Update 5

Journalistic Negativity

• He says that a journalists ultimate bias is to prove that they are smarter than the people thy are covering.
• People have a bias towards bad news. Studies have shown that people see critical opinions as smarter.
• I am sort of amazed that 80% of the country thinks we are going in the wrong direction. 60% of Iraqis think they are going in the right direction.

Bogo Class

• It is a hyper-involved class of parents. (he polled the audience on who had contact in the past week with their parents, nearly 100%)
• There used to be a huge generation gap and that has been diminished through better communication, at least in that class.

Why do people hate Hillary Clinton?

• Brooks thinks hatred towards Clintons has actually declined.
• Deeper issue of animosity goes back to the truth. She views politics as war, and approaches it much differently than Obama. Brooks describes her as becoming a tough person very early in life and that only strengthening in the 90s.

Update 4

What was going on at the Times during the Thompson/McCain scandal?

• He has a unique view as a columnist, he is not a reporter. His column is independent and is not reviewed before it is printed.
• With investigative journalists, once they get their teeth into a story, it is near impossible to get them to let it go. The journalist wanted to write one story, the editors wanted a different one, and the compromise satisfied no one.
• As much as I love McCain, I also know that these are very good journalists. Very hard for me because I have loyalties on both sides.

Advice for a new editor

• Metaphor for editors as nursery school teacher. You have brats running around who want to do their own thing and you have to organize them and tell them what to do. And then you don't even really get the glory, it isn't your name.
  
• You have to balance multiple journalists who all have the same goal: page 1. Therefore, people skills are very important.
  
• Said that his personality wasn't suited to editing.
  

Priorities of America: steroids scandal

• People do basically get that it is make believe, or that it doesn't really matter. But people do attach themselves to teams and they have the power to unite people.
• Some of the emotions of sports are caught up in politics as well. Politics is about team spirit, even if it means suppressing the truth.

Update 3

Journalists v. Blogging

• Brooks said that the line is fuzzy between journalists and bloggers. He says that personally will adapt a different mindset for different role: tv, radio, blog, print. "Blogging is just part of the American Conversation that happens to happen online."
  
• Sometimes people he reads on-line don't have the same "inside perspective" that more traditional journalists have.

Future of Magazines

• He does think that magazines will always have a place. Because they are more durable than blogs or newspaper columns. But books are the most important things, because people will put more effort into them than they ever will online.
• While they will survive, they won't be profitable, they will have to rely on rich people, and luckily there are a lot of rich people.

Criticism

• Says it took him a while to get used to the level of hostility. "I hadn't been hated on a mass scale before."
• Views it as just part of the sport of discussion.
  

Update 2

"I love McCain"

• Brooks spoke of his friendly and honest nature. No matter how raw his honesty may be. "I would trust my life with the guy."
  
• Brooks did hit on some of his downfalls: McCain is a slob, not organized.
• McCain is able to balance national tilt towards democrats because he is a little different.
• In differentiating McCain from Bush: he is must less doctrinaire, has a much broader range of advisers, he had a good plan for Iraq in 2003, but it was being implemented 4 years later and came too late. He would be much different than Bush in foreign policy.
• "The real issue to the voters is not policy, but character, and this is smart because you want to know how the person will act in future situations."

Paradise Drive

• In response to materialism, Brooks said that Americans will remain a spiritual people. Suburbanization is not necessarily a bad thing. He described college students as: very busy, work ethic, most supervised generation in history, lots of service, going into social entrepreneur things. "Says to me that people's behavior is basically decent"
  
• He remains a "Walt Disney" optimist on American Culture
• When questioned on rewards for servant behavior, he said that most good behavior is never "pure", and while social service may have come from other motivations, the behavior goes beyond that.
  
• He cited social indicators in younger generations as going down: divorice under 30, teen pregnancy, abortion, teen violence.

Early Questions

What is your opinion on the protests against China, Tibet and the Olympic Torch

• Chinese education system yields very intellectually gifted individuals who work in government.
• They are very sensitive to how they are viewed in the world. This is one reason they are hosting the Olympics to gain prestige.
• Contrast of extreme wealth and repressive poverty.
• "I'm glad they are having the Olympics, but I am also glad they are getting rap for it."

Decline of media

• "Our business is dying because people under 40 don't read newspapers in paper form....we have more readers than ever...but we don't know how to make the web pay."
• He said he can't write about a debate that happened yesterday, or a column that is sheer opinion because of blogs.
  
• Best piece of advice to interview three people every day, because you have to have new information.

Intro to David Brooks

David Brooks of the New York Times is hosting a question and answer session with approximately 45 students in the Science Building room 115.

Dr. Bob Frank introduced David Brooks with a quote from National Review that described him as "every liberal's favorite conservative."

Brooks introduced himself and told of his background as a crime reporter in Chicago and some of the ethical complications that it brought with it.

Welcome

Welcome, this blog will be used for live blogging events for Dr. Carroll's Intro to Digital Communication class.