy journalism is not something that we will do it's also an editorial process that we need to have the safeguards when reading scripts we edit every script before it goes on the air we have a new managing editor and executive producer and news director that edit scripts that's also uncommon on the news management team to make sure that

those kinds of opinions people are certainly welcome to express her opinion in a story bout we do like to balance that with the other opinion that as far as reporters gain their opinions then we tried at all that out and we did not believe in advocacy journalism and it sounds like you i respond to that or look like you're ready to lose it seems to me at a newspaper it is very important to the news in the opinion separate and sometimes people don't even realize that editorial us of the pin at the top of page people don't realize that that's something that a news reporter doesn't have anything to do with you know many people in the community had been matter both in the mexican the journal for the stance on gambling that both papers it had a different times and every time someone calls to yell at me i have to say that's opinion that separate what i tried to do from a new standpoint as i make sure that the person was that the facts not their viewpoints that it's edited by it person who goes through and takes out things that might be opinion it goes through another copy desk and there has a headline read when you look at the

page and you try to make sure that if it's controversial as she said you get both sides you ask people about it i think the problem in newspapers can get into today is that tv has the headlines we try to go a little bit further and give context and give information and give background and i think sometimes people think that that's opinion and i would argue that giving context of information he's not opinion that we're doing what we're supposed to be doing that you know you want to respond to that question yeah i think there definitely is a lead isn't in newsrooms and not only that comes not only from the edge of the level of education people coming from the racial background that people coming from that dominates newsrooms i think that having more diversity in new newsrooms it lands toward having a more balanced

approach even to knowing what the other side really is which other side isn't getting represented note asking about a study from a broader base and in terms of inclusiveness on so that's one thing that we we try and focus on a lot especially at kew in amman this is trying to make sure that we start from a broader place when we look at what the sides of the debate are but i think it's very true that we need to respect a broader spectrum of voices and the authority of working mothers and welfare people on welfare and people are homeless or whenever an and understand that those are valid prospectus to include in our stories thank you got ten you won a practical question we try to be objective as objective as possible but really there's there's no such thing despair objectivity are we are subjective by the

nature of the various stories that we choose iran and we try to do the best job that we can our reporters or reporters are professionals and by large i think readers see if we're trying to snow in with opinions subtle opinions that sort of thing we keep it on the editorial page that's where the discussion has not to be a hand if there is opinion in our news on those pages will be in the editing process week we tried out as soon as possible and i think by large to reasonably good job thank you tam next is judge wendy york thank you view this as directed mostly to the tv and print com media when i turn on the tv at night all i see is robberies assaults shootings and similarly when i read the newspaper that seems to be the real focus and my question is how do

you make a decision about what to emphasize and is there ever any discussion about the responsibility that you have to be fair about what you emphasize when emphasizing crime is there discussion about the impact that that could have on the community and it might not be a fair view of what's really happening in albuquerque because it's so much more happening in albuquerque than just come out get hammered about this issue when we when we look at covering stories we look at the impact on the community and it down because of the sensitivity of reporting crime we've tried to be full ocean oriented about crime coverage but it's very interesting as part of our sec requirement we have to talk to viewers who have to talk to people in the community and the number one issue that they see is a problem

is crime in the community now if we're a reflection of our community we can't ignore the crime of happening so what we try to do is to emphasize solution oriented crime we have neighborhood watch which were constantly doing stories and how people are attacking some of the problems that are in their communities related to crime but on another issue around from a related idea to study once and how much crime coverage we actually haven't a newscast versus the rest of the newscast and oddly enough it's very much a minority part of our entire newscast and that's excluding other and forth successfully mother as far as i can tell you that we concentrate more on education stories on medical stories on family related and family oriented stories over our goals crime happens and we're going to be there to cover it fires happen and we're going to be there to cover it because if we're not we're not a legitimate news organization but we do try to be a

solution oriented and we tried to emphasize those things that are positive in our community and by enlarge our cover each is more positive than covering crime it kind of the number one concern why have all the stories that i read the journals that day when they say that crime is continually been going down how creepy because we have papers from santa fe and watch news you get the sense that it's not safe to walk down the street sometimes and it's quite a number one concern because people are afraid of crime or because they see so much about it on tv and in the newspaper that the fatah want it to get out when we know that well i had a crime really of emergency weather more people are interested in lebanon is katherine and anything else that's the number one priority that when you talk to community leaders and and that's not leading that's not a leading question you say what is what are the problems now whether

you know what comes first chicken or the egg but if you look at the statistics of crime it certainly com it's certainly an eye opener if you look at the statistics we don't we don't create those we don't create that you know that that is really were safer than we have been in thirty years to create an actual fbi statistics they've been going i think they had less murders in your city since nineteen sixty eight or something like that they're fewer and even though that's what i read in the journals i know it's true yes well i people concerned about it has so horrible and the news is just falling or didn't think the horrible because we turn on the tv news that's we see one two three four and that they it's not as big of a problem because we have maybe four murders a year everyone's well we have one it's it's amazing and spectacular really horrible and then it really does dominate our coverage that too much is because it's so awful like it's right in the middle of the aster of the little girl

you know killed by a crazed drug dealer or something like that but in general we have very little big crime like they do in albuquerque tells a different story but also you can't ignore it it says it's out there but we have discussions all the time you know how much play hobbit a headline do you give this particular crime where you traded which we have court documents how much do you go into those lurid details of the air and on we we've we've made a conscious decision aspect out but you can't ignore it gets there and as much as possible you look for solutions you're watching an unfocused special women in communications tenth annual rivers press conference for community leaders question the news media for a change let's begin our second round of questions with judge wendy york again

everybody here was talking about accuracy in reporting in getting both sides about as a practicing lawyer as a judge what i see is this there's a trial is held its many weeks long the testimony is long and the report or will kevin for fifty minutes one day and write their story based on that now i know that you don't have the resources to have a reporter probably sit through a whole trial but what kind of things can you do to make sure that that fifteen minutes that the reporter sees the trial is not all that's reported on and that that the report are really looks at both sides and it's a better understanding than just that fifteen minutes you want to crack that when you and i can or chervil couple of arm some to some trials we've recovered that would double and then that that's not part of this discussion are some trials will you know will decide to close to cover openings are and maybe the automated the prosecution's opening statement if we

do that there we try to go back to make sure that we get the defense argument on another closings the verdict it is difficult when you don't have the resources maybe there's not been much public interest to do that other than the family of the people's were affected gavel to gavel but we try to have enough so that we've got we've got both sides represented and television they have an advantage in that we have cameras in the courtroom and we can record on most of the proceedings that we decide to its hand we dont always attend gavel to gavel at trial but we do at least have a recorded version that our reporters can get a longer broader picture than i am fe attending an hour two in the morning afternoon at twenty one and wonder yeah and i think they said it is true that

you get also into that whole area of white folks on trust the judicial system i think are the reason is that the news reporting out does cover that fifteen minutes worth of superficial information were going well how could the grand jury possibly come back with that verdict is an probably a the answer would be to take a more subtle approach and to try and explain to the listener slash viewer know exactly what the nature of information these folks and got is no words or was there certain testimony plotted to do to get a look at the context of phenomenon of what happens in the kind of trial that were looking out and and and try and explain a little bit if this seems incomprehensible to you well it may be because you're not getting in an x and y kinds of information that that jerry hatter i think this on the television coverage of trials and i think also the

day in newspapers and has of late has given armed the average citizen a much better picture of our justice system i'm even though some others may be sensational some of that may be i'm somewhat superficial i do believe that people have a better understanding of how the justice system works and they did saving ten years ago as always it we cover a trial as we kind of the look at what it sees value is and if you know this is going to be a really big trial at a wine you cover that gavel to gavel if it's a story that's going to be in the bottom of the water be a brief you my have fewer resources that but we try to do is a forgotten opening will get but the prosecution's beginning case that the defenses beginning case will make sure we run a little of each so we just don't run the prosecution case we just on the defense when i go to closing and then try to wrap it all up and if you're only going to be there for a little bit which we try not to do very

often because you're right you don't get is as for the picture then you talk to the lawyers afterward and just go over and say what happened what did i miss any offer to go back and look at the transcripts so even though you might not see the reporter that long enough actual courtroom here she may have gone back and check what has happened with people who were there and with the transcripts and cells so you do your best to give a full picture so that you're not just relying on the ten minutes of the body was actually in there in the courtroom thank you and that's now i got to edward look on how much it's my hat to your dish economic development economic development to me age or rather jobs are the lifeblood of any community and each day and the question that i have for all of you is how do you define economic development and do you think that each one of you with hiv that enforcer to have that the media has do you think

that the media has a responsibility in promoting economic development promoting economic development i suppose indirectly we do all i think the cover the forces at work obviously obviously we're part of a community journals part of community the journal benefits from a solid economy and and what we try to do is try to cover the players try to cover the issues aren't on that day that spawned the wasp on economic development and you know getting back toward getting back for editorial pages an opinion and things like that we have people constantly coming in and talking to our editors audie about plans for whether it be economic development or anything else and a lot of those times a lot of those days translate into in to new stories or two ideas offer projects for stories

along we do benefit from it and that we need to keep an eye out for our station mission is very involved in economic development arm they've banned you were a business television is a business and we we have as much interest in what's happening economically in our communities as the next business person i'm an artist a sin management has been very involved in the economic forum's n e and their development of this state and this region i'm as far as promoting on our air in a newscast we're not really in the business of promoting much of anything other than covering the issues which we try to do that we try to cover it's the different things that affect the everyday person as i said earlier we liked and and make their decisions around the everyday person and how it affects their lives and certainly economics are very strong part of that

campaign i think you're right in that economic development is as central to the healthy part of our communities and i'm wet it's a track live and what we see a lot of the major media is the stories about what intel is doing in an area where the rehab of wire pursuing tom holland anne and things like this which are important things to cover arm but i think that we also need to look carefully at the er smaller scale things went with small businesses doing the effects that some of the same guy dust revenue bonds would have on i'm taking money from other needs that occur in the communities we have to look at the whole thing holistically in and i think that's what we try to do an owl so like at least in public radio and from my perspective on you can look at the kinds of battles that happen in terms of economic development say in northern new mexico where they are and

by malice when to keep the role of you know he's on us from making their viewed as from if i would bet that there are also other things going on that are constructive and more people are trying to work together and i think that those things get under covered there's a group of people up there not the course national forest into henri i've got the word from the clinton administration recently freshly working together interior county and on sustainable development and that story was off completely and are not covered so there are signs of it worked for positive things are happening there this week we could really really need to focus on paying more attention to our own and not just her feeling like the only kind of important say economic development story is is what next know corporations to come in and change the whole character of albuquerque or new mexico i guess i would say that always makes me nervous when someone talks about the paper promoting were boosting something i think my job as the theater is to make sure that we cover the issues and kind of big decision of the new mexico is the

disparity in wages and that there are a lot of poor people living a really rich town and how do you deal with that had to deal with at a place where people can afford to buy a house in the same place their parents lived and where everyone has to deliver trailer south of santa fe or night i live up in espanola commute and there are double white all along the road because people can afford housing and of course the only way to fix that is to get good paying jobs but northern new mexico is in such a strange beast which you know because you were out there in many years of campaigning and going around from santa fe originally you think about it people don't necessarily want the same job they want in albuquerque we had been on a planned move from santa fe espanola because people are tired of it clearly they said economic i said no it didn't work and you have the nike company perhaps decided to come to santa fe people think five hundred jobs is too big for the area so we have a really tough story to cover another new mexico because we need good economic development but we also need something that will sustain the community and will ruin what's there and will hurt the chances there ok we

have about about close to ten minutes or less intimately when he gets to the rest of our power so began to question the little more quickly that would be a great mary sue thank you of the political season is upon us again and my question now will be to the members of the print media i have often been asked by candidates ah how matt in the number of votes or a percentage of votes at an endorsement from a newspaper would bring our own i've heard several different answers some of people have told me five percent or maybe more are some people have told me that actually could stop harm a candidate to get an endorsement from the newspaper arm i'd like to hear your opinion and if you do you have any idea of flood and endorsements

can bring or not bring to a kid that can sometimes refers to for the art i don't know what it means in second in percentage is but i know i do know that the candidates do support journal very heavily secured endorsements and it says on its itself weighed very heavily our editorial the oratorio people talk to the candidates interviewed the candidates as reporter liz anderson editor here i'm autumn that's not my deal but what we try to do is to cover the campaign as best we can try to cover the issues as best we can so that when it comes time to make that endorsement from them we've we've made we met we can make or the newspaper can make an informed endorsement into how we win some williams song and as he was

just elected mayor of santa fe and not won a newspaper account interest on that the new mexican of the drone northup that sent a reporter so i'm not sure what kids as i know is that the intra were taken responsibility very seriously and works very hard to choose who they think is the best candidate and that's again something totally that i know nothing about and don't care to because that's on the other side of the aisle now next question from jack was four for generations of america it's been clear that the media whether it's print and more recently electronic i really do shake the common good of our society and their turn even though we hear from reporters and from the different media that they see could be objective and reflect back on it what they see in reality you do indeed shape what kind of society we are what's kind of society were going to become a people

say that if i see it on television a trio of our current radio i know it's real i read in the newspaper it's real and done what i was like that his son is you try to balance the medium business of being in business dealing with your primary source of revenue which as advertisers over against what is the common good for the community as you understand that i was that balance work and who wins again i'm very lucky i work at a newspaper where we have walls we have walls between is an editorial we have walls between these advertising i know that the new mexican cell that has it makes a lot of money it pays me a salary i have no idea how they do that or who they sell it to and none of that ever fix what i do one of my favorite things to do is have someone call me and say i spoke to the publisher and i want the story and for me to say you know she let me make those news

decisions and if i screw up too many times i'll get fired but i don't think it's a story i'm not gonna do it i've never had that be a problem i think the question of the coming here it is not so much about advertising but about as picking the stories that are kind of salacious that made big headlines forces as breaching a little bit harder to tell the true stories of the community and to do the stories that are easy to go out and get groups are represented we have got you know a lot of hispanic center tower blending user account we don't have a diverse newsroom to the degree that we like to so we have to think really hard about going out and getting their stories ever taken know doesn't really enter into it at least in my level and we we got five minutes less of it began to this very quickly so that we can have rabbi joseph as the last question and the committee wanted to well as cover radio we don't have advertisers percent and actually more on the local level we dunham or more nationally unfortunately we are airing getting into the pockets of big money and it's a serious problem and

we added thank god we are volunteer driven an amazon has that continues to happen and to be given as long as that's the situation i think we are in a much better position to even have a cool little wet what issues are really important people and try to get them or present thank you can tell you know last question thank you yes but recently i've had several occasions minute the deal with families have had public tragedies and i found that i've had been put in the very strange position of having to protect them from the press how to feel that this happens with a microphone shoved in their face how do you respond to that where do you draw the line between the needs of individuals were in pain and the desire to get a scoop now we've got microphones in a grieving family's faith and with the most recent death a respected congressman we respected the

family's wishes to the ninth grade yet another incident where there was an incident in a parking lot right reporters calling me wanting names of people that were not put in the press can get people's names so we can interview them and these people felt victimized a second time and it was from all was the print media and it was also that the television so i respectfully disagree well when we have a policy in our newsroom that you don't put a microphone in front of a grieving person period if not then i don't know about the name situation that we have a policy if they want to talk to ask them if they contact as we will talk to them but we do not and we don't know much either but we do call people and it's one of the toughest things is a news report that you have to do it that people don't want to talk we we don't we don't have badges and i

think sometimes for certain for certain people it's a healing experience on and authentic in those circumstances sure what a lot of what i talk if i were in their shoes probably not depending on it something we actually really confirmed although we did x event it was a rare occasion when james zagel recently diary we actually puts and calls in an anthem to talk to when his his family members a whistle that we actually discussed a lot in the newsroom arm i think that you do have to exhaust every possible avenue before you go call out the life raft of something like that happen so soon and i'd only as a last resort it again and veteran at a time they keep basically what we do it is they look at it as a chance for that person's life to mean something to the greater community and

and to be out there because i think when you have a personal lives the la times is also lost the committee however someone says now leave him alone i don't want to bother people at a time of pain or to make their pain worse thank you and that's and that's it for our reverse press covered the women in communications tenth annual reverse press conference i wanna thank tim carter state attorney the albuquerque journal for joining us tom lange news directors cbs tv thirteen at the lng la as reporter producer with public radio pay you and them of them and i'm as russell city editor the santa fe new mexican we also want to thank our community leaders for being with this evening rabbi joseph black of albuquerque is congregation albert dr wallace ford executive director of the new mexico conference of churches mary sue with gillis director of the new mexico democratic party's legislative campaign committee edward look on chairman of the board of the money went to an insurance agency and chairman of the new mexico economic development commission and judge wendy york from verna leo county's district

court division twelfth thank you everybody for joining us and finally thanks to the association for women in communications for organizing this rivers press conference we hope you enjoy this event as much as we did for candy me tv and in focus how marcy chopper thank you for watching you would like to contact us here and focus just on our website that's w w w dot pbs dot org g slash k enemy or at our email address at in focus back in and the one dutch you a man dot edu many polls yes it's