For the University:

• Prof. Stuart H. Loory, Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies
• Prof. Rob Logan, Associate Dean, School of Journalism
• Dr. Richard H. Wallace, Chancellor

The Panel:

Moderator:
H. Brandt Ayers, editor and publisher of the Anniston Star, Anniston AL

Questioners:

• Cole Campbell, editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
• Miriam Pepper, readers' representative, Kansas City Star

Panelists:

• Gavin L. Ellzey of Kansas City, MO, principal network design engineer for Sprint
• Kenneth Lee of Raytown, MO, retired statistician for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Alan Macmillan of Kansas City, MO, unemployed
• Marian Meeks of Bethany, MO, homemaker and retired pastor for the Assemblies of God Church
• Bob Rathburn of Piedmont, MO, retired U.S. Air Force colonel
• Michael O. Rooney of Kansas City, KS, superintendent Piper Unified School District 203 in Kansas
• Robin Thompson of Warrensburg, MO, composition staff at the Daily Star-Journal
• Newspaper, Warrensburg
• Jim Windsor of Columbia, MO, senior rate analyst for the Columbia Water and Light Dept.

Richard Wallace: The main purpose of the conference is to provide the public an opportunity to express their feelings about the news business I believe we are in a very challenging time for the mass media. People indeed want the news more quickly and in more concise form at any hour of the day or night and from virtually any location. A growing percentage of the public is devoting less time to obtaining the news and perhaps less time thinking much about it. And, of course, the situation continues to be complicated, and will be for some time, by changing technology such as the Internet.

I think there are some signs of trouble. The problem is, in part, and as an economist I would say, necessarily related to money. It should be no surprise even to budding journalists that the underlying purpose of most newspapers, television, and radio stations is to make money. After all, they are a part of our free market system. They try to make a profit through informing and entertaining, and the price of not doing so is lack of survival. Thus, we must always guard against the media becoming simply another marketed commodity, guided not by what is accurate, objective, complete, and fair, but rather by what will simply produce revenues, get the latest gossip out first, build the reputation of being the best at breaking news.

Perhaps we've seen a few examples of this marketing mentality at the national level over the last month. Given this possible erosion of objectivity, let me ask a few questions. Has there been a sacrifice of accuracy, fairness, and objectivity for sensation? Has there been confusion between clear and interesting presentation and the need for entertainment? Has there been a distortion of the profit motive to make gains that are socially unsupportable given the very special first amendment protection and role of the news business.

We're at a very delicate and important time for the mass media. And if you consider the public reaction to this year's major story out of Washington, I think the public's very quick to criticize and blame the mass media for how it's handled this complicated story. But part of the blame must be placed on the consumers of news, the public, which you serve. For if [they] did not react to the news in a way that makes newspapers, radio, and television profitable, then I believe the coverage would be different. Here at the world's oldest school of journalism, we have a continuing commitment to educate tomorrow's journalists to be fair, objective, and accurate in their reporting.

But we also have an obligation to help educate the public about the importance of fair, accurate, and objective news. I believe an educated public is far more likely to avoid the sensational. So I hope at MU we are making a difference in regard to both issues.

Loory: One of the most important benefactors of the School of Journalism is Lee Hills. …[H]e faxed to me after our conversation a statement that he asked that I read at the opening of the meeting. And I will now read the statement from Lee. Lee is a Pulitzer Prize winner, he is an editor. He had been the editor of the Detroit Free Press and the Miami Herald. Then he was the chief executive officer of the Knight-Ridder Newspapers for several years. He is retired…and still extremely, extremely active in the business and interested in every aspect of it. And this is what he asked me to read out to you:

"I cannot remember a time when the news business has been the subject of more criticism, some of it for good reason. Too many news organizations have forgotten time-honored traditions of fairness and accuracy. They have given themselves over to a quest for profits ahead of the search for truth. They have become more and more estranged from the idea that the news business is a public trust and that it's product, carefully documented truthful information, is necessary to the operation of a democratic society. We should never let marketing overwhelm good journalism. Newspapers are businesses and must be profitable to survive. In today's world, newspapers must also compete in earnings, but good journalism does not have to be the first casualty when the bottom-line becomes the primary objective. There has always been bad journalism; it is simply more visible today. I applaud the Committee of Concerned Journalists for undertaking a yearlong study of the problems.

The news business serves the public first and foremost, and must learn to take into consideration the expectations of the public for fair and accurate reports. I wish the Forum at Missouri success, and I hope journalists everywhere will rededicate themselves to the traditions that have made the free press in this country an essential part of the best democracy in the history of humankind."

Now I would like to introduce Brandt Ayers who is going to moderate this morning's panel He is the publisher of the Anniston Star, and he is the publisher of one of the last of the great, family-owned newspapers in this country.

Brandt Ayers: I read [the panelists'] letters with very great interest and was struck by a number of things that you said. I must say that a lot of you confirmed some of my own biases. And some of you surprised me, in shocking and unblessed ways. But don't let that deter you. I'm going to sort of pick out some things that each one of you said and ask if you would sort of expand on it with passion and logic.

Jim Windsor: This was a particularly touching piece. You said that part of lowering yourself toward sensationalized, National Enquirer journalism, is a lack of respect in this sense: rather than respecting the feelings of a murder victim's family, "the media commits emotional rape." That was a very strong statement and I think I know where you're coming from, but let us hear how you define that.

Jim Windsor: There's a rush to get to the story. You know, we need to be the first to get there to break the news regardless of what may have occurred and we have to find out how the family of victims may feel. That was what I was speaking about in that context. We all know how they feel.[B]ut what occurs is that somebody's sticking a microphone in their face. They've got a notepad open ready to write down some quote while [the family] are still in another world, you might say, because they are so struck by what has occurred. But that seems to be when journalists most want to get the story. and I think as the public, what that does to us is that we don't trust you. We know if anything like that ever happened to us, you're going to do exactly the same thing to us there's nothing you won't do to get the story. And that means that we don't trust you, that we have to maintain some distance there because we think that's the only thing you're out for.

Ayers: A sense of separation. These bloodless characters who are in the newspaper business and the warm, wonderful feeling people who are out there reading it. I think we'll return to that, to that notion later and maybe ask you to be a reporter when somebody goes postal and shoots up the post office in your town. Think about it a little bit, how you'd cover that with respect and sensitivity.

Bob Rathburn, I was fascinated by a thought that was in your piece. You spoke of contributing to cohesiveness of the broad community by covering people and events. I see a notion there, maybe a philosophical role for the press, the media, that is embodied in that sentence. Could you expand on that a little?

Bob Rathburn: Let me just offer one comment up front. There's a phrase that I've learned to keep in mind over the years, it deals with communications between and among people, and it goes like this: I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I'm not sure you realize that what you thought you heard is not what I meant.

We have enabled ourselves through technology and through living patterns to become quite separate from one another while still being able to reach out, at least through technology, and make contact when we deem appropriate. You know, the fact we have become capable of often deep isolation from one another, newspapers -- and I'll cite one that's close to home, a small weekly publication, the Wayne County Journal Banner -- can perform when they chose to do so a marvelous public service by trying to keep all those people who are off in their own worlds of existence together by linking them up through the various activities and efforts that each and every one of them are engaged in. The Journal Banner makes an effort, for instance, to get people out and about talking to members of very small communities in Wayne County which is a sparsely populated, somewhat impoverished county in the State of Missouri.

They do an excellent job.[W]hen you read the newspaper on a weekly basis it's sort of like getting caught up on everything that's going on in your neighborhood. And I think that's a function that small newspapers can perform. I think that's a function that large newspapers can perform. But…one problem I see developing sometimes in the larger metropolitan area papers [is that] it's tough sometimes to make the choice between when you should pursue a cause that may be very divisive in a community and when you should perhaps forgo that opportunity and work more to try to make the community part of a larger whole.

Let me cite one simple example that struck me in recent months. St. Louis Post Dispatch has a metropolitan area that encompasses what some people would say is a deteriorating inner city of St. Louis, and a much larger, more affluent suburban area. They chose to get involved in an effort to deal with the concept of urban sprawl. In doing so, they probably drove some stakes more deeply in the hearts of any sense of community between the suburban areas and the inner city than anything else they could have chosen to do.

In my mind, that's an example of creating an us-versus-them set of circumstances that ill-serves the function of trying to bring the community together and keep a sense of community, which I believe is a legitimate function of newspaper.

Ayers: Let me go back. I neglected to tell you at least a word about our panelists. Jim is a senior rate analyst for Columbia Water and Light Company. Bob is a retired Air Force colonel with a lot of other credits. Michael Rooney is superintendent of Piper United School District on the Kansas side of Kansas City. He agrees with something that. Alan talked about and the Chancellor did as well That there is in today's media, more gossip and titillation than facts. And you said especially on TV. Is there a distinction in your mind? Is it a strong distinction or slight?

Rooney: There is a distinction.I don't know that I can quantify it really easily, but I suppose that one of the advantages that the print media has, for the consumer, anyway, is that I can easily choose not to read parts of the paper that deal with items that I really don't care about. And I don't care to know and I know enough about to know that I want to leave the rest of it alone or would care to.I have seen a marked change in my estimation of what I used to be able to watch or felt comfortable watching [in terms of] the major network news shows in the evening. And now our house is such that we don't turn it on at all and the only news that we watch in the evening will turn out to be the [NewsHour] because in our judgment, it's the only one that tends to focus on what is newsworthy. Not everything that happens is newsworthy, and everything that happens doesn't need to be reported and yet on national network you get a 30 minute show, probably about 12 minutes of advertisements, and a lot of the shocking -- the teaser that comes right before the ad, "Right after this moment we're going to this, that or the other thing," and it has to be something a little bit flamboyant or entertaining or provocative. I don't see that in [the NewsHour], and so that's the one that we choose to watch.

Ayers: Alan is trained as an engineer and is currently unemployed. I think there's probably a story there. And he says that over the last 20 years, [he has] noticed the same trend in all media: less fact, more emotion, more hype. I dare say you'd probably get a lot of agreement on that. Would you like to expand on it?

Macmillan: Not really, 'cause we're looking at the details of content and what's presented and how it's presented. I pretty much agree with what's been expressed before all I could say about that is, sometimes when you've seen enough of it you begin to recognize it, and you have this hype detector that as soon as you seen the headline of a piece, it says, "Hey, kids," or something provocative like that, [you] just won't even turn to the rest of the article and read it. It's pervading our society as we become more immersed in this huge sea of information.

Ayers: Is it practically affecting your choices in media consumption?

Macmillan: Well, largely I've opted out of big business media. I don't take the daily paper. And I don't have a television. So it's only on occasions that I choose to make an effort that I do read the paper or watch, very seldom, TV news coverage.

Ayers: Are you on the 'net?

Macmillan: Yes.

Ayers: Do you have a judgment about the quality of editing on the net?

Macmillan: Well, it's minimal, but I've been on the net for quite sometime so I kind of expect none. It's possible to live without the major news media even without the net. You can't avoid people telling you what the latest things are, just orally. And I find if there's something interesting, I can pick it up myself.

Ayers: Robin Thompson is sort of a colleague, but is an active citizen. Very deeply engaged in 4H activities. And she says something that I think may get some agreement in the audience, that the Clinton-Lewinsky coverage is an example of overkill. How are you reacting to Clinton-Lewinsky stories in the media, TV, newspapers?

Robin Thompson: I rarely read any of it unless it's really a new lead. I'm tired of it. And your polls continue to show we're tired of it, but we keep reading about it.

Ayers: You made a point about recognition of local people and organizations and that that kind of coverage and that kind of recognition is an agent of community, that it makes people feel as if they're part of something comfortable and familiar. Where do you see examples of that and where do you see it missing?

Thompson: I'd like to clarify, I don't work in advertising anymore. I work in the composition department. In our local paper, we try to cover as much of the local achievements as possible. It's difficult when you have a small staff. I think it's important to inform the public that they need to get that information to their paper 'cause generally I find that the papers will print it if you can get accurate information to them.

As for the larger [papers] like [the] Kansas City Star, I realize it's hard to cover that. I don't subscribe, just pick it up every other Sunday or so, look at it on the Internet. They do have some areas that cover achievement, but I think that the larger papers can do a better job of covering their people's achievements. I said last night that if you want to sell more single issue copies, put a picture of Bobby and his blue ribbon calf in there, and they're going to buy it. It helps create community. Being involved in 4H, I know it's very important to the children and to the parents, not in just sports but in other organizations to see their children's accomplishments and that it encourages positive action. The coverage of the Clinton-Lewinsky, O.J. Simpson thing, only covers negative actions and I think it helps create a negative society, where if we could cover more positive things we could have a more positive society.

Ayers: Robin, think about it a little bit from the perspective of say, the editor of the Kansas City Star or the editor of the St. Louis Post Dispatch. You would probably find agreement.But practically, how many 4H clubs in the multi-state coverage area can you get into with the Post Dispatch and the Kansas City Star? Is there another way as an editor and somebody interested in community, interested in hearing a voice, seeing a voice in the newspaper that sounds more like your voice or people you know than just a recitation of all the blue ribbons won in a multi-state area at 4H clubs? Think about it a little bit and we'll return to it. And maybe you can help us editors.

Gavin surely agreed that he wants more fact-based reporting. I was struck [by a ] sort of a common theme. You suggested that we ought to do more gathering feedback. Continue to gather feedback from regular people and not from focus groups that are handpicked. I had the impression that this is very scientific and that focus groups have to be randomly selected. But why do you believe that they're handpicked?

Gavin Ellzey: Most of my experience with focus groups has been in the corporate environment. And whenever I, on occasions where I see folks in the media writing about, looking inward and saying, "Well, we talked to this group of folks and that group of folks," it always seems to support the agenda that the folks who are writing about it want to support.I travel from East Coast to West Coast in my profession, and talk to a lot of folks. I sit here and say, "You know, I talked to folks everywhere from chief executives to folks who are just engineers like myself, and it's like, none of us have that same opinion." Even though there are people who are in the Democratic Party, there are people who are Libertarians, there are folks who are Republicans. And when your personal experience contradicts across that broad range of folks, what folks are saying who are writing about themselves you say, "This sounds [like] it's the focus groups and the polls were targeted at a specific audience to the get the results that they want."

Ayers When we finish going down this birds-on-a-rail process and return to the themes, I'd like to hear you jump in on advising us of how we create a sense of community. How we go about gathering feedback, who do we get it from, where do we find these people? I think you think that's crucial. In Anniston, Alabama, I can tell you it's the courthouse barbershop. That's my university of common wisdom.

Kenneth Lee of Raytown is a retired statistician, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. He says very precisely there's too much Monica-Bill. And he also says that he is offended by and, and does not trust, stories that are based on anonymous sources. Kenneth, is that always the case?

Kenneth Lee: Well, for the most part, yes. And when a reporter says, "This story is based on a high-ranking member of the administration." And I think to myself, "Why don't they name that high-ranking person?" I mean, why are they saying that he's unnamed? He's not unnamed, he simply doesn't want his name or her name placed before the public. And I'm offended because when I write a letter to the editor I have to give my name and I have to say Raytown, Missouri. And I remember a particular instance when General Colin Powell came to town and he gave a talk. He was pushing his book and I was concerned about some of the things he said and wrote a letter to the editor in which I said that here was a man who had spent his entire life on the public payroll and enjoyed the fruits of subsidized housing, subsidized medical care, had a driver, limousine, and, in retirement, was earning more money than the average annual income for most working people. And therefore it was hypocritical of him to say that taxes were too high and that government programs should be cut back.

It probably wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done -- I'm always amazed that the people who disagree with a letter to the editor can spend so much time trying to find out your home address and your telephone number, but they're unwilling to sign their own names or give you a return address. What do they think I'm going to do -- send a hit man over to break their legs? I haven't belonged to the Mafia in years. This is the same risk that everybody should take if they want to get their opinions in the paper and they want to be quoted. They have more to gain by getting the reporter to put down what they want to say than the reporter has by writing down their remarks.

Ayers: I was also struck by your remark that you want to know more about people who write these stories. And you said there was some feeling, "Why in the world should I pay the slightest bit of attention to them? Have they ever run a business? Have they flown an airplane…why is this person such an expert that I ought to kowtow to?"

Lee: This is true. I often listen to hearings, Congressional hearings, and I'm always surprised when a Senator says, "This is what appeared in the New York Times or the Washington Post, this is what they had to say." And I'm thinking, "So what? I mean why should I care about an opinion of someone who is a skilled writer?" This is what they do well. They know how to write. Does this mean they know anything about the topic? It doesn't.

Ayers: We do come on as a rather faceless, anonymous pack and while we put our names on some of the things that we put in the paper or put on the air, people don't know much about us. Maybe they should, but how would we do that? Maybe you have an idea that we could use. Think about it.

Marion Meeks is a retired missionary from Four Square Church.

Marian Meeks: Well, I was with Four Square and I no longer am. I'm with Assemblies of God. But, yes, I am retired.

Ayers: You agreed with just about everybody, that just what you want more is fact-based, unbiased reporting. But I was particularly struck by something that, that you said about people who claim to speak for the American people. "That has always struck me as the height of arrogance. " Who is it that says that? Is it editors who are saying it or political figures or . . .

Meeks: Yes. All of the above. The most recent one that just stood my hair up on end was [National Organization of Women President Patricia] Ireland who said, "We women of America want . . ." And I beg your pardon, madam, you are not speaking for me. No, thank you.I don't even want to be part of anything she thinks is all of the women of America. But there are other people who will say, "This is what the American people want." Then talk to me. I am an American. And I am a woman. And I do have very definite opinions. But nobody's talked to me. And I get also a little irate when we start reading polls. And I brought a few figures along just to demonstrate what I'm talking about. There was a non-story -- this is what I call fillers, I call them non-stories -- the headlines said, "Call him Dollar Bill." They surveyed 1,008 people. They said that the question was, "How many people would like to see a piece of money with a living person on it that has been president or a very popular person, whatever." They spent most of the time talking about presidents. A thousand-and eight people…and when you got all the way down they found out that 90 percent of the 1,008 didn't want any change at all. And 10 percent of the remaining wanted Bill Clinton. This is a non-story. How many people read nothing but the headlines? And they say, "Oh, yes. A lot of people want Bill Clinton on the dollar bill. I like that idea. Isn't that cute?" No. Read the story and find out that this is a non-story plus the fact that they didn't have the right headline at all. Ninety percent of those people didn't want any change at all. They thought it was fine.

Another one, headline story, was about Dole abortion suit filed, finished, completed. You read about it, and he didn't have anything to do about that, not the lawsuit. The woman brought the lawsuit and the woman won. She was erroneously charged with this pregnancy which was a non-pregnancy, too. So now we have a non-story and a non-pregnancy and a non-headline which had nothing to do with Dole and the lawsuit. No. Don't talk about all the Americans want -- the wording that you can use in there is say, Some of the, or we have learned that many would like, but not all. When you use the word all, that gives the wrong connotation.

Ayers: Marion, when you said, "Nobody talked to me," to me you are reflecting a theme that Gavin and Bob and Robin all have touched on. That is, a certain distance that's been created….But there are people who have incomes similar [to yours], who have religious views similar to yours, but you seldom find people like yourself reflected in what you see and what you read. Is that accurate?

Meeks: Yes, that sounds pretty good.

Ayers: Okay. I want to be careful with you. I don't want to misrepresent you. What about it, Bob and, and Gavin and Robin? How do you think that we ought to go about getting these voices in the paper? That sound more like we are interested in regular people without this awkward business of the peripatetic photographer grabbing people on the street saying, "What do you think of the latest outrage?"

Thompson: I'll start. Maybe you could ask, maybe you could talk more to the people that are in the crowd of the meeting that you're attending instead of asking the Chamber of Commerce president or instead of asking the Main Street program director, talk to the people who are in the audience.

Ayers: I'll give you an example. We were having a pretty hot, looked like it was shaping up as a hot, state senate race. And there was a particularly well-financed and very attractive and articulate Republican candidate for the state senate. The Democratic candidate said, "I'm not worried because he doesn't know any of the seven volunteer fire chiefs in this county." And what struck us was we didn't know the seven volunteer fire chiefs in that county. And if a local newspaper ought to know something, it ought to know its people. We know the seven volunteer fire chiefs in our county now. I liked your idea of talking to the people of the meeting instead of just the speakers. We may do some of that today.

Ellzey: Another thing you could use is the Internet. Some of the new collaborative societies that are springing up around certain web sites. If the reporters and the editors were interacting with folks, you should be able to get a broad cross-section because of the market penetration of the Internet in most American households now. I don't remember the exact numbers, but probably within a few years, almost every house will have Internet access.

Lee: Well, what I was going to say is that public opinion surveys today are much less reliable than they've ever been in the past because of number one the speed at which they have to be done. The survey work that's being done by telecommunication centers, by telephone operators who have no idea what they're doing, they're simply reading off a list of questions. And the non-response rate is tremendously high. So this rush to get something done overnight results in bad data. And I would just as soon that it wasn't published, period. They're continually talking about the change in attitude toward the president right now, and if these surveys are supposed to indicate national trends, it's not true because people don't change their minds that quickly. They make a decision and they stick with it for awhile. They don't change it in one day, and yet the surveys would imply that there's an up-and-down jagged response. And so surveys are poor done, just poorly done.

Rathburn: One of the things that contributes to this problem is the combination of the need for speed and the fact that we assume in our culture that people who have achieved a certain level of stature have implied credibility. So it's very easy for the journalists to drive direct to the person he or she thinks is the best source of information in the shortest period of time. And to take that and run with it because they have a deadline to make.So when you go to the person who has implied credibility, you may be shortchanging yourself from the standpoint of the actual value of the information that you're getting.

I like the idea of eventually using the internet because I do think in a very short period of time the internet is going to be a mainstream source of information, the mainstream way of getting contact with those real people out there and getting contact in a very short period of time.

Ayers: [W]hat are the institutional arrangements in society that tend to produce the third level of leadership, the regular people who other regular people look up to as leaders

Rooney: I can't answer that question. I really can't, but I guess I come about this from the opposite viewpoint as you noticed, is I guess I'm not terribly concerned always about what the majority thinks - or what 67 percent or 90 percent or 1,008 people or the editor…what I'm looking for is fairly factual, objective data, and anybody who is saying, "I have an opinion. I want other people to read it," has already said to me, "I'm probably not going to be entirely fair." Okay? So I'll focus more on the reader, on the reporter's objective data supposedly and fair data. I'm going facts, not opinions. So I guess I don't even get excited about the question at this stage of the game -- I come about it very differently.

Ayers: Yours is a sort of occupational need to know. You would read pretty carefully anything about education.

Rooney: Yes. I didn't believe some of it.

Ayers: Education is everybody's number one, on the hierarchy of political campaigns what should we be doing about it in the media?

Rooney: See, I'd love to think education was number one, but really vote getting is number one and so every politician of whatever party says very similar there are certain buzzwords that we all have to say no matter what our true beliefs are if we are running for political office and we're talking about education. So I guess I'm cynical enough not to think that education is not number one. And the reason it isn't is kids don't vote. You know, if kids could vote -- and I'm not advocating that -- they would be taken a lot more seriously and schools would be taken a lot more seriously. And I'm not advocating three-year-olds or five-year-olds voting, don't get me wrong. But I think that there's an inherent problem. Politicians truly are not as concerned about education as they say because that's not a true constituency for them. Now the PTA is and the band booster club is, I agree, and the athletic boosters are, but education truly isn't, in my estimation, even for people who want to be the education senator, the education governor, the education president. It's superficial.

Ayers: This theme of regular people, at least the leadership among regular people, people that you look up to, who get chosen by a church to be a leader in that church [consider] a person who has the demographically most interesting barbershop and acts as a reporter more than a commentator, who asks questions of the people who come to that shop.If you had a panel of those kind of people who went to the superintendent and they asked the questions instead of, you know, a journeyman reporter or maybe a freshman reporter, would that be more interesting or more trouble to you and, and what does the panel think the story would read like? Would that be a better way of covering that story? They'd want to ask rude questions, they would say, you know, "How much of your budget is, is for administrators? We have the impression that you're spending all your money on administrators and it's all here in the superintendent's office and it's not getting out to the kids or to the teachers."

Thompson: I like the idea of putting those people in that position to ask the superintendent questions, 'cause I don't think the superintendent is always accessible to the voters. The teachers aren't always allowed to say what's really on their mind because that superintendent has the power over them. Why can't the people say what's on their mind about what's going on in their school? I think there are a lot of people power-tripping out there and the little people are afraid to speak.

Rathburn: I think that idea has some merit for the simple reason that you are going to get a lot tougher questions and you're going to get questions that have genuine expertise underlying the question.Things have gotten so complicated so it's kind of tough for the average journeyman journalist out there to be able to know what question to ask in a lot of areas, coupled with the fact that they, as I had mentioned before, don't have time necessarily to spend a lot of time unless they're devoted by their editor to a particular line of story. I think that has some real merit. I really do.

Windsor: Can I, can I say something? I want to take this in a little bit different direction because I think what we're talking about here is, we've talked about community, we've talked about getting to the regular people and so forth. And I think that people have mentioned the idea of essentially educating the reader on their responsibilities as a citizen. I think we've lost that somewhere and that when you do that, you have people that are more active, that get into expressing their opinion, raising questions in meetings, and doing all of the things that provide you all with fodder to report on. And so the question really is, how do you all do that? I think that's what citizens want, I think we want, you know, we may hear about an issue, you get the "balanced view." Well, balanced by whose standard? If you go ahead and tell us the issue, don't worry about the balance, but perhaps if we want to have further input on that, tell us how to do it.

Ayers: The balance has always troubled me because it seems to me that you've got an extremist on the left and an extremist on the right, and they're yelling at each other and not much light is generated by that method.I think we all agree that some, maybe even many, editors, reporters, commentators, broadcasters bring a measure of bias to their task. Do any readers bring a bias to the reading and to the viewing?