An hour with Major Garrett - Encore

this has been an eventful month in an eventful presidency on the heels of the senate impeachment trial katie our prisons revisit a conversation with journalist major garrett he's the author of mr trump's wild ride the thrills chills and occasional blackouts of an extraordinary presidency major garrett is chief washington correspondent for cbs news has covered the trump obama bush and clinton white house for three different news outlets cnn fox and cbs kerry spoke at the dole institute of politics at the university of kansas on april second two thousand nineteen this event was co sponsored by the lawrence public library and was moderated by dole institute director bill lacy major obviously we're going to talk about your books and i want our guests to know a little bit more about you personally tonight so let's start if you could describe your upbringing and your education and how you got a journalist so i grew up in central california are both my parents were executives they were pretty sleek so my mother was the engineer and my father was marketing a monopoly the

hardest job in the world but the important thing was both my parents worked and i listened and spent a lot of time talking to my mother about what it was like to be what she was not a hard charging executive of someone who had executive responsibilities people looked up to how she mentored other women i should soften their rights as well as first they gave me a i think that'll perspective on life i don't have a journalist in anywhere in my family there is no history of journalism in my family all or curiosity necessarily the politics but i was born in nineteen sixty two so i grew up in a time of great tumultuous listen our country by two cousins who fought in vietnam both came home whole end i remember sending care packages to them packing away with my mother that maybe conscious of the external world at a very early age sixty eight sixty nine seventy seventy one interview telling you those were news heavy times in america my parents like a lot of middle class parents felt that

the country was not coming apart the scenes there were signs that things were seriously off the rails and i was a voracious consumer all that news it came into our house because my parents subscribing to newspapers local sending a newspaper in la times oddly they subscribe all three newsmagazines of the time all three newsweek times and us news and world report and i read them all i was fascinated by the news are we brought the cbs family that's kind of a coincidence i never aspire never imagine any time in my life in my wildest dreams i would ever work for cbs let alone beats chief white house correspondent so in that sense is a fulfillment not only of a dream i had a dream i never even imagined i should have and i do the sight of the reason is as the litter was among the recommendation my yearbook adviser who was an art student there so it's got a pretty good journalism pedigree other check it out as soon as i saw that pedigree was that was there was a little woods will be arrested missouri a school of schoolgirls and agree on a political science degree in four

years you always want to cover politics but spent the first six years of my life in professional journalism in newspapers covering cops very basic granular really factual news it was ever been a copper portal tell you the work is very specific and in a community newspaper if you give something specific wrong about crime event you've offended your community because there are no small fires there are no small robberies iran are small crimes for the people who are involved in an agile the biggest things about the biggest thing that ever happened and if you can't remember can't get right either happen on a circle or elaine or chord or an avenue you disrespecting a new disavowing which are supposed to be as a journalist and heard in your community in the process i learned at a very early age and it has cooled me throw my life as a reporter i try to be as careful i am as careful as i humanly can be because that's not accuracy matters

and nothing else can be part of my legacy if i do this job right if i do do it right it is part of my legacy and they'll says the slaughter on the edges you were as you mentioned both cbs he also worked at fox is as a correspondent on foreign correspondent are there any differences are some similarities between the two networks lot more to see cnn fox and cbs said as as a white house correspondent for all three networks and love all things work for fox well i was there of course there are differences but there were differences for me the world authority gives away approach my work for a different is the way i was asked to do my work i was brought in to cnn having never been on television as a print reporter frank says that was the bureau chief of the time nick i went on a binge of bringing print reporters in cnn his theory was i can teach you television but i can teach you to be a well sourced reporter a lot of people really good television without well sourced analytical intelligence reports you can only break news

i won't print reporters tell me do that the tv side i can teach so there was a to have your experiment for me at cnn which were pretty well for me but when frank sesno was fired a month later i was fired sometimes it happens that way in television fox picked me up and i was there for eight years and i said that roger ailes said that i was the least fox reporter a fox we don't speak ill of each other and it would be appropriate for me to speak ill of fox and it would be don't know there was never a percentage of fox speaking ill of me i left the network international journal rumors couple national journal mercer is a bundle a great place for two years and cbs came along and author rick is chief white house correspondent jon cbs has a different place in the media atmosphere the universe bound for some republicans it's regarded as having hostile and untrustworthy

some of that is still part of the dan rather era of tape which story to give you an idea what the differences are when you change that works even though you're the same time reporter for the twenty sixteen campaign i was in st louis getting rid of got a plane and the woman took quite secure recognized me and said your major garrett unison yes ma'am she used to work at fox rightly said yes ma'am in out cbs yes ma'am how could you be a traitor we were sweeter and i said oh well ma'am i just changed jobs and i'm very happy and i get on the plane now at so my job doesn't change my job and my approach to it was never changed and i was the fox i interviewed brought obama six times jake tapper intervened three times i work for fox who were previously i mean i'm a better reporter than jake but i was certainly aggressive and it was nothing about the fox is

i'm behind me that prevented or discouraged brock obama talking today with hillary clinton so i'd never change but the atmosphere isn't the appraisal of me as i've moved and shifted i twitter followers who when i was at fox were certain that i've been the bottom eyes of a child who when i went to national journal and would so they pop up when ma msnbc would find this new appraisal of my newfound intellect using archive always done but the sort of jersey vacation of american news consumption the people see are interpreted a jersey that you have on because you're someplace and not another place changes the way you were perceived even though you're the same person across the board major can you tell us why you wrote this book and how it's different from other books that have been published on this administration and this president so this book is about what happened not what didn't happen that's point one what i mean by that there are a lot of things that were bob woodward's book fear that sold magnificently well steeply research that things people were afraid

that might happen with president jonathan actually happen a lot of things about rose's book and fired for him michael wolf's book all of which are sold out of the mine above things that sounds good but borrowers didn't happen or there was a tremendous amount of dust be intrigue because it's white house generates caspian tree at a very high a level of propensity i chose because i'm a journalist because an institution was i care about congress and the white house to focus on things that actually have things that once the country it's on the other side of this emotional reaction to president trump on both sides positive and negative unfairly appraise what actually happened what's likely to be with this country two years four years six years ten years maybe fifteen years from now that are reflective of the fact that he won and hillary clinton didn't win in twenty sixteen and what those circumstances were what they created how the creation occurred and why possibly matters nothing is just think about this book i think is that it's all a record

everyone in this book is named and every quote is on the record now that's not because i don't believe in anonymous sources clearly i do other washington since nineteen ninety eight he's my fair share but these times it felt to me required something that was in its own right self validating me i can't go to every possible book wired say believe me i wrote i wrote you read it you tell me the throw and you look to the clamoring people who've been misquoted there's not one there's not one so its journalistic in a way that i hope is permanent that is not balanced in the sense that what is balance its journalistic in the sense that the false the president where the facts legitimately fault him gives him credit for achievements were the facts show that things are different because he was elected and because he chose to make this decision or

that and appraise the first eighteen months in a way that i think tries to embrace the central challenge of the trump there which is to focus on the important and not necessarily the interesting because there are many many things that are interesting there are many others that are also important my industry tends i think disproportionately to focus on the interest to get out of the trump administration go about making policy ok india let's look right there you know okay so ordinarily that would not be a trap question yeah that's a travel question is a fact and it's not an editorial judgment ok because the central truths of this presidency is it makes policy haphazardly ok it doesn't make policy in terms of the traditional way

that every previous white house i covered did which is have an elaborate and layered discussion internal debate agency checked in agency evaluation agency signed off internal secondary white house deliberations and the movement up the pyramid for the president right that's generally speaking how that this region's i cover handle policy in this administration it's very much more top down the president says he wants to do something he has an intention he makes that intention clear sometimes people try to make that intention real as rapidly as possible sometimes they will shell that intention to see if the president comes back to it seely remembers it and then they will gauge just how much a priority it is to him if he comes back to this president unlike other presidents who have been more deeply involved in politics

has a tendency to either spit ball or discussed in a kind of free flowing idea sort of way concepts that are not necessarily familiar with people more experienced in politics he does this a topics ranging from the border to nato to trade the tax policy health care policy lots of different things and various times for people who work closely with him something that endearing about this experience so it's unpredictable some it's a little on the zany side of the equation but lucky one he's entitled asked the questions he's entitled to get answers and he's entitled to follow up which he does i will tell you lots of people who are in this book and let me try to get my hands around this very question say it's not as chaotic internally as it's described extra week that the president listens more than he talked in private and that when he does talk

he drives a hard bargain espn average questions sometimes yes really good questions and tends to remember the answers that he's fixated about so something will be said in the white house for weeks later you remember that precise thing that was said and for iran a cabinet secretary or senior white house official about that thing they said and what's become of them so it's different it is completely different there is an unpredictability about it there is a bargaining in public way about we're living through right now i'm a shut down the border they were living through a bargaining process right now prices of the shutdown the border and i'm not joking now it's like well this i'm going with congress hundred percent sometime later when a shutdown so what what what what what is that we've never had the kind of public signaling and intense shoring kind of public bargaining for president usually public utterances of the president are guarded they're

not guarded by donald trump ok and i'm not saying that to fall to necessarily it makes my life sometimes incredibly exhausted and an almost humbling in the sense of what does this mean and wears a story going and how serious is it is it something we really need to pay attention to words as whimsical as a bargaining what is it that makes my life very complicated but for him he considers a part of his methodology and we're seeing it we are feeling it we're experiencing a democracy every single day and it makes it hard to absorb all that makes it hard to contextualize all of those of us who are professionally obligated to try to help you do that joe what your assessment of why the president and republicans could pass a tax cut but not a repeal of the affordable health care act very good question and it so essential to that first year the trump presidency there's one simple answer which is republicans are just much more comparable

tax policy and the idea ideologically so in the last twenty years of cutting taxes than there was dealing with health care they just more members are more keyed in on that issue they feel more comfortable talking about it either they are intellectually grounded or they're just they rehearsed but they're more comfortable with a tax dialogue than they are with healthcare that's kevin atmosphere but secondly and the transition and i recount this in the book on the chapter on health care during the transition the presence on a conference call eddie makes a really important policy decisions that was not communicated externally at the time but had tremendous ramifications he said i know you house republicans and senate republicans early in january one to do a straight repeal vote on the repeal obamacare woman to sign it and then we'll get to replace later president a lack of decided that was that politics for him said no i'm not doing it that way and i will accept it even after put repeal and replace to gather well that

toppled paul ryan the house speaker's master plan if he had one his master plan was they won both repeal it if that vote on the tote board send it to the senate for senate republicans to take that vote and then with repeal done spend some number of months and write the book six months eight months twenty months i could never really find out exactly from all key players exactly how much time at a mine they will arrive this sixty a twenty month period of a knowing this about how to replace the affordable care perhaps a hugely the president thought that was a loser for him that he would own repeal and be bedeviled by replace be hounded by that andy has uncertainty the insurance markets and one else said no i won't do it forcing republicans and this is completely reflected all of his tweets to this process forcing republicans to do what they promised to do long before donald trump entered the presidential campaign which was repealed replace obamacare so essentially this outsider called the

republican party's bluff and fact it was a coup because republicans have not done in a legislative work to build consensus and great product that can pass the house and passed the senate on taxes because health care failed it became imperative structural imperative they regarded as an economic imperative more poorly regarded as a political imperative not just for reelection but donors were fleeing the republican party infrastructure was suffering under the president's unique approach the president's usa failure of health care and no legislative achievements so everyone got on board and the president's own style changed he was not nearly as involved in the minute legislative negotiations as he was with health care he let the tax writers do the work came in and provided support we could but was slightly more hands off and i looked at that gave republicans the space they needed to give him the result he knows what our

president trump in his administration changed federal regulation substantially i devoured entire chapter that topic i could've easily devoted two or three it's not a sexy topic it's not an easy topic to a right but we can't write lyrically about it all you just have to write a sort of a plodding way but but no presidency in the modern era meaning since lyndon johnson and richard nixon has reduced federal regulations more rapidly than donald trump won the reasons is because even though reagan tried with the same gusto the bubble trump as dr ronald reagan did not have a compliant unified republican congress he had a democratic house and a republican senate and even that republican senate was popular by much i'm a much higher number of moderate republicans moderate to liberal republicans republicans who would not even be the senate and republican party now law why her health back

with eyes of maryland just to name two there are many other examples of bob packwood mark hatfield lots of moderates who were not in sync with reagan on that the regulatory agenda congress now is much more reflective of the reagan era politics and so they're much more willing to go along with this president on the regulatory agenda not only through actions that congress can take to rescind obamacare regulations but you essentially what the regulatory agencies slash away without any oversight or curiosity about the motivations behind it was benefiting or who's not and so one of the things that is going to be with this country with our country five six seven ten years from now or the regulatory decisions meeting know new regulations almost zero and its substantial retrenched not just of obamacare but even bush era and clinton are regulations there has been no one who has been more aggressive on that front then president trump and what in your assessment has been the result of the well republicans will tell you when and business

leaders will say that has created a sense of solace in the business environment will not fearful anything new and they are taking advantage and benefiting from things have been full pull that so this is world it's a very enthusiastic reaction in some cases more enthusiastic than the tax cut the regulatory burden many businesses small and large built on a public for a long time was out of control and needed a degree of retrenchment this story though is not fully told us we don't know and i have a sense that at some point a year from now two years now three years now something will happen a toxin will spill there will be some safety issue up there will be some number of deaths and there will be an immediate surge to find out what happened and there will be pulling back what was their regulatory regime there

there was one to go way this state will we covering back then some variety of tweak something about mahler something about something else the regulatory story has been largely uncovered by the major newspapers been major networks because this has been so much else and it's a story that i think will be with a country for a long time and the ramifications on the front end up probably net net an official from an economic perspective i'm not convinced they will be long term if you had to name a couple of success isn't a couple of failures that the president and the administration have gone through what what would you name quirke a good example also they regard taxes as a as a success and strips structurally it's it's an enormous difference and for those who are they really it's regarded as an achievement and you don't hear on the personal

income tax side many democrats campaigned for twenty twenty seeking to rescind the tax cuts for the class americans affected won't make them permanent it was structurally inst a devise that way that's the one part of the trump taxes that are not permanent the corporate ones are the state taxes are but the middleclass ones have expiration date which the trump white house knew would be a way to incentivize even the skeptics to make them permanent some point future reviving the tax debate in a politically advantageous way so from their perspective that falls and the achievement category the one thing that i think is indisputable about the trump presidency is two supreme court justices and now nearly fifty federal appeals court judges appointed and confirmed and i have a whole chapter devoted to this in the book as a candidate trump knew he had i would have a hard time

persuading certain republican voters that he was worthy of their support and very early on march of twenty sixteen we focused in on this idea the supreme court not just as a talking point but as a way to great for himself validation with republican skeptics and the way he went by that was too great the west if i'm nominated is out of my way here the nominees my last look at the west and he got a list from the federalist society was a good housekeeping seal of conservative judicial points that was not an accident it was an act of political ritual isn't no nominee of either party had done that the supreme court obviously had been hoisted to an enormous level of imports by mitch mcconnell's decision not to give merrick garland even a hearing as obama's nominee to replace antonin scalia i explain exactly how that happens the tick tock of that in the book has the exclusive interview with mitch mcconnell

on that topic so all these things were part and parcel of the twenty sixteen campaign the pre heavily teased out this question what's the future of the federal bench drug was not cool about that at all and he was an easy says bond that kept many otherwise reluctant republicans on his side and willing to vote for him in twenty six election that imprint on the supreme court and the federal appeals courts is already there and it's growing by numbers on the appeals courts it may grow on numbers on the supreme court i don't know anonymously but that is a legacy item or rent and i tend to use the word legacy and because it will endure i leave it to others to put on the failure or accomplishments i've clearly the white house and those who support the president regarded as an accomplishment he has identified the issue of immigration

but he quite clearly has forged no new ideas about it and he has lost more than he's won on the question of the wall a wall that made him a attractive potential republican nominee it was part and parcel of his win in twenty sixteen not central but sit at a not insignificant aspect of it but if you were to think about his immigration policy and what has happened what he's achieved that one loss can change many have been denounced but nothing has been changed his forge nothing he could get no discernible money out of the republican led congress on this so that has to be regarded as a failure and the means by which is now acquiring it is being questioned by two votes in the house and senate is now going through a legal process to be challenged in court prevail or not he's jostled the sense of executive authority over a national emergency all those things are last gasp sort of

improvisational remedies to a failed to achieve anything legislative leader of on immigration even though it was a hugely important issue first campaign there's an enormous gap between the interests and devotion to that issue and campaign and the lack of legislative accomplishment as president it may be hard to really detailed like give us your assessment of exactly what's the mall report is going to mean for the trump administration one thing i say in the book is i don't know what the bottom row rodents looking out in september of last year but happily for me a week after bob woodward book came out so there's literally like a cork floating behind the queen mary at maybe not his nineties that is this may be a lot more like us and i wrote in the book i did know the bottom line the russian investigation was

bob i say in the book that i had been the recipient of most of the fevered phone calls from people supposedly in the know about the next indictment that was gonna come down there was to break the back of the white house share of a trump presidency and that wins it never came i wrote this in the summer of twenty eighteen minute for both begin on september twenty eighteen and as i wrote that i thought while at concerts only be proven wrong in late twenty eight year richard when it those indictments may come in in may look like a fool a little bit and when i mean big ideas like jerry orbach go or someone who was central to the last three months of the campaign that was envisioned it intra goal to that component of any indictments were about that action remember the metaphor indictments were not about campaign activities and out of warp indictments and convictions were about previous activities and tax fraud and

financial malfeasance not central to the campaign solos and i just never came and we have a four page summary of the full report but we do have one particular sentence that stands out no evidence despite efforts to work in a conspiratorial org collaborative way trump campaign not okay is that definitive sonny is the president made before a sizable number of american public will see the full reporters much of it can be released but we have a two year period of time where there was this sense something big was yet calming presence it's not i would say as a general matter the greatest thing that you can be of the same politics as i told you so or a reagan variation of that there they go again yeah well the president did say both approaches so there they

go again and he's always a box in his own particular way that is the position of political leverage ah how long it will last i have no clue i know i spend a lot of time internally my network urging caution saying look all our colleagues in our competitors are living in the vapors world of speculation on the store the dangerous place big stories of a magnetic pole especially in the social media iran being on television all the time the whole un to look atmosphere of speculation because that's how you can keep talking about something and lots of reporters especially younger ones now don't feel comfortable saying what i'm very palpable say i don't know i don't know my wife was just like i don't know how do you not know you know i don't know quick story when i was a cub reporter in amarillo of her first job your call

from a prominent attorney in town said a major in a great story for you there is this really a bad actor of police misconduct and we're gonna says cities you write about or slightly to the right of stuff that elevates checks the baltimore with all the articles ran to my city owner and i said we go right the sort of words about michael says the lawsuit involving a signal of said all right when the faust or without a loss they were not to be used to accuse somebody of something until they got the courage of their convictions or their facts or the law to sue the city whether that is due to the city he was teaching me it even realize it really import less sometimes have to weight especially on big stories involving the law wait for it to happen then report what happened don't imagine what has happened and don't take one happening here and has happened a lot in this story this happened over here it must therefore mean this is going to

happen over here no no that's an extrapolation based on the supposition based on a theory a while those words have a god damn thing to do with journals i we're talking to my office over a delay or major about i think you said your first presidential campaign he was ninety and obviously things are going to be a lot different in twenty twenty from ninety two i wonder if you could give us and i know i know it's early but just give us your assessment kind of handicap the twenty twenty campaign understanding that it's very premature well look i was never are heavily involved in the predictive nature of presidential campaign coverage on the day today reporter i was really favored with the either privilege or obligation the pundit ties about american politics so i sort of stick with the jack webb approached you know where the facts were they right for me and

it so the story dated a day i didn't predict the trump would win oh i write in the book that i told our clinical director anthony so what are two weeks before he could win that noted that that work should be surprise on election night if he does win but as far as i was able to go not just based on one of more than seventy five trump rochester in the twenty sixteen campaign and sing lots of people talking to a lot of folks and in a very deep sense that not only was trump fascinating and have all the sort of difference between oregon and that may supports found attractive to separate from that there was a an aspect of the twenty sixteen campaign agenda primal scream therapy for some trump supporters they just wanted to scream at the system and they wanted someone who was as frequently screaming at the system and the volume and the toxicity that they want to scream it the system to do so on their behalf so i didn't have a prediction i had a low level hunch and i was like so many others disabled why what i've come to learn from

every presidential campaign since nineteen ninety two that not the science but the methodology of contacting voters running all sort of data streams had reached a level of sophistication and precision that it was a moving beyond the probabilities to almost a precision based assessment of what was likely to happen based on all the streams of data not just polling data but residential data demographic data magazines sporting events music all these things are now part of a large universe of data that can be overweight and algorithmic we analyze and with increasing levels of precision two thousand four two thousand eighty thousand twelve two thousand sixteen both parties were doing this work but maybe it strikes some of you has a dark art summons by striking is a high science whatever it is whatever you call it it exists and it is

and i think a lot of us were disabled by these data streams like what one of the butter the bread the not just their predictive value but like their precise predictive value and so you had these streams and then you had massive crowd is he like well vote for walker bush had massive crowds in the tail end of the way to get at the calmer and anyone who's covered presidential campaign knows you can't get addicted to crowd sizes because they're self selected parsons you shook as they want to be there but they're not representative of his necessarily of this larger armstrong so that it you know a lot so they held me back and i think for a lot of people to make decisions that i end predictions that didn't hold up so i'm very cautious about twenty twenty just won a couple things i would say about twenty twenty that i think are structurally import want presidents allegedly to be somewhat easier this time around than our

president and i promised things back then i delivered so many of them now that's not a lot of hard work at one thing i think he overlooks possibly to his detriment is he will not be running against a weaker and i'm telling you that's a very significant part of this equation i think he wants to run against hillary clinton spent the first two years whenever he was a bit of a squeeze the top level again because that's a base mobilizer and reminder of who you very much but whoever the democratic nominee is is going to be hillary clinton number one in persona in history in whatever it was that people found disagreeable does not have that foil he also is not going to have the structure all sense of on i can't happen and there was some amount of a low the percentage is nobody knows about i can't happen among voters to if they thought it was going to happen we showed up for hillary clinton that suddenly exist everyone knows

it can happen now we have a midterm election and whatever you think of the result was a shattering expression a democratic participation for a midterm election where you a higher full participation high two seasons it sixty six people on both sides were deeply engaged motivated the show there was a contest that was taught screen fraud the system was maxed out and the journal boeing boasts systems counter everyday shooter out what are they won't anticipate people engage both sides and that level of engagement on the democratic side is a structural difference from the engagement that was simply not there in wayne county in michigan which is we're just basically in ways to joy eighty thousand people who voted in twenty twelve didn't vote in twenty sixteen now they were not disproportionate republicans who sat out that election over democrats and enjoy eighty thousand

in one county doesn't show up or you're sure because what happens your advantage and those who do show up and the candidate up on fourteen they show up to do structural differences on the plus side the president is going out a lot of money a big republican donors i've been told are a little freaked out about the green new deal that freaked out about medicare for all they freaked out about and expansions of obamacare if not medicare for all that freaked out by socialism for the president pounds so far and that freak out factor will deliver checks and they delivered a reservoir support that's more productive and predictable rather not predictable predictable than it was in twenty sixteen when some republican at the donor level and the other level anger not so sure i will now fall back on when the great cliches american presidential top level punditry worry there was gap in the suburbs well suburbs in twenty eighteen river republicans suburban republicans

like no you know economies good unlike some of his agenda we're uncomfortable we are structurally institutionally psychic me uncomfortable with this and we're not going back on them voted yes in twenty sixteen that's another structural question that has to be answered now i was over the drum tight reelection headquarters last week they have all this massive data and digital connectivity and the rally crowds they're engaging with water and lions afterwards so they're going to have a full throttle voter connectivity system that they didn't have in twenty sixteen the structural benefit i'm not offering predictions and showing show you what i see so far structurally as big parts of the story to any campaign as to the democratic nominee will be i am not one clue

apple all i can say is competitive engaged nomination battles generally create an engaged energized part of wealth hidden mayan structurally guyot major we have a number young people here tonight give them some advice on now what to do if their thing about careers in journalism will force of all thank you for thinking of their career on the candy aisle i was in mac users journalism class earlier today fantastic kids a really great to just tremendous questions i did that pilot as next year he asked me that axes my teacher at university of missouri at many many many many years ago so i was just great to reconnect with them i told them in part what i'll answer your question that you're interested in the tremendous hope and energizes me because when i was thinking about becoming a journalist and going to school to become a

journalist the only economic issue had to worry about was if there was a national recession because that would tighten the job market i did not have to ponder existential questions about will print exists will my local newspaper exists will my local television station exist why is the president calling journalism dr journalist the enemy the people wise all their there's this contest station about what journalism is how can there be a business future for it in a digital space where consumers i've been taught but this can all be produced either for free or nearly free because it can't drills was expensive and the models upon which we collect money on behalf of their journalism are scarce that's why drills and jobs are comparatively scarce i say the statistic and that's his class today in denver colorado great city

seven years ago were two competing newspapers rocky mount daily news the denver post that and the combined employed six hundred journalists on a full time basis one newspaper has collapsed the remaining newspaper a staff of eight and at my dear friend mark russell was my roommate my senior in recent history as the first african american executive editor of the memphis commercial appeal newspaper that newspapers nearly two hundred year history before he took the job he was the editor of the orlando sentinel and the five years he was there the orlando sentinel which was before the great recession he laid off twenty five percent of his forty five percentages that firstly all he did and i will always credit him because he never did that and personally every person he laid

off he laid off and curse of them in the eye to lie have no choice biology got that make it any easier but it spoke to the bravery has about dealing with people we had to lay off but in industries that saw a young journalist and colleges thinks this is what this is the career for me god loving because there are so many ways that the war was telling you probably not and you're fighting through it anyway and they're going to be the ones who help us find this new future of business models or philanthropic models that create local journalism sustain local journalism so local journalist can do what tell the truth and grew up to become national journalists like i did i started in amarillo texas the nevada las vegas that it would use a little minor leagues if you will trickle a double a triple it single a double a triple a ball that i got to the big leagues ok you can't get to the big leagues at twenty

two you just can't watch a lot of young journalists in washington our tribe who have the institutional knowledge one of the things that happens as you get a little bit older as you develop an institutional knowledge and things have because of that institutional knowledge more context more nuanced any more capable of explaining that two audiences trying to catch up with if you're both catching up in real time it's difficult so my advice to young journalist says adapt every technology that's in front of you every single thing learn how to do every skill you can think of a portable to a journalistic platform shoot video edit video understand audio understand audio technology what is a radius soundbite sound like how does that sound better than a television soundbite of kennedy long form written journalism and perry with audio and video how can you tell stories factually accurately curiously across many different platforms that will make you

employable because everything is converging newspapers look like tv stations tv stations look like newspapers the new york times you know the website to wash and post i was sick as he stars in those posts that were there with an opposite of the financial wherewithal beneath them but news organizations that do present a wide array of all these things podcasting video all sorts of ways to capture news convey information and make it in an archive the way that is per really useful the community you sir and then bob advice for young journalists the sense but all the sea that look like a conversation about the civic value of a local newspaper i think of the city i think the civic ballet the newspaper is like the civic values to be associated with a park or staging a gathering place police were committee came to look at itself to reflect on itself and a lot about self and by one criticism

of the extravagant wealth achieved in my home state of california concentrated primarily in two places hollywood and silicon valley is that there's nobody there who was willing to plop down a comparatively small amount of money to philanthropic we build foundations that support local journalism and back away what we are living through an era of economic transformation not unlike the gilded age and in the gilded age there were barricades and aggregated at it she related massive amounts of wealth never before seen american and even for altruistic reasons or politically cynical reasons always just a good the modern unquote on probable conversations that philanthropic we create a large institutions colleges libraries art galleries and the like there's got to be some way in which we can shake out of the massive reservoirs of wealth and live the comparative pittance it would take what

twenty million dollars beneath the kansas city star the st louis post dispatch as in dallas but slough off money that higher journalists than a committee newspaper and relevant and economically sustainable and revitalize conversations and local communities so not every conversation about local politics is red and blue at the national level and that's what happens when you lose a local newspaper everything gets advised into a national red or blue conversation having covered these issues when i was a young reporter not very much better blue about these men's aqueducts or traffic lights or trash pickup or school boards sometimes techy political ideological issues the schoolboys i grant you that but when you lose the ability to can you talk about that having reporters just they're covering what's happened and rendered for the

public sector be a larger broader debate you lose something vital that was concerned about that's major garrett chief washington correspondent for cbs news and the author of mr trump's wild ride the thrills chills and occasional blackouts of an extraordinary presidency major garrett spoke at the dole institute of politics on april second two thousand nineteen this event was moderated by bill lacy director of the dole institute and kay mcintyre k pr present is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas it does