There to find their way into the site. But i am keenly aware when i write about china now i am being read not but just by my motherinlaw but by chinese. And i think that does raise your game. Again, i hope by it takes me back to a that you question ducked earlier on new technology and the effect that has. The New York Times benefited from the wikileaks story. The New York Times decided that it would send a team of reporters to another newspaper in england where the information already was, so it was no act of journalistic genius to go over there and pick up that information and then put it into the times. So what does that mean about the times and a fitting from wikileaks . Is that a good thing . Are they to be proud of the fact that they made that decision . You should really ask Arthur Sulzberger that. Bill keller. He was seated here, and i did ask him. What did he say . He made an effort to answer it, which is more than you are doing. [laughter] you see, im trying to understand. The reason i am dodging this question and i am dodging it is because did you notice . Is because it is a hugely complicated question, and i have not dealt with the raw material, the legal bit. I have not been deeply involved than i do not want to freelance on it. Ok. Then i will put it this way. [laughter] tomorrow morning, you are sitting in your office, and you get a call from the guardian in london and the guardian says, hey, tom, you are one of the greatest columnists ever and we want to bring you in on something. We have just received from bin ladens motherinlaw who does not live in chicago, should live somewhere else in the middle east, and she has his personal plans for taking over the world. This is what he was going to do. We want to bring you in on that. You have to come over here and take a look at it and then run with it. Would you do that . I would definitely go over there and take a look at it. Whether i would run with it would depend on the veracity of it. Would depend on what the real content was. The journalist in me get would definitely do that. Lets move along. The New York Times. I love to pick it up in the morning. Ten years from now, will i have that privilege . Dont know. Really dont know. You know, one of the themes of my columns in the last seven or eight years has really, what i call, i think we are in a gutenberg scale moment of change. That is, i believe that were in a moment that is a kin to gutenbergs invention of the Printing Press when the way in which information is generated, turned into knowledge and transforms into products and services has undergone a massive transformation. I always tell people, someone was alive when gutenberg invented the printing priest. Some monk said to some priests, now this is cool. I do not have to use this quill anymore. We can stamp these things out, holy mackerel i believe we are at a similar mom, and i call it the move from connected to hyper connected. And it happened just in the last decade or a little bit more, and it was completely disguised by the subprime crisis and post9 11. We are living it. We are living all of the innovations that it is throwing off, all the incredibly rapid change. But no one is really describing it. My sound bite on this, you may of heard me say is that when i sat down to write that used to be us, the first thing i did was go back and get the First Edition of the world is flat to remind myself what i said. I started that book in 2004. So i waited up to the index. I looked under abcdef facebook was not in it. So when i was running around the world, last time we talked, and saying the world is flat. We are all connected. Facebook did not exist. Twitter was still a sound. The cloud was still in the sky. 4g was a parking place. Linkedin was a prison. Big data was a rap star and skype was a typo. Ok, so all of that happened after i wrote the world is flat. So what does that tell you . It tells you something really big just happened in the plumbing of the world. We went from connected to hyper connected, and it is changing every job, every workplace. How is it changing journalism . Is that a good thing . What would you say . We now have when nytimes. Com, we have the most email lists. So we are using big data, to track most tweeted. On the one hand, any the New York Times journalist who says, i do not look at the list is lying to you. Do they go up or down. But it also is very, that can be dangerous, because i write about Foreign Affairs. And um, there are times when i should write about Foreign Affairs issues that may not make the list at all. You can tell. There are certain issues that just do not make the list. You write a political, sizzling piece about you know governor chris christie, goes to the top of the list. But if you write about the problem of water in chad, you are not going to make the list. As a journalist, as a columnist, do you start saying, i am not going to write about this whole set of issues because they are not going to make, most tweeted. So what do i do . I write about them and despite that. Some days it does not go up the list. The New York Times is going to have more of a lefty readership, and the New York Times online will have more of a young and left readership. Just by its nature. If you were to write a pro george w. Bush column, it is not good to make the list, baby. It is not going to get near. In the way you would a proobama one. Dan rather sitting here a couple of years ago said that in his judgment what rules ina newsroom these day is fear. Fear. He was talking about the consequences of 9 11, and the way in which journalism covers these events. You have introduced the cause of my question, you have introduced an element now having to do with the new way in which journalism has to be mindful of the new technology. Right. Does the new technology, in your view, pervert or force you into places you would not want to be dealing with stories that you would not want to deal with . Simply in order to get the ratings boost . Um, i think it is an important question to be asking. I cannot give you a specific example right now, but what i can tell you is that you sit where i sit, it is just incredibly noisy now. And um, you know, i find that more and more, im shrinking my aperture. I got to filter out a lot of stuff. You are constantly being written about, basically. If you take too much of that in, it is really paralyzing and i start to write for you, and that is really. Dangerous i think this applies to young journalist, old journalist. I remember my daughter was in college, and she called me one day, there is an issue on campus that had disturbed her. And i said, honey, why dont you blog about it . In the campus newspaper. And she said no, everyone will blog about me. It really stuck in my mind. And so, to now be, i think a columnist at a place like the New York Times, wall street journal, you need a thick skin, but you have to keep your balance. If you could imagine yourself being a very important politician for example responsible for making decisions affecting all of us, the question that the feedback loop is so fast now. And so immediate. People tracking, twitter. I stay away from that stuff because i do not want to get knocked off my game. But that has to affect, if you are a politician, the way in which you think about voters, getting votes, saying certain things to attract certain constituencies. Have you in your coverage, so i am putting you as a journalist going to be hard for you to duck it please. Have you met a president since you have been doing these Opinion Pieces who is a great man . Um, you know, thats i think all the president s i have covered have had moments of greatness and a lot of moments of not greatness. But i have a lot of affection, this may come as a surprise, i dont know, for george bush, the elder, the father, who i covered as a reporter. I was the Diplomatic Correspondent for the times at the time. And the reason i have such Great Respect for him has to do with a very specific achievement that i think he forged that he was central in that so affected everyone that he has never quite gotten credit for. He brought the end of the cold war two germanies. The unification of germany and he brought the soviet union for a soft landing, and other than the one incident did he do that or gorbachev . He, gorbachev, that whole generation i think was amazing. He, margaret thatcher, gorbachev. But he was there and had it not gone well, he wouldve gotten the blame. And i think his role in that, the decisions he made were really, helped pave the way for the world that came afterward. Are you optimistic maybe that is not quite the right word are you positive in your feeling that the current generation a political leader in this country can cope with the dimension of challenge now facing Political Leadership . It is funny. I was just in israel and i was thinking about that issue. There. Can the leadership there handle the lift. I begin to wonder. U. S. A very important question. First of all, i know how noisy it is if youre just writing a column for the New York Times. I cannot imagine how noisy it is for the president of the united states. Just all of the stuff coming in now. Someone checking twitter and facebook in the evening in the morning news and cable tv. And so i think that is a real problem. And i also think that the complexity of the problems you have to deal with. Think of you and your brother wrote an amazing biography of Henry Kissinger. Lets think of Henry Kissinger 1973 1974. He goes to the middle east to forge the first real peace agreement, disengagement agreement between egypt, israel, and syria. In egypt, he negotiates with one egyptian pharaoh named sadat, in syria, negotiates with a syrian dictator, and it is really negotiates with the Prime Minister golda maier whose majority in the knesset was so big no one had ever heard of the likud party. Lets Flash Forward now. You are john kerry. In syria, who do you negotiate with . Theres anybody who answers the phone that comes off the wall, basically. In israel, you have a kind of minority majority coalition. Not know who is in power but it is a really complicated set of coalition partners. Benjamin netanyahu is in power. The ministry of interior. By 6 00, he will end his political life. Hop over to egypt, it was the generals and morsi, and a general again. Think of what a difficult time this is. I also have enormous sympathy for anyone in these jobs. You mentioned before your most recent book which is called that used to be us. Here i want to ask you about whether im right in my belief in my many years of radio that you are a very optimistic and deeply patriotic many years of reading you that you are a optimistic and patriotic person, and yet in this book, the title as well as part of it are for from a pessimistic. You seem to be suggesting that we are at a tipping point, and if something goes wrong, were going to be up the creek without a paddle. What happened to your optimism . So, you know, let me start with where it came from and where it might have gone. So i grew up in minnesota, in the 1950s, at a time in a place where politics the year i graduated high school, the then governor anderson was on the cover of Time Magazine holding up a walleye, holding in the headline. The state that works. I grew up in this place where myself, the cohen brothers, al franken grew up at the same time. Our congressmen were liberal republicans. The companies in minnesota, 3m, Dayton Hudson thought it was their obligation to build a theater. It was not a diverse place. We had one africanamerican person in my high school. I do not want to suggest it was a perfect or a snapshot of america, but i grew up in a place where politics seem to work and solve problems, and that really formed, that was really a formative thing i am always looking for minnesota in some way in my journalism. And by then i have gone off, to the middle east and obviously, that cheered me. I saw some horrific things in beirut and jerusalem and i covered the massacre in syria. But i have never lost that sense. One of the things that journalists have lost, a bright dividing line today sometimes, some journalists, is the line between skepticism and cynicism. You know, the skeptics i do t know. I want to check it out. I will not take anyones word for it, but i want to report it out. Show me. A cynic says, i already know who you are. One of the things that worries me is i did a call about this once where i came back. I was hired by upi, and spent two years in beirut. There was a reporter in the business section at that time. Nathaniel was a wonderful, looks like a choir boy and he was a bornagain christian and he loved to hear about the whole event. So we did have lunch and talk to him about israel. When i went off to beirut for the times, he said, i am going to pray for your safety. I said, i will appreciate that. Two years later after i got out of her room alive beirut alive, he was one of the first people i called. I said, thank you. It was, i thought you were my good luck charm. And Nathaniel Nash was on ron browns airplane when it slammed into a mountain in bosnia and he died in that crash. In my mind, because he was such a she was someone who taught me the difference between skepticism and cynicism and i kept that in my mind. We have got about a minute left, and i want to know whether deep down you are an optimistic about america now. Deep down i feel this that i think the most Important National foreignpolicy issue global issue in the world is the health and vitality of this country. If we go dark as a country go dark . If we are pessimistic, if we cannot emulate these values were restarted freedom, opportunity, perl is an pluralism your kids will grow up in a fundamentally different world. That is why i invest so much of my time in writing about america, because i do believe it is the most amazing country in the world and the world will be a very different place if we cannot be all we need to be. I am really sorry that our time was up because i would like to continue with that saying but we have run out of time. And i want to thank our audience first and i want to thank our audience around the nation and the world by way of the internet and webs and all of that, and most important, our guest New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman for sharing his thoughts, his insights about big questions. I am very grateful to you. That is it for now. I am marvin kalb. Say, goodow used to night, and good luck. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] thank you very much. We now have about 15 or 20 minutes, and we can, that is to say you can, ask tom questions and what i would like to do is suggest you come up front where there are two people with microphones, and your voice will be heard if you come right up here to the microphone. Please identify yourself. Let us know what youre associated with, university or whatever, and please ask a question and not make a speech. I am a retired navy captain, and thanks for all of the great work you do and mr. Kalb, thanks for putting this on tonight. A couple things. First, i have a book from Paul Brinkley oh, good. I have a two part question. How would you rate the trust factor of america in the world right now . And two, since we are in the press club, how does the International Press look to the American Press and what is your assessment of that . It is are very fair question and a big question. It is hard for me to generalize about how the whole world, how much it trust us are not. If you are saudi arabia right now and your fear is that we are going to make up with iran, you do not trust us very much. If you are, if you are japan, and you are worried about china, maybe you trust us a lot because you have to. It would be really hard to generalize. But i kind of know what is behind your question and on balance, you know, the trust level if we have put it quantify i think it is going down, not up. The second question was . The American Press again, i think it really is, it really depends. And i think it depends the country, the newspaper, the tv outlet, the radio, the specific journalist i would be reluctant to generalize. There is International Press here. You should ask them. Thank you for that question. Yes, please . Hi, green connections. One of the issues your name . I did. One of the issues is energy and Energy Security. You mention it in your book and obviously Energy Security and independence is critical to the future of this country being its potential and the freedom to and the freedom from. And we have stories like the clean tech crash from 60 minutes, and we have other journalism that is sometimes covering it and sometimes not, what is your assessment of the coverage, what army missing, and can you give us your take on this component of the issue what are we missing . I have not looked at all the coverage and i am not going to make, i would not want to make a grand sweep on the coverage per se. I think it is a hugely important issue, and i think 60 minutes did that story and the next week google bought an amazing clean tech company. People really have to be careful about, i think, generalizing about some of these things. So i spent a lot of time covering climate, water, energy issues. I think it is hugely important. It is also from a journalistic point of view really interesting. You have given me a chance to make a plug that i just completed a documentary with showtime. Years of living dangerously. It begins on april 13. And i did the one on climate and environmental stresses and the arab spring, showing how underlying the arab uprising were a lot of climate, water and environmental stresses. They did not cause it but they contributed. Harrison ford did deforestation in indonesia. Matt damon the water issue. It