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- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi, everyone.

Steve Adubado, another important compelling conversation about us, the media, our role, what we're doing, what we're not doing, and why it matters.

We're honored to be joined by Professor Martha Minow, who is the author of "Saving the News: Why The Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech."

And also she's a professor at Harvard Law School and a Distinguished scholar.

Professor, thank you so much for joining us.

- Pleasure to be here.

- I told you before we got on the air, this book important for so many reasons.

I've enjoyed reading it.

It's challenged me to think about what I do and how I do it.

The main message in this book for those watching right now is what?

- We are losing local media in particular, but journalism in general in this country.

And that is in contrast to the commitment to journalism made in the Constitution supported by government and private industry for 200 years plus.

And that puts not only democracy in jeopardy, but our own just wellbeing.

- Let's put a perspective, I wanna be clear, while the date will come up that we're taping on July the 16th, this program will be as quote "Evergreen as possible."

But we know that just a few days before this taping; horrific assassination attempt at former President Trump's life in Pennsylvania, in which another person, a spectator, was tragically killed.

Others were shot.

Let me ask you this professor, in preparing for this program before that assassination attempt, I wanted to ask you a whole range of questions about former President Trump and his attack on the media calling the media, the enemy of the people, pointing to media figures at a rally.

Saying, saying, it's them, it's them.

And then I asked myself, "Should I even be asking that in light of the attempt on his life?"

Those issues still matter.

It's not his fault, but it contributes to distrust in the media.

Does it not?

- You know, we're living in a time of grievance and distrust.

Major institutions, public and private are distrusted.

And unfortunately, we have leaders from all different backgrounds who contribute to that division, that sense of we, they polarization blame.

But I trace it back to grievance.

And again, I come back to the media.

One of the ways in which we build a sense of we, that we're in a life together, we're in a common project, is by sharing sources of information and news.

We have that disrupted right now, especially due to the algorithmic selection of information that's affecting all of us.

- So me, anyone else, we go on social media, we look at something, we look at a couple of other times and they go, that's it.

This person likes this information.

And so many of my friends who I talk to tell me, "Yeah, I saw it on the news", or they tell me what they believe is a fact.

And I realized that their social media feed is not the same as mine is not the same as someone else's.

So therefore, we believe what we believe, we consume what tells us we're right and it what, play that out and what's impact on democracy, Professor.

- You are completely right.

The business model of the leading social media companies depends on engagement, depends on people staying tuned in.

And the strategy informed by psychologists is to repeat and amplify what an individual has already seen.

Which means that we increasingly live in not a shared reality, but different realities.

- As Dr. Richard Carlson called it in his book, "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff."

We have separate realities, Professor?

- I am afraid that is the case.

Now, I don't want to pretend that we ever all lived in the same reality.

In the mid-19th century, there were multiple newspapers in a local city, though most people tended get more than one and to hear more than one point of view.

But the problem, and you put it very well, is that the algorithms, these are machines that are selecting for what is likely to keep me engaged and even enraged, which has nothing to do with journalism, nothing to do with trying to create some sense of what really is going on.

- Along those lines, and by the way, check out Press Forward, which is an important initiative that the professor is involved in.

We've done a lot of programming on that as well.

Looking at how in fact the media can be more impactful, how private foundations, philanthropic organizations, others have contributed about $500 million to date as we speak on creating a healthier media environment.

That being said, talk to us about local media and the hometown I live in, in Montclair, New Jersey, there was something called the Montclair Times.

There still is, but the Montclair Times really isn't about Montclair, it's about this homogenized, if you will, content that all like 50, 100 newspapers tied to a larger media entity who bought the Montclair Times.

You get where I'm coming from?

Where's the local news anymore?

- That's- - And is the local news model profitable enough?

- That is exactly the trend that worries me because oddly and ironically, the most trusted sector to this day of the news industry is local news.

- I thought it was PBS.

- Well, it is PBS as National matter.

It's a national matter.

That's absolutely true.

But it is the local news that is dying most quickly.

Nearly 3000 outlets have disappeared in the last two decades.

It's now up to a rate of two and a half per week are disappearing.

And they're disappearing in part because they're closing, because they're not financially conceivable and supportable because advertising has moved to digital options.

And they're disappearing because of consolidation, even when they don't disappear, when they're purchased by a chain.

And you described that in Montclair.

There is a homogenization, there's a strip mining of local content and local journalists in order to, it's cheaper honestly to have happy talk or features that are not local.

And what we lose is the accountability that journalism offers in investigating public health problems, corruption problems in the private sector, behavior by public leaders.

That's what we lose.

- Along those lines, professor, you're a legal scholar, if I'm not mistaken, formerly the Dean at Harvard Law.

- That's correct.

- It's a big deal and I ask it in this fashion.

You understand the US Constitution better than most.

You have argued that the only private entity mentioned in the United States Constitution is the media.

First of all, why is that?

Second of all, the public interest, why did the Constitution mention the media A and B?

What do you believe now government's responsibility is to improve the media landscape?

'Cause there are a whole bunch of folks who say, "Just stay out of the media.

Let the marketplace play itself out."

Please, professor.

- You know, it is very striking to me that there is only one private enterprise that's mentioned by name of the Constitution.

And it is the press because at the time, media was produced by printing presses.

But the phrase now encompasses all the technologies.

And it's because the people who wrote the Constitution understood there would have been no revolution, there would have been no adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights without the role of the media informing people, giving people the tools to participate.

And that was coupled by the provision in the Constitution to authorize Congress to create the post-office.

And Congress right away created a post-office and right away created subsidies for the media.

So it wasn't just protection from government intrusion for the press, very quickly, it was government subsidizing the press in order to make it possible for people to be informed and participate in democracy.

- But the follow up to that, and again, New Jersey is an interesting situation because back in 2011, governor Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey, defunded public television, it was known as New Jersey Network at the time, and the great folks at WNET, our partners of the PBS flagship in the nation.

- Yes.

- You know well, and I'll talk about your dad, Newton Minow and his connection to PBS, and the FCC as the original leader there.

I'll do that in a moment.

But WNET and our president, Neal Shapiro, stepped in to save public broadcasting, meaning a private entity came in to do that.

The argument was the government should no longer be funding public television in the state.

You had to separate it.

So here's the question.

How the heck do we support the idea of government subsidizing, to use your phrase professor, but also allowing media entities to be independent from those who are funding it, which for those of us who raise money to do this, easier said than done, please.

I know that's a loaded.

- Yep.

No, it's a critical question and there is no easy answer.

But to ask the question is to point to the strategies that is, there must be a separation from the funding source and the selection of what to cover, how to cover it, and yet, it's very possible to do that.

So why did we come to Public media?

Congress was smart and it created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is a separate private entity, has its own governance, and it in turn funds, public broadcasting service, local channels, decisions being made by people who are far from the government.

It's also important to note that the public subsidy, the public dollars reaching the public broadcasting media is actually very small.

It's a small percentage and it is coupled with many, many other sources, whether it's from companies or private foundations or individuals, individual members.

Similarly, it's critical to have a rich ecosystem, a variety of sources that are competing with each other so that listeners, viewers, users can have choices and that there can be competition that will make those who are developing content better.

- Stay with us because we'll continue the conversation with Professor Martha Minow, who's the author of "Saving the News: why The Constitution Calls for Government Action to Preserve Freedom of Speech."

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Welcome back folks.

We continue a really important conversation with Professor Martha Minow up at Harvard Law School.

Martha, lemme ask you this, your dad, Newton Minow, who I studied when I was doing my doctoral work in media, in mass media research, the original leader at the FCC in 1961, appointed by President Kennedy.

Correct?

The chair, correct?

- He was the chair.

There had been people in that role beforehand, but I dare say he's the first to make public awareness, and he's known for the phrase, "Television is a vast wasteland."

He challenged people to sit down and watch for 24 hours and see a lot of shoot 'em up westerns.

But he wanted to be known for the phrase "public interest".

- For you, growing up in a home with such an important person in the media landscape, influencing media history moving forward, and also your dad had a connection to PBS later on, to be clear.

What impact do you believe that had on your, not just your interest, but your passion and commitment to media/public interest?

- You know, I'm so very lucky.

We lost my dad last year.

He was 97 and remained engaged.

- He wrote the foreword in the book?

- The best part of the book.

The best part of the book, absolutely.

You know, my parents invited their children, their three daughters to participate in discussions about public affairs from day one.

And as a result, we have three lawyers, and one is a movie critic and one is a librarian, and I am a teacher.

So the idea about information, education, and criticism, those as values, and critical to the wellbeing of a society.

That's the set of values I grew up with and I am very grateful for that.

You know, dad and I talked about these issues throughout my life, and I have worked on First Amendment issues as a lawyer, but only turned to really the core of what is the economics and the politics of media.

Recently, because of the crisis, I mean, there are now half of American local communities have only one news outlet, and typically it only comes out once a week.

And of that half, actually many have none whatsoever.

So it's either one or none.

So that's very much a change.

And you have no one covering the school board.

You have no one covering whether or not the water supply has been contaminated by lead.

These are questions that matter for people to be able to advocate for their interests, take care of themselves and their families.

- We talked a little bit about social media, the algorithms you talked about before.

Do you believe that it is the responsibility of the federal government, United States Congress, executive branch, regulatory agencies, to take a very different look at social media platforms, and dare I say, regulate them differently in the way they're regulated or not regulated right now, because of what you talked about before.

And I'm gonna complicate it for you.

I should ask these questions separately, but connect it to the impact of social media on the rise in political violence, please, professor.

- Well, I will try to connect it to the violence question.

A short answer there is polarization and misinformation, but I think it's a much more complicated issue.

The larger point, whether or not the social media companies, tech companies should be regulated, the fact is they are regulated and right now they're subsidized.

They're subsidized by the federal government creation of an immunity called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that exempts a certain set of companies, it's these social media companies, it's the Meta of the world, for example, from the liabilities and the legal duties that attach to any other entity, including a newspaper, a magazine, a television station.

It exempts them, yes, yes.

So from the laws governing, liable, fraud, contractual mistakes, and there was a reason for that exemption.

When the new, fangled thing called the internet started, Congress wanted to create a boost for new industry to populate this new technology.

Well, fast forward to the present.

Rather than fledgling, you know, small, frail entities, these are the largest, most well capitalized entities in the world.

They are driving the stock market value in the United States, and they don't need that subsidy.

They don't need to have an advantage in the marketplace.

So we already regulate social media.

I think that we need to change the regulation, either eliminate that exemption or put conditions on it, the same way that broadcasters have conditions on having the benefit of a license.

- Follow up on that, and I know it's not a simple answer, but to what degree do you believe social media and the algorithms that you described earlier that causes us to receive information that is consistent in what we said we watch, like, consume before, fueled not just distrust for government institutions, for the judiciary, etcetera, etcetera, but also potentially fueled political violence?

That doesn't mean exclusively, but it means a contributing factor.

Particularly right now.

- Remember Pizzagate, remember the man who was well.

- Hillary Clinton, right?

- Absolutely.

He believed when he was hearing that there was a child abduction, dwindle scheme going on in the back of a pizza parlor, got in his car, drove hundreds of miles with a gun.

Why did he do so?

I mean, he was well motivated, he was concerned about child wellbeing.

He was consuming a steady stream of misinformation and disinformation.

So there are many factors to political violence, the prevalence of guns, the violence in our media culture, you know, our mass entertainment culture.

We've had violence on and off in this country, sad to say, throughout our history, the assassination attempts and successful assassinations, if you wanna put it that way, of political leaders, certainly formed my childhood and yours too.

- How about January 6th really had no connection to the algorithms, social media feeding what people believed about the 2020 election and what they needed to do to stop the whatever.

I know it's more complicated than that professor, but let me do this, and it's not fair to you, because these are issues are way more complex than the way I'm asking these questions.

But what causes you to either be optimistic, lemme change that, what beyond greater government subsidies, beyond regulating social media differently, any other recommendations, even if they're not solutions, to improve the media landscape today and moving forward as it relates to preserving our representative democracy?

- You know, there's no silver bullet, there's no single answer, but I think there's three kinds of solutions that taken together would make a big difference.

The first is to hold the social media entities responsible like adult companies.

That includes paying for the intellectual property and the reporting that's done by others, even when it's posted by a third party.

There should be a way to pay the creators.

And second is to protect the users.

You know, for example, besides protection against fraud and misrepresentation, there should be an unbundling of the platform and the moderating functions.

Some people call this middleware.

We should have competition in the area of curation so that I could pick, you know, the Parent Teacher's Association and you could pick whatever your preferred group is, but that would produce some competition.

Now, there's no transparency and short of the competition, we should at least as users, have an ability to see, here's my media diet, here's what I'm seeing, here's what I'm not seeing.

And it's not hard to create an algorithm that says, here's a whole topic that you are not actually being exposed to.

You wanna see it occasionally.

You can do that.

So protecting the users is a second bucket.

And a third bucket is to amplify the varieties and sources of media and information.

You know, an interesting possibility might be more subsidy for students in high schools and colleges.

You know, increasingly, if you go to a State house, the only reporters are students, because there are no local reporters.

Well, then let's pay them.

Let's amplify that.

Let's build that up.

But more generally, yes, you mentioned Press Forward and I am proud to be the chair of the MacArthur Foundation.

That is a moving force.

One of the partners here already raised a half a billion dollars on the road to a second half a billion dollars to invest in local news immediately in specific outlets and also in better business models, shared infrastructure, helping digitization, conversion to nonprofit status, so that the entities can receive donations.

- Along those lines.

And by the way, read more in Professor Minow's book.

Get it, read it.

It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree, the whole issue seems to be about getting different points of view that help us be more informed.

And PS, I wanna clarify something.

We are a not-for-profit media entity celebrating our 30th anniversary.

I spend way more than half my time raising money.

And that's not all, look at me.

That's our job.

But the folks in foundations and corporations who care about what we're doing without figuring out how does it help their bottom line, easier said than done.

Again, final words, professor, - You know, it ultimately is upon all of us.

And that is why some contributions from philanthropy, from ordinary people matter as well, as well as advocacy and demand.

We deserve better.

We deserve information that is reliable and in a shared reality so we can govern ourselves and live together.

- Professor Martha Minow, "Saving the News," an important book, a very impactful scholar.

And you honor us by joining us in our conversation about the role of the media in preserving our democracy.

Thank you professor so much.

- I'm honored, thank you.

- We're honored, I'm Steve Adubato.

Thanks for watching.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Celebrating 30 years in public broadcasting.

Funding has been provided by PSE&G, Veolia, Delta Dental of New Jersey.

NJM Insurance Group.

Wells Fargo.

PSEG Foundation.

Holy Name.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And by The Turrell Fund, a foundation serving children.

Promotional support provided by New Jersey Globe.

And by Northjersey.com and Local IQ.

- (Narration) Healing is never just about medicine and technology.

It has to go further than that.

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It has to be our best medicine, combined with large doses of empathy, kindness, dignity and respect.

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