That affect the nation. Students were asked to create their documentaries based on the theme the three branches and to demonstrate how it policy law, or action has affected them or their community. Justice best in sparks, nevada is one of our second prize winners. Her entry focused on animal conservation. It affects us all. We are all going to be affected by this. If we live in a beautiful state like nevada, the health of our state. If our land is not healthy, how can we as a people be healthy. It impacts us all. The Actual Health of our wildlife population. To many, the endangered species act is a it is putting the greater thats what we set out to discover. The greater sagegrouse is a declining species, there were over 16 million. Today there are fewer than 200,000. The number continues to drop. The Current Situation with the sagegrouse, the numbers are down to about 5000, the amount of habitat the bird has has been reduced by half since the early 1900s due to development ranching, wildfires, invasive species. They thrive in a sagebrush habitat and they only have half of what they originally had. They have been enlisted on the threatened species list. Last case, they will be placed on the endangered species list. That could really harm the economy here in nevada. Wildfires or invasive species. Wildfire is number one, driven by an invasive grass. Based on the sagegrouse current threats, many believe placing them on the endangered species list will hinder their recovery. One way it might help is that it will bring it more into the spotlight for the general public. People tend to pay more attention when a species is in peril. That might generate more conservation activity. If the bird is listed, the bureau of Land Management will have to do consult with the fish and Wildlife Service on any management activities that occur within areas determined to be sagegrouse habitat, which is a large portion of northern about nevada. There are conflicting opinions on whether or not this will help the bird, or will hamper the bird, because it will slow down the process of restoration. Looking at a species, a single species, is the worst thing we can do for sagegrouse. The worst thing we can do is list it under the endangered species act. In the 11 western states that sagegrouse is in, there have been, in the last 45 years corporate conservation that has been happening across the board between federal Agencies Private landowners, state agencies, and there is a huge momentum built up and my fear for our wildlife populations in general is that a listing of the sagegrouse as endangered will set back cooperative conservation. We have learned how to communicate and get along and work cooperatively, that i would hate to see that lost. The species is a focus of unprecedented range wide conservation efforts. And to prevent it from enlisted under the u. S. Endangered species act within the next three years. For example, the usdas conservation arm has been over 100 million to conserve the species. You need to establish core habitat zones. That is the problem with that is finding the money to do it. We have the Nature Conservancy and they have rehabilitation projects that would be designed to prevent wildfires, to restore areas that have been burned, and to protect some areas. Especially areas where nothing is really going on anyway, no mining, no grazing, to protect those areas. A number one problem we have with these systems is they are surrounded by the juniper trees that have encroached on sagebrush ecosystems. I believe we can have a large impact on improving habitat quickly by treating uplands, removing trees. And reducing the impact predators would have and improving the meadows. We all work together. We communicate, collaborate. We do not set distinct boundaries. We help each other out to do multiple conservation projects for the sagegrouse. I have worked with other species that have been in decline, and i have never seen this amount of collaboration that i have seen with the sagegrouse, and i think it is positive and something that needs to continue, no matter what the listing decision is. If that happens, that is good news for the sagegrouse. There are huge conservation efforts to preserve the sagegrouse. If it is listed, these efforts may be halted. The people of nevada will be impacted greatly. It will end up on the list if we do not do something. To learn more about our competition, go on to cspan. Org. Tell us what you think about the issue this student addressed on facebook and twitter. On thursdays washington journal, the daily beast editor discussed policy in washington. This is 45 minutes. Host we have gone to the offices of news organizations to find out about their organization and how they cover news. The focus today, our cameras take us to the offices of the daily beast, which can find online. Dailybeast. Com. John avlon the editor in chief joins us. Guest good morning. Host how do you define what you do to other people when they come to your site . How do you set your sights set yourself apart from others . Guest we are essentially a politics and pop culture site but we do it back with real reporting. We are the alternative to particular partisan sites and content forums that you see some much today. My friend, the journalist to pass away a couple years ago says there are three great beats in american journalism. Politics, hollywood, and war. That is what we cover at daily beast and the key for us is we focus on scoops, scandals, and secret worlds. We love confronting bullies, bigots, and hypocrites. That is what gives us alive in fighting as a lean and hungry beast. We are aggressive and we like to do real reporting and have fun doing it. Host what kind of stuff do you have and are they committed to find these kinds that you are looking for . Guest absolutely. Here, we have about eight reporters from politics and National Security. You will be talking to some of them later in the next couple hours. In new york, we have a team considerably larger than that. We are lean and hungry compared to some outlets. The key for us is to realize and it has been key to our growth we grew 50 at the end of last year. We are majority mobile, and our audience is 75 millennial or genx. People will respond, particularly young people, to real news if it does deals with exec medicine. Balancing the edge and attitude of online news brands with the quality and credibility of legacy newsprint. When you combine the two, you get the daily beast. You can make a difference and a dent in online conversations. We grew over 230 in the social commedia last year social Community Last year. You say go out there, have fun be fair, and all of a sudden you can get a real response. It is counter to a lot of the commodity news people have come accustomed to. Host if you go to the pages by now, there is a story about finding irans secretive drone. Theres a story about Monica Lewinsky and bob menendez. How do you decide what goes to the front page or the top for readers to get to . Guest you look for the best story there is. You look for a good vibrant high low mix. Theres a story about discovering a secret iranian dronebased and the indictment against bob menendez and the whole culture of corruption in new jersey. A funny smart piece that stacks up the complaint against menendez but the legacy of corruption in the garden state. And then a look at Monica Lewinskys resurgence. He got eric a young, feminist icon who really criticized Monica Lewinsky in the 1990s and she apologized saying she was essentially wrong to engage in a political pylon that was disparaging to Monica Lewinsky at the time. You look for the right mix and you always want to respect your audiences intelligence and time. If you get the right vibrant balance between politics and pop culture, if you break real news that makes a dent in the conversation, you have a great story mix. That is what we have been able to achieve at daily beast and it is a constant process. We say today our best, tomorrow better. We are under no illusions that we have arrived. We need to say hungry and aggressive and work to get better. The growth we have seen is a vindication of the effort. Host numbers are on the screen if you want to talk to john avlon about the daily beast. There are two goats behind you, dont be boring, dont be stupid. How do they play into the daily news work of the daily beast . Those are our key editorial rules. We like to keep things simple and strong. Dont be boring and dont be stupid area and that is a quick and punchy way of saying respect your audience and their time and their intelligence. Particularly for younger generations, the dumbest thing you can do to appeal to millennials is dumb it down. People are smart. You need to respect the fact. Write headlines and stories that you would read and your family and friends would read. Make sure you are adding value. Dont be stupid. Dont bottom feed in an attempt to broaden your audience. It will not work. Focus on edge and differentiation that respect to audience. The other point about dont be boring there is an ascension that some legacy news brands have that goes under the veil of commodity news. Essentially everything is watered down and the voice is stripped out of it. I think that is a death sentence is what. People really want to see voice particularly in online reporting. I am a former columnist and i still write when i can. The column is a good form in general but for the daily beast, you want reporting done with a lot of voice so you add value to the conversation. There is a sense it doesnt taste right medicine. What we have found is particularly in the rising tide of social media, so many things get commoditized. So many sites just rewrite other people stories. Even opinion can be commoditized. If you break real news and add real value, it can resonate. Outside of social media it can make a mark. They cannot taste that it cannot taste like medicine. One of the complaints that makes me frustrated in the world of news, particularly in tv news is on summit he says that is really important but it doesnt reign. When you to understand and take response ability for the fact that if something is important it is our job to make interesting. If we cannot do that, we have failed in our jobs. That has an urgency to as we go through this massive change. More and more readers are getting their news via the social media feeds so you need to punch harder to resonate out. You can do it with quality and credibility but it cannot taste like medicine. It cannot be boring. Host we will spend our day at the daily beast talking to several of the reporters and the editorinchief john avlon. First call for you is from mark in st. Paul, minnesota. Go ahead. Caller i am wondering one of these News Agencies going to report on the overpayment to legislators in d. C. They get a huge salary, unlimited sick days, you work under 100 days a year and get lifetime benefits after being in office for three terms. Guest i am making a point generally about the dysfunctional culture and their Lifetime Appointments in congress . Host he left us but i think that is his point. Guest one thing you should know about the beast in our political perspective is it was very fashionable around a decade ago to put forward partisan news sites. Partisan new sites have hurt the credibility of journalism overall. One of the things we do here is make sure we are not partisan and not neutral not partisan and neutral. We punch left and right and that gives us unpredictable. We are voices ranging from liberal to libertarian. That degree of partisan predictability kills credibility but it compounds the problems we are seeing in washington. In my own writing, i have zeroed in on the dysfunctional nature of washington dc because of the unprecedented polarization. People are right to be frustrated. 90 to recognize and we need to recognize that partisan media has had a really compounding effect on the problems in washington. We have the opportunity to be correct and independent. That is one of our key values. One of our key phrases that we use inside the beast to remind us who we are and how we are different is that we are independent, irreverent, and intelligent. That is a promise to ourselves and our readers. Young people are sick of partisan media. There is a region a majority of millennials self identify as independent. They are sick of the partisan straitjacket they get put in that leaves our country to dysfunction rather than being able to solve albums. Solve problems. Host linda you are our next caller. Go ahead. Caller you said your audience is mostly millennials but yet recently i saw a poll that said millennials dont know much of anything. I am hoping or i would like to know how your site would increase the knowledge of young people that they dont seem to be getting through the education. Guest there is a tendency in all generations to look at the rising generation and say we are going to hell in a handbasket. These kids today. That impulse is understandable but it is rarely accurate as history will show. The key to appealing to millennials which is half hour audience is to understand a couple of key facts. It is the most diverse generation in American History. They have a real distrust of organizations and institutions which leads to a high degree of political independence. These are young folks who are massively news consumers on mobile devices, which is why it is significant we are mostly mobile. That has huge implications for the industry overall. They are getting a lot of their news through social media feeds. I really do believe the dumbest way you can appeal to millennials and younger readers is by dumbing the news down. They will reward intelligence and integrity as long as there is punch and energy and attitude to it. That is what we can provide, and that is our obligation. It is a big mistake to write off a whole generation. It is a mistake most generations have fallen into. I understand the temptation but it is ultimately proven wrong. The trick to proving it wrong is to offer them something other than dumb celebrity gossip 24 hours a day. That will not scratch the itch. They are more interested in a wider range of things. In the last six months or so, we have seen our top two verticals be world news and entertainment. They run the and neck they run that connectin neck. The diversity of this generation is one key to understanding that. The most diverse generation in American History for a news is not foreign because it involves real stories and real time. If you can bring that drama out rather than make it look like dry copy, you will get a real response. Host on our democrat line, here is richard. Go ahead. Richard from new york, good morning. Caller i just have a criticism of the news media in general. Hopefully a suggestion of how to help. I noticed a move to sensationalism and entertainment and news and a visceral entertainment rather than an educational slant. I think it is important for everybody in the country and i think one of the problems is the lack of education. We can see it in the television shows. They are much less substantive in terms of education about science. I dont know if your member shows like quantum leap. We need to have more educational substance. That will help people make better decisions when they are voting. I understand it cannot be boring. I have worked in the school system. You have to engage people on an emotional level. I wanted to emphasize science and math in addition to politics and entertainment. Guest first of all, i appreciate your point and i appreciate the quantum leap reference is a High Water Mark of american television. The key is to entertain while you educate. You to be able to do both. If youre only serving up hardcore math and science allday any wonder why no one is visiting your new site, it is probably you. If you can entertain while you educate, you get the best of both worlds. At the end of the day that is what is at the heart of a high low approach to news and new sites. You want to offer people both because it will have a greater resonance. It is our obligation and our commitment to educate while we entertain our readers. That will make sure a larger number of folks read it. That is the name of the game at the end of the day if you want to raise the level of civil discourse. One thing about science and math and technology, one of the verticals we have had Great Success with over the last year and change is the tech and health vertical. We got rid of a business vertical. It was too broad. We decided to focus on tech and health and intersection between the two. We have seen real success in that vertical because there is a real interest particularly among millennials. You see it getting picked up on referral sites and training on social a lot trending on social a lot. The key to making it work is not to just publish a bunch of dry academic position papers and wonder why no one gives a damn. Host youre putting a lot of content on the web, what is your editorial process like . Who looks over the copy that eventually makes it onto the web . Guest in many ways, we have a traditional newsroom structure. We are freed from some of the restrictions and legacy obligations that can stop legacy organizations from embracing the full potential of the web. We have a meeting every morning at 10 00 a. M. And we have an afternoon editorial meeting or we catch up on what news has broken during the day and what is coming in. We have editors on essentially 24 hours a day so we are able to keep updating the cheat sheet which is one of our most popular products which allows breaking news with a point of view and direct links back to the original source. We are constantly updating the site. There isnt the solution of turning on a site and it is the equivalent of a paper. 3 the idea was that from inception. There is a wild west quality to the state of online news right now. That is about opportunity. Quality controls of having editors and reporters in fact checks and a real system of rigor to ensure highquality is in place at the beast. Host from rochester new york here is andrew. Good morning. Caller morning. It is cold but it is always called out here. Guest cold and beautiful sound like rochester. Caller you ever been out there . Guest yeah i sure have. Upstate new york is beautiful. Caller who does Rush Limbaugh work for . Guest it works for his radio syndicate for whom he is wellpaid. I will take that ball and run with it for a second. First of all, if you pull back for a second and look at the forces that are transforming news media over the past decade in change and change, there have been essentially three revolutions within have my lifetime. You happy days when there wer