Shalom. Bonsoir. Good evening. Eleven days ago, the terrorist organization Hamas launched an attack of unspeakable brutality. We've all heard the stories of the murder, kidnapping, maiming, and acts of sexual violence of innocent people, of the elderly, it's painful for us, painful for us to even think of it, of children and babies. I'm sure most of you in this room personally know someone or many people who were affected. I am aware that the fact of not knowing what is happening to the loved ones, and knowing that the danger is not out of reach, causes concern. Several of the stories we hear are also Canadian stories. We are a diverse country, and we have concrete links with events across the world. We were devastated to know that it was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust, and Canadians were among those killed. Alexandre Luc from Montreal died after calling his parents to let them know he loved them. Ben Mizrahi from Vancouver was known for being larger than life, and tried to save people once the attack at the music festival began. Sheer Georgie was just 22 when she was killed. Netta Epstein died jumping on a grenade to save his fiancee. Adi Vital Kaploun, who had roots here in Ottawa, died on her kibbutz. After making sure her killers spared her two young children. And Tiferet Lapidot had Canadian parents. She was just turning 23. May their memories be a blessing. Our hearts are broken, and they break again and again as we hear each story. We are also deeply concerned about the two Canadians who are still missing, and maybe among those held hostage. We are in close contact with their families and are offering all possible support, including working with Israeli authorities to locate them as quickly as possible. Global affairs and our embassies in the region continue to work tirelessly to contact and support affected Canadians. And we are closely engaged with our allies and partners to help people safely depart from Gaza, the West Bank, and Israel as quickly and safely as possible. Our government is highly engaged, and members of our team are working around the clock to help impacted Canadians. Minister Jolie was in Israel and Jordan over the weekend, meeting with partners and leading our diplomatic efforts. Minister Blair has been ensuring the Canadian Armed Forces evacuation flights are getting as many Canadians out of the region as possible. So far, 12 flights have left Tel Aviv with over 1,300 people on board. And Minister Housen is making sure essential aid is getting to affected people, including through the Maghen David Adam in Israel. Since this crisis began, I've been reaching out to leaders in the region, including Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Abbas, to talk about freeing Canadian hostages, making sure affected people are receiving essential aid and peace, and ensuring peace and stability in the region. The situation remains volatile, and we will not stop being there for affected Canadians. We condemn the acts of Hamas unequivocally, and we are calling for the immediate release of all hostages. Canada fully supports Israel's right to defend itself in accordance with international law, and in Gaza as elsewhere, international law, including humanitarian law, must be upheld by all, even wars have rules. Canada will always be a friend of Israel and defend its rights, including its right to exist. Canada will not stand with those who try to uphold, and these, I remember well, Irwin, when you taught me these probably, I don't know, 14 years ago as a young MP, the 3Ds of modern anti-Semitism, the double standards, delegitimization, or demonization of Israel. What happened on October 7th is unimaginable. The indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians is shocking beyond belief. The Hamas terrorists committed unimaginable acts. I want to make it clear here today, as I did yesterday in Parliament, the Hamas is a terrorist organization that has massacred and brutalized innocent people. These people are not fighters for freedom, they are not resistance, they are terrorists. Canada has listed Hamas as a terrorist organization for decades, and nothing can justify Hamas's acts of terror and their crimes. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, nor their legitimate aspirations. They do not speak for Muslim or Arab communities, and they do not represent the better futures that Palestinians and their children deserve. The only thing that they stand for is more suffering for Israeli and Palestinian civilians. Hamas continues to commit unspeakable acts and are trying to instigate further acts of violence against Jewish people around the world, which of course has sent a current of fear throughout Jewish communities. You see, sadly, since this conflict broke out, there has been a very scary rise of anti-Semitism here at home, on top of the past years when we saw already a steady rise in anti-Semitism. There were reports of a possible hate crime at Tannenbaum Chat at Jewish High School in Toronto last week. I've heard stories of people who are wondering if they shouldn't wear their Star of David necklaces, if they should take their yarmulkes off in public. Families worry about what they face if they go to synagogue. And I know you're all probably encountering hateful and troubling rhetoric online. Je le dis sans équivoque. La glorification de la violence ou la célébration de la haine sous quelle forme que ce soit n'est jamais acceptable. Our Minister of Public Safety, Dominique Leblanc, is in close contact with the leadership of the RCMP making sure the leadership of the RCMP is aware of actions being taken to keep Jewish communities safe. We've continually improved and expanded the security infrastructure program so that community institutions like synagogues and Jewish day schools can make needed investments. In 2015, when our government took office, this program only had about a million dollars worth of funding. Since then, it has grown to over 15 million. I wish it hadn't existed at all. I wish we didn't need it, but we do, and we're going to continue to be there listening to your concerns and keeping investing in ways to keep your community safe. Yesterday, we appointed Deborah Lyons as Canada's new special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating anti-Semitism. She takes over for my good friend, a remarkable scholar and advocate for the Jewish community and human rights around the world, Erwin Kotler. Erwin, thank you for having served as Canada's first special envoy, but thank you more for everything you have brought and continue to bring to Canada in so many ways. Arielle, thank you for giving him permission to continue to work as hard as he does. As Erwin always reminds me, Arielle was quicker to jump in support of my leadership than he was, and I always remember that, dearie. Erwin has been a friend and a mentor and an inspiration for me for many years, and I have been incredibly lucky to be able to work alongside you in so many moments, and I am so glad that we have you here with us, not just tonight, but in these incredibly trying moments to continue to share your strength and your wisdom with us all. Merci beaucoup, mes chers. Deborah, of course, is a remarkable woman with decades of experience in international relations. She's an unfailing ally of the Jewish community, and I mention her in this respect because I want all of you in this room to know that you are not alone. The work of fighting hate, of fighting Holocaust denial is not yours alone. Every one of us must confront this challenge together. When we see or hear anti-Semitism, all Canadians, especially non-Jewish Canadians, need to stand up and step up. That is why all members of our government stand with you unequivocally in your work. Respect for each other is who we are as a country. Our diversity is our strength. In Canada, liberty never means taking away the freedoms of others. It's about living in a way that expands and strengthens freedom for everyone. As Canada, as Canadians, we have proven that a country can be built on and defined by shared values, not by religion or ethnicity or history or culture or language, but shared values. And even though those values are being put to the test once again, I want to say it again, you are not alone. I know this is an incredibly difficult time. There is a saying that Jewish communities have repeated for generations in times like these, and I hope it gives you some comfort now. This too shall pass. All Canadians stand with you in your grief. We will protect your rights and freedoms and security here in Canada so you can continue to live publicly and proudly Jewish lives. We will get through this together, my friends. Merci beaucoup.


Dear Sadhguru, I want to know the truth about parenting. As a child and youth, I wanted to be free, wanted to live my life on my terms. I think it's the same for every generation. Is it okay to give our kids the freedom and allow them to make their decision? Where do we draw the line or should we draw the line at all? What is your advice for us to be perfect parents? Namaskaram, Lakshman. We have thoroughly enjoyed the skills that are hidden in your wrists on the cricket field, of course. And when it comes to parenting, see this idea that we have to raise our children is a very western idea.  You should not raise them. You only raise cattle. You don't raise human beings. You just have to create an atmosphere of love, joy and responsibility. In your question, you use the word freedom. Freedom is a bad word. You should never utter the word freedom, nor should your children get used to the word freedom.  This must be brought into their life. If there is necessary, responsible existence, freedom is a consequence. This is a fundamental problem we have in the world today because we have become goal-oriented. We are interested in the consequence. We are not interested in the process. If you want flowers in the garden, you don't talk about flowers. If you're a good gardener, you will never talk about flowers. You will talk about soil, manure, water, sunlight. If you manage these things, wonderful flowers will come. Similarly, if you manage the conditions necessary for a beautiful blossoming of a child, then children will blossom. But if you try to raise them according to the molds that one may hold in their own minds, every child will rebel because no life can fit into the molds that you create in your mind. Life cannot fit into the molds of the mind. Mind has to fit into our life. This must be understood. So let's not have big ideas about how to raise a child. Just maintain an atmosphere of absolute love, joyfulness and responsibility. Above all, in their parents, let the children never see resentment, jealousy, frustration, depression, anger. You will see your children will blossom absolutely wonderfully because if you take care of the process, the results will come. But if you're focused on the consequence and not taking care of the process, your consequence or the consequence that you desire will just be a dream.


to introduce this last session, the closing session, Alberto E. Bargwin. Thank you, Robin. Thanks very much. Thanks, everybody. I hope I think I can say safely since we have a fantastic crowd. The last session is always a bit of a problem with people making reservations that look OK when you make them and then turn out to give you not enough time. But I'm glad to see all of you here. I want to thank all of you for such an active job of listening and participating and engaging in the breakout groups and the general sessions. I'd like to thank Robin, of course, for her 13th annual performance. And my colleagues at Knight Foundation, lots of them have been in and out over the course of the last couple of days, particular thanks to Susan Gomez and her staff who did such a good job of making all of this happen smoothly. We have a date for 2021. It'll be March 1st and 3rd. So I understand there's a snowstorm predicted for most of the northern United States on March 30th, February 28th. So be sure to make your reservations early. As before, we have yellow cards on each table. So in the Q&A with AG, you'll want to get your questions in early and maybe often in a Chicago kind of tradition. So be sure to have them filled out. This has been, I think, one of, if not the best, one of our very best conferences for the level of engagement and the kind of energy that I saw and felt and heard in the sessions and in the conversations in the hallway. It's also remarkable to look at, to think about the differences. Then and now, I was talking with Judy Woodruff earlier after her interview this morning. And she was remembering that very first conference and the discussion that day, the big shocking presentation, was Diane Lynch, who was the dean of the Ithaca School of Journalism. And her talk was what your kids are doing today on Facebook. And the audience, this audience, was absolutely shocked because they had never heard of such a thing. This was the audience that still said 98% of their news came from newspapers. So this has been quite an evolution to go from that to listening to Tim Berners-Lee talk about solid and to talk about owning your own data in a completely different way of thinking about the digital world. The level of sophistication of this audience is astonishing. The level of complexity about the regulations that we've been discussing has been really notable. The tension of opposing ideas, as we saw earlier. The tension created by that. The beauty of the solutions that some of you have developed at the very practical, local level from 47 states. But to listen to people who were stunned 13 years ago, talking about iterations on information projects in different communities that have matured, I think, is also a wonderful metric. We have 20 or so representatives from foundations in the state of Georgia who are considering this as a main subject of philanthropy. This is all, I think, really very, very hopeful. We should all remember Tim's recollection of a time when people would say, well, why do I need to use the internet? I've got access through AOL. And another time when people had to have clicks explained, had to have hot links explained, well, what does that do? And how do you use that? These things are impossible to imagine until they're real. And they're real now. Solid is real now. These are things that we live with and have become a part of us. And remember that when we first started this, the first smartphone hadn't even been announced. So this is all part of living in the media world we do today. I'm finally really inspired and affirmed by your discussion, affirmed in my belief from back then that there really is a role for philanthropy in trust, media, and democracy. That role in with a commitment not to enterprise, not to profit, but to democracy, a commitment to make the democracy effective, a commitment to make the democracy inclusive and equitable. I think that's something that the risk capital that we can put out for the experiment before it's tested, the experiment, as it is beginning to be tested and the emphasis on including the entire community, I think, are two areas where we are uniquely suited to make a very, very significant difference and contribution. And I'm delighted that you're here for the 13th time, some of you, in sharing in that same belief. Now let me ask you to shift back quickly to 2009, February 2009. The global economy is in crisis. The advertising-based business model that has sustained American newspapers for a century is collapsing in 2009. An article entitled End Times appears in The Atlantic and asks the reader to imagine to consider the following question. What if The New York Times goes out of business like next May was the question? And what a difference a decade makes. Last month, The Times announced a record number of subscribers. More than 5 million now open their wallets to pay for New York Times journalism. Digital revenue topped 800 million. The company stock hit a 15-year high, and they have 1,700 journalists working for The New York Times, the bigger than ever. A. G. Seulsberger has been publisher of The Times since early 2008, 18. He's the fifth member of his family to hold the position since Adolf Augs. The son of immigrants bought the paper in 1896. He succeeded his father, Arthur Seulsberger, who took a great regional paper. And I say that from having been a subscriber for all of those years. Actually, since the time of your grandfather, I've been a subscriber. So maybe I get a rebate. It's kind of expensive. But they simply, Arthur made it the country's most important national newspaper and left it poised to become the world's most important digital news operation. A. G. Seulsberger was key to that transformation before he took the reign as publisher. He led the team that produced the famous innovation report, which you should all look at online if you haven't. That was 2014, and it's the roadmap for how The Times could thrive in a digital world. Many of us at The Times thought the report was smart. Some of us worried that The Times might not be able to adopt it, might not be able to change fast enough to make a difference. This morning, we'll get a chance to hear how the lead author grades himself, maybe how he grades The Times, but grades himself with the benefit of a little bit of hindsight. In his writings and public speaking, A. G. has emerged as a champion of free expression and a protector of journalists around the world. He has become a powerful voice in support of independent verification journalism day in and day out, nationally and locally. And I am delighted to have him as our closing speaker. Please welcome the publisher of The New York Times, A. G. Seulsberger. Thanks for being here. Well, thank you, Alberto, for that warm introduction. And for your leadership of an organization that has done so much to support informed and engaged communities across this country. In this time of sustained pressure on the news industry, we are lucky to have the Knight Foundation searching for solutions. So those pressures are familiar to everyone in this room. Collapsing business models, eroding trust, surging polarization, metastasizing disinformation, growing attacks on journalists and news organizations. Each represents an existential threat, not just to individual news organizations, but to the collective strength of the free press and to the health of our democracy. Like all of you, we at The New York Times have spent years trying to chart a path forward through this difficult, fast-changing terrain. And while the road ahead remains treacherous, our recent progress has provided some welcome optimism that there is indeed a future for the type of deeply reported mission-driven journalism that many of us feared might be lost. But even as The Times and a growing number of national news organizations appear to have stabilized, thousands of local news organizations, the beating heart of our journalistic ecosystem continue to struggle. Now you've all felt the impact of those struggles. You've felt it inside newsrooms as friends and colleagues have lost jobs they loved. You've felt it in your hands in ever-thinning local papers and you've felt it in your communities, which are growing steadily more disconnected and divided. And because many of you are leading the response to this local news crisis, I'd like to use my time today to share some lessons drawn from helping lead our digital transformation at the New York Times. In particular, I wanna focus on two words today. One that I think our industry, myself very much included, has at times focused on too much and a second that I believe holds the key door to journalism's future. As The Times has grown over the last few years, I'm often asked by other media executives for the secret to a successful subscription strategy. And they usually expect me to respond with some sort of insight on metering models or e-commerce systems or optimal marketing spend. And those things matter and we have worked really hard to get better at all of them. But the thing that really drives a healthy subscription business is deceptively simple. It is offering something worth paying for. At The Times, our entire business strategy can be summed up by that phrase, journalism worth paying for. Original expert on the ground journalism that's independent, fair and accurate. And that strategy, I believe, can serve news organizations across the journalistic ecosystem. Whether your revenue comes from readers paying through subscriptions, listeners paying through donations, platforms paying through licensing, or foundations paying through charitable support. In every case, you need to produce journalism worth paying for. And I'm sure that sounds obvious, but I worry that some in our industry are losing sight of the essential role of original, deeply reported journalism, not just as the highest purpose of the Fourth Estate, but as the path to sustainability for our industry. I worry that too many news organizations, both legacy newsrooms, trying to find their digital footing and digital and native outlets adapting to the platform's shifting sands are chasing innovation as an end, not a means. The Times has had times fallen into this trap ourselves as became abundantly clear to me every time we raced to meet our monthly quota of Facebook Live videos. Innovation is the word I believe our industry is focusing on too much. The reason so many journalists shook their heads at all the pivots of the last decade. The pivot to newsletters, the pivot to video, the pivot to podcasts is that these one word strategies so plainly put the tool before the use and the form before the substance. The world already has enough slideshows and podcasts and videos and articles to last us through the apocalypse. Meanwhile, emerging technologies like AR, VR, blockchain, virtual assistants are still more popular with advertisers and funders than with actual news consumers. The world doesn't need more content. We need more journalism. And that requires us to step back and ask a different set of questions. Why should readers, listeners, viewers and users make room for us in their lives? In an ever expanding sea of content, what is the thing news organizations can offer that earns trust, loyalty, and a spot in people's daily routines? Or even more broadly, why is journalism worth fighting for? Why did our nation's founders view it as so essential that they enshrined its protections in the First Amendment? Why are so many journalists a collection of people not otherwise prone to hyperbole, warning that the pressures on the news industry present a real and growing threat to a free and informed society? Those are the questions to ask. And I believe the answer to all of them come back to a word that the industry is not saying enough, reporting. And some of you may be thinking, why is a guy best known in journalism circles for writing a hundred page digital manifesto called the Innovation Report? Warning about innovation. And hear me out. Back in 2014, the future of the New York Times, as Alberta mentioned, was being openly questioned. The company was in debt, advertising revenue had plummeted, our audience was stagnating, talented journalists were taking buyouts or fleeing for more nimble digital rivals. Against this depressing backdrop, I was asked to lead a team that studied how our 168-year-old institution, both justifiably proud of its traditions and undeniably burdened by them, should adapt to the digital future. I was extremely bad casting for this role. Despite my relative youth, I have the background of an old school journalist. I got my start at a local newspaper reporter at Metro Dailies, first the Providence Journal, then the Oregonian. I've all but refused to engage with social media. I never joined Facebook. And the last time I tweeted, which was under duress and only under direct orders from Jennifer Preston right there, was a decade ago. And there is very little in life that brings me more joy than unfolding a print newspaper. And having no particular digital expertise to offer, I attacked the problems the only way I knew how, I reported. My team and I spent time with readers. We interviewed fellow journalists inside and outside the building, including some of the folks in this room. We mined for fresh ideas from designers, technologists, and product managers. We dug deep into our operations, studied digital startups, devoured reports and presentations and articles. And perhaps most importantly, in my view, my team and I took advantage of an increasingly endangered journalistic privilege, which is time to step back and think. What emerged from our reporting was a memo to newsroom leadership sounding the alarm that the Times was being left behind by a changing world and laying out a vision for how to reinvent the company for the century ahead. Though we called the memo the innovation report, we didn't expect the name to matter much because it was only meant to be read by a dozen people all inside the building. But then it was leaked and published in full on Buzzfeed and the name stuck. And I'll confess that I was not thrilled to see a hundred pages of our hopes and fears and dirty laundry being dissected by journalists around the globe. But in short order, something very good came from the leak. Dozens of other news organizations from dozens of other countries started creating their own teams to produce the innovation reports of their own. But that word, innovation, continued to nag at me. And it's because innovation is necessary, but it is not sufficient. And at its worst, it can be a dangerous distraction. Innovation only works when it's in service of something more enduring. And to be clear, I maintain a convert zeal that journalism must continue to unshackle itself from the forms and traditions built for a different era. But I have another deeper conviction and I believe that embracing change starts with knowing what will not change. And you can call that mission, you can call that value, you can call that purpose or anything else you'd like. And for us at the times, what wouldn't change was absolutely clear. For years, we had bet the farm on original reporting. We offloaded nearly every part of the company from our steak in the Red Sox, which was always weird for the New York Times. But it's probably the most profitable thing we had in the, anyway. To about.com. And we offloaded these things to preserve the size and ambitions of our newsroom. We sold off our headquarters to pay off debt even as we poured millions into bureaus in Iraq and Afghanistan at a time when other news organizations believed the cost wasn't worth it. Some people in the industry thought we were crazy, even financially reckless, but it eventually became clear that the investment in original on the ground reporting would save the times. But we also embraced innovation in service of that core mission. We changed how we work, becoming more collaborative and multidisciplinary. We changed how we communicate with our audience, becoming more transparent and responsive. We changed how we tell stories, creating a new form of multimedia investigations that, and I'm just gonna use a recent example here, blend eyewitness video with plain spotter logs, radio recordings and satellite maps to show how the Russian Air Force was secretly bombing hospitals in Syria. We even changed how we report stories. We now employ more journalists who can code than any other news organization. And that is not because coding is cool. It is because it allows us to do things like analyze massive troves of leaked location data to show how companies you've never heard of are following your every move. But all of these changes are in service of our enduring journalistic mission. And I believe the decision to align everything we do around original reporting and the imperative to make journalism worth paying for provides a near universal path forward for news in the 21st century. After a decade in which our own future looked perilous and the end times headline continues to haunt my dreams, I have been hardened to see not just the New York Times but the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, NPR, the New Yorker and the Atlantic all growing again. But these national news organizations will never be big enough to come close to filling the yawning void being left by the collapse of local news, which is the largest and most essential part of our journalistic ecosystem. Our country needs ambitious, creative, fearless local journalists reporting in every small town, in every city agency, and in every state house. If we don't find a path forward for local news at something close to that historic scale, I believe that we'll continue to watch society grow more polarized, less empathetic, more easily manipulated by powerful interests and more untethered from the truth. At the times, we are actively looking for ways to support original reporting at the local level. We've been partnering with local news organizations to tackle issues that matter to their communities, like our partnership with the Times-Picayune to explore the impact of rising sea levels and our partnership with the El Paso Times investigating the detention of migrants. We're also trying to contribute in other ways from creating open source digital journalism tools to establishing early career training programs to help develop the next generation of reporters. We want to do more, and I'm very eager to hear your ideas. But our modest contributions pale in comparison to the daunting challenge facing local news, which is why I'm so encouraged when I see the examples of the model I've described today, journalism worth paying for built around original reporting, succeeding at the local level, often with the support of the Knight Foundation. The Texas Tribune built an entirely new nonprofit model to support accountability reporting. ProPublica has created an astoundingly impressive engine of investigative reporting. Report for America and the American Journalism Project are using ambitious new approaches to scale original reporting across the country. Established newsrooms like the Miami Herald are proving their mettle even in the face of financial pressure. As we reminded last year with the award-winning reporting that led to Jeffrey Epstein finally being held accountable for his crimes. And I can't tell you how happy I was to hear today that that type of reporting is being supported by the Esserman family's new two and a half million fund for investigative journalism that was announced here on Monday. One bright spot that particularly warms my heart is the good work being done by my former colleague Les Zeitz. Les was the finest investigative reporter at the Oregonian, a two-time Pulitzer finalist, and a generous mentor to younger journalists myself very much included. As the Oregonian was decimated by cuts, Les retired and took up a seemingly quixotic cause, reviving the tiny weekly newspaper in Malier County in southeast corner of Oregon. Les was animated by the unshakable belief that people want high-quality original reporting about their community. And in just a few years, he and his colleagues used that formula to transform a struggling paper into a profitable weekly that's winning awards and setting a high standard for deeply reported journalism. Circulation is way up, revenue has tripled, his formula is working. And to be very clear, I understand that success stories like this remain the exception at the local level, but it's a promising sign. Technologies come and go, but I believe that people will always want and democracies will always need great reporting. And I wanna end my comments today with a note of thanks and a personal request, especially to those of you with philanthropic budgets. First, I wanna thank all of you. Your presence in the room suggests a commitment to finding solutions to the big problems facing journalism. And that's true for those of you leading traditional news organizations searching for a sustainable path forward. For those of you leading digital newsrooms, filling the growing news and information voids in our communities. Those of you leading the efforts to support this journalistic ecosystem with money and tools and ideas. And those of you who simply subscribe to your local paper or speak up when you hear neighbor dismiss journalism as fake news or journalists as the enemy of the people. Thank you all. And, oh, well, and which brings me to my request. You thought you were getting off easy. The challenges we face are really significant. And even after the toughest two decades that our industry has ever had, the toughest two decades I can imagine, I think it's pretty clear they're still mounting. And all of us need to keep pushing for solutions here. And as we do, here's my request, support original reporting. Innovate, but innovate in service of what matters. Help make the hard, expensive, essential work of gathering information and sharing it with the world possible. Because I truly believe in informed citizenry and a functioning democracy rely on it. Because the health of our news ecosystem depends on it. And because that's our mission, our core value and our highest purpose. Thanks. You should never say thank you in the middle of a speech. I guess so, I just learned something. Alberta just gave me the helpful advice. Never say thank you in the middle of a speech. Right. Everyone's secretly hoping it's ending, right? That's right. Say, finally, this guy's getting off. Thank you. That was terrific. Thank you very, very much. And that was not the middle of my speech. So I had forgotten, actually, that that report was not intended for publication. I have not forgotten that. I guess, evidently not. Evidently not. But I wonder, considering how, and I mentioned that some of us were skeptical, that an organization with the tradition, the weight of tradition of the times, could possibly change enough to respond to a report like that. I wonder if it hadn't been leaked whether you would have been successful in implementing it. I don't think we would have. I mean, there's this really funny moment that literally no one noticed inside or outside the building, which is I took that 100-page report, took out all the scary stuff, took out all the dirty laundry we didn't want out there, and made it acceptable for a broader audience. So I turned it down to 10 pages, sent it out as an email to staff. Here are our findings. And no one noticed. And I think the lesson for me, and it's funny, it's such an obvious journalistic lesson. But journalists, I feel like, often don't apply the same things we learned about the outside world to our own companies, was showed on tell. And I feel like we had really smart, talented, tireless people who had been telling for years, like file faster. You can't wait till the end of the day for the print deadline. Social media matters, all these things. The way that we can tell stories is changing. But we hadn't really given the rest of the company the shared understanding of the degree to which the institution was in real crisis. And I think it was only when you saw all the scary information that you could get to this much more productive place, which is the status quo is done. The status quo will not work anymore. And now we're in a much more productive conversation about, so what do we do about it? So in other organizations, including some of the ones represented in the room, how would you think about creating that moment of crisis that allows people to think something new, to think the unthinkable, because it's not as if the New York Times and lots of other publications had not been reporting on this for 15 years. That's how we knew about it. That's how we knew we had a crisis. But applying it internally is really, really hard. And you've got people who have become successful and rewarded doing things the old way, reporting the old ways are dead. Yeah. So how do you just build that change moment? You were lucky to have it leaked. Yeah, I was certainly lucky to have it leaked. I mean, one thing I learned, and I try to continue to do it. This is not my advice for anybody. On the night staff. But if you do have any leaks, you know what to say. Sam, forget that report. I think there's two things. One, I really believe in making sure that your colleagues own the problem with you. And I think that leaders often think that their job is to protect their teams from the problem. And to sort of say, don't worry, just to inspire confidence. I'm seeing some nodding heads, actually, to inspire confidence and show that you have it. And I actually think when everyone can say, oh, this is the scale and the direction of the challenge collectively, it makes it way easier to rally people around it. The second thing is actually part of the theme that I was trying to hit there is I really came to believe that if you want to change an organization, you need to first and really forcefully articulate what you are not going to change. And once you do that, what you've actually done is you've basically created guardrails around your mission. And once people know that the mission is safe, change becomes a less terrifying thing. And so for me, it was like my background as a journalist, the fact that the team that I had pulled together was respected in all corners of the newsroom. I remember I had one long time investigator reporter who was like, some of those ideas seemed really crazy to me. And then I remembered who is pitching them. And what I want you to do is explain to me why they're not crazy. Right. Yeah. So one of the questions that are already coming in is what's been the most elusive of the report's recommendations? What are you still struggling to? I'm making an assumption. But what are you still most struggling to achieve? The report really was not a particularly forward-looking document. I mean, half this room was ahead of us on this. The Times was playing catch-up. And so the recommendations were fairly elementary. They were stuff like stop averting our eyes from data. It was stop treating the folks who design and build our websites and experiences as if they worked at an entirely different company or in an enemy state. So I actually think we've done a good job, we did a good job fairly quickly at checking that up. I think there was one thing that was not in the report that was really important. And there was one thing in the report that was fairly naive. The thing on the naive side was if you go back and read our sections about how to engage with the platforms, I think it betrayed a naivete that had become the conventional wisdom of the moment, which is we're all in it together, let's be friends, and let's not be afraid to really put a lot of our institutional success on the backs of these other institutions. And what we learned in the ensuing years is that those institutions had very different incentives and goals. And it took us, I think, a few years to reset. I think the New York Times for a while is like, who cares about social media? That was extremely unproductive. Because you know who cares about Facebook? 2.2 billion monthly active users care about Facebook. Then we went to an equally naive position of let's all be friends. And I think now we're in a more productive place, which is like, they've got a really important role in our ecosystem of introducing journalism to new audiences. But if you want a relationship built around trust and loyalty, and ultimately a relationship that I think is required if you want people to pay for your journalism, you need to find a way to bring those people who you're meeting off-platform back to you. So this is not the direction that these questions were taking us in, but as long as we're talking about paying for the journalism, there's a need in democracy for an informed citizenry and for an engaged community. That doesn't necessarily mean that people can afford the price of New York Times or Miami Herald subscription, which is quite high. Even the price of an online subscription is higher than a lot of families can pay. What's the responsibility of a news organization just to inform community generally? And then I want to ask you about in relation to the platforms. So I'll say two things. I'm really going to push back hard on this one, because I really get the question from friends, from other people in the industry, and people outside it. And so the first thing I would say is the New York Times has designed itself to be really leaky, right? The daily is free. Our newsletters are free. If the only thing you do is give us your email, 10 stories a month are free. And so we believe that, and on key moments, I think actually last time a hurricane came through this area, we pulled down our paywall. Election day, we pulled down our paywall. So on key major stories, we're also making sure that we're accessible to everyone. So I don't really buy that there's a big gap right now in that the shift towards paid news is actually keeping people from getting any news. If you just look at the comm score subscribers, we have roughly the, it's a little bit less, but about the same number of people who come to us as the biggest free sites every month, so CNN and Fox. That is intentional, because we don't want that hard paywall when you get there, that you can't make sense of the day's news or actually dive into particular stories. But then I want to say something, a second thing, which is I also don't think our industry should apologize for asking people to pay for news. News is really expensive. Now we just have to convince everyone else. But news is really expensive. I talked about we've maintained a bureau in Iraq and Afghanistan for 20 years now. I mean, even if you were to take out the cost of the more than dozen reporters who've been there at any given time, just the insurance bills are crazy. And buying an armored car and the incredible lengths we go to to give Chris Chifers, I think 18 months, 24 months to report a single story in Iraq, that is expensive. And I think it's really important that you say that not every family can afford a subscription to the New York Times. I mean, it's a digital subscription to the New York Times or to the Post or to the Journal. The Journal might be a little higher, but to the Times or the Post, they both are about your cell phone bill plus your cable bill, right? Or there are two cups of coffee a week. And I think that we should be OK with that. And there's probably, there are good arguments for why there are different lanes on that information superhighway. But there are other models, the television, the over-the-air television news model is a model that for the price of listening to the ads in between, I get news for apparently free, except that I had to buy a TV. For the price of just signing up for Facebook, I get all kinds of stories, including stories you don't get paid for. And that was going to be my next set of questions when I sign up for Facebook. And newspapers, I'll say traditional news organizations, are still looking at, are still paying for the cost of the kind of journalism that you're talking about. But it is being more and more made available at no cost through other ways. I see. You're looking at the aggregation. So yeah, so where are you, where do you, where does the time stand with regard to the use of New York Times material on Facebook for what compensation? Yeah. Well, it's worth saying that Facebook has been widely reported, has taken some steps to paying some news organizations, and which I think is a step. And I think it's important. Since I'm not running a news organization, I would say yes, it's worth saying that they are paying a pittance. I would argue that we are seeing a step-change shift in the platforms beginning to understand, I'm using the word beginning very carefully, beginning to understand that the health of their environments is only as strong as the health of the organizations filling their environments with news and information. And I think they had badly underestimated that. And I think that the most obvious place you can look to there is how easy, particularly Facebook, but you can look at a bunch of the platforms, made it for anyone to claim that they were a news organization and to masquerade whether you were a politician running for office, a number of whom have learned that you can just create a news organization to peddle your propaganda to a Macedonian teenager just trying to take advantage of the reality that divisive content sells to the Russians trying to swing an election. And I think the platforms have realized that that's an untenable position.  But it's clear to me that they're starting to wake up to reality. I mean, what you do with aggregation is a really tricky one because I do believe that every part of the news ecosystem is valuable, including aggregators as a group that brings information to maybe populations that would otherwise miss it and helps sort. The problem to me about the news ecosystem is how much it's skewed accidentally and thoughtlessly over the last 20 years. So it used to be that 90% of your news calories were coming from reporting and maybe 10% from commentary and aggregation. Today, I think it's probably 90 is coming from commentary and aggregation, 10% from reporting. Similarly, we're seeing that national news is growing bigger and local news is growing smaller. Both of those trends, I don't think, are particularly helpful. So let me ask you about that last one. As you think about what you're going to be able to, when you think about the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and you think about the worldwide, where the sort of the general nature of the technology seems to fit the idea of a national or international news organization, it doesn't necessarily fit the idea of a local news organization. It doesn't seem to be as natural a fit. Do you see a way, and this is one of the reasons why so many of the news organizations in this room and some that you mentioned have chosen to be locally supported through philanthropy, is that the only way that we're going to be able to have some kind of sustainable local news operation because the technology that you're able to leverage may not be possible for the local paper? I mean, if I was asked that question, the first thing I would do is I would give you a call and say, what do you think about this question, Alberto? You spend a lot more time thinking about it than I have. I don't know. What I know is that I, like a whole bunch of people who came up through local news and understand its value to communities, I had a religious conviction that local news would make it through, that it's too important not to. And that conviction is being really tested. And I think that religious conviction is not going to get us where we need to go. I think it needs to be ideas and energy and passion and money. And I think as we talk about local news, I really want to make sure that we're always talking about local reporting because that's the thing that I think, it's local commentary, local aggregation. Those things are going to be easy to do within the economics of the internet. And I don't think it's technology as much as it's just digital economics. Well, technology just basically facilitates. We're kind of running out of time, but maybe to bring it back up a little bit, your father, I think, will be remembered for creating a great national newspaper and setting up for the future. What are you going to be remembered for? There's a lot of pressure. I'm only two years into the job. But somehow with your last name, you should be used to this. Yeah, well, all right. Look, I think I've thought a lot about my father's legacy. And I think he made a series of bets. And if he hadn't made every one of the bets in the right order, I'm not sure we are where we are today. I'm sure we are not where we are today. But I think the ultimate thing he accomplished is the exact same thing that I hope to accomplish, which is that he handed a news organization off to his successor stronger than when he received it. And I think that that's, I mean, and I've been talking with various people around the room. I think in this moment, I think that's what we're really all aspiring to. Terrific. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all, and we'll see you on March 1st next year. Thank you.


Welcome to all my God ministries. I am your host Reverend Anita Morris. Let's go into prayer We're gonna be very brief and we are going to discuss the injustices of Biblical days and Probably bring it up to current day, which we live in okay into context family father We thank you. We thank you Lord God. Let the meditations of my heart and the words of my mouth be acceptable in your sight My rock my Lord and my Redeemer Thank you heavenly father for your mercy and your grace and your goodness That Meets us every day every night Morning by morning your mercies are new From the rising of the Sun to the going down of the same Your name. Oh God is to be praised Thank you heavenly father for your mercies that are new every morning Amen And the Old Testament we had two prophets Who spoke and proclaimed the message of God for their nations? Oftentimes we do have present-day prophets who are ministers who will intercede and pray for our nation some of them or some of them are renowned and some of them are Quiet prophets, but they are state and intercessory prayer or their proclaim according to what God has called them in their assignment And this particular prophet Isaiah he was called both to speak judgment to his Nation why should nations both northern Israel northern? Community and southern community Israel represented the northern community Judah represented the southern community and it mentions although they advanced the the advancement of the Assyrians posed a great threat to the south and You can see the Assyrians their customs were to Bring atrocities bring oppressions and to keep bondages on Judah But God foretells the destruction of the oppressor Assyria and other evil surrounding nations Through the prophet Isaiah, so that was his proclamation not only to show that there was going to be a foretelling of the destruction of Judah in Israel and Although it didn't happen in Isaiah's timing, but it still end up happening eventually Okay, because we we do know the fall of Judah the fall of Israel was 586 BC and then we also know that the invasion of Judah Was represented and I believe it was in about 735 where the Assyrians begin to torment Israel during the reign of Eos a Hayas, okay, and that is in passage Isaiah 5 26 and 30 Now Oftentimes we can look and recall the prophet Isaiah as He's going around his character profile. He always mentioned about trees and New living translation reads trees and prophets share at least one important characteristic Both are planted for the future Yet seedlings are often overlooked Which are little seeds that will run to trees are often overlooked and prophets Who proclaim God's message often ignored or think you think they are crazy Okay, Isaiah is one of the best examples of this new living translation of page 1101 in your study Bible It says the people of his time could have been rescued by his words So when he was Compassionate to share God's word even though no one was listening He still proclaimed the message even when no one's listening instead a shadow They refused to believe him and with the past and of centuries, however Isaiah words have cast a shadow on all history. So it was the imprint of their history Isaiah was active as a prophet during the reigns of five kings, but he did not set out to be a prophet That wasn't what he wanted to do. He did not have intentions to become a prophet As myself, I did not have intentions to proclaim God's message or become ordained clergy I had set out to be a lawyer Oftentimes God will allow us to be called in his divine purpose, but his divine will and his purposes are greater than our Little finite purposes. So I took to God be the glory. It says by the time King Uzziah died Isaiah may have been established as a scribe in the royal palace in Jerusalem It was a respectable career, but God had other plans for his servant Isaiah's account of God's call Leads little doubt about what motivated the prophet for the next half century His vision of God was unforgettable as we can recall when Isaiah was called and Isaiah 6 5 so I said woe is me For I am an undone because I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the king the Lord of Hosts of God's armies of heaven's armies. So he took a glance at himself and he mentions that he said To he said to God in answering God's call as the voice shook the temple and its foundation and Then he said to God. It's all over. I'm doomed Because he heard God's voice for I am sinful man I have filthy lips and I live among people with filthy lips. You ever feel a conviction on your life where I'm in a setting where I should not be God's holiness is upon my life his anointing Is on my life for me to do good and to Work what he's called me to do to bring people Into a better place to bring liberty to help Bring compassion, but they want to do other things. They want to speak ill. They want to do evil They want to practice atrocities. They want to oppress people But woe is me. But woe is my arena. I got to get out of this arena. He came to himself and realized There's something different. God's holiness is different from the world from what he was accustomed to And he said Yet I have seen king the king the lord of heaven's armies Then one of the seraphim which is the angel that sets before god flew to me with a burning coal And he had taken it from the altar with a pair of tongues He touched my lips with it and said see This coal has touched your lips Now your guilt Is removed and your sins are forgiven Then I heard the lord asking Whom shall I send as a messenger to this people? Whom shall I say to this people? Who will go for us? I said Here I am Send me And he said yes Go And say to this people So What that entered What isaac entered was his divine calling his purposeful calling of proclaiming god's message to the nations And he was able to enter it because he admitted His wrongdoings He had he acknowledged the flaws in his humanity and those whom he lived with and god put coals and Had touched his lips By the angel of the lord to remove the guilt and to forgive him of his sins And called him out And asked the question and he was able to consciously and genuinely discern And to accept his calling and say yes Here I am Send me And that is what god is asking in a perverse generation which we live Is to acknowledge where you are admit Your sins confess them as sins don't sugarcoat it And when god has asked you to come forward And to say whom shall I send whom shall I have to help this people or help this nation Help united states and sending forth a message to proclaim Healing correction That we may turn From Our ways and turn to god as a nation And god is asking whom will I send will you say send me And that's what god is saying even isaac he went through many afflictions. He said look it In isaac chapter 6 listen carefully You're going to go to people and you're going to require them to listen. They're going to listen carefully But they will not understand they'll watch you closely But they will learn nothing Their hearts will be hearting And their ears plugged And they'll shut their eyes That way they will not see with their eyes nor hear with their ears Nor understand with their hearts in turn to god for healing And this what brings me to mind of a facebook post and i'm bringing it into current Context Where we see a type a typified assyrians who like to oppress Um Registered voters, okay, and like we mentioned in the old testament juda represents the south israel represents the north Well, we still have some voter suppressions throughout our nation And oftentimes this is a critical analysis of people's narrative. We have um A female Who had mentioned on the facebook about The title of this this um pages another election another failure by white women And oftentimes some people will take that and in um Blanket it as a truth And it is not true Oftentimes it's often affects all of us, you know, so this is what one person replied I think the issue goes much deeper than race or gender The issue is far more evil and insidious. The issue is self-centeredness We have become a culture of what? Mine is mine I worked hard for it and i'm not sharing it. We are building walls to keep the refugees out We vote big business rather than homeless Those that have health care don't care whether his neighbor Does not have it or not or does have it Children go hungry In this country we might take canned goods to the state Fair to get it in free, but we don't vote for social programs to feed the hungry We depend on our charities to help those in distress But we don't donate to those charities ourselves And she mentions I am much more frightened about self-centeredness Than all of the biases I am a white senior citizen. She identifies herself as Born and raised in the south I voted pretty much to write down the democratic ticket Which included a black woman running for the house I fear for this country imploding from its own selfishness and greed Somehow we lost god in our governmental process I voted for those who might help restore our humanity And she mentions it's not a black and white thing and often it's not about party But she said she stopped at her particular party and whom she thought will be affected but again And um isaia it mentions the ills of humanity and we do have some of these characteristics as a nation in isaia chapter five and it reads about Judah's guilt in judgment Okay What sorrow for you Who buy up houses after house in field after field Just like how people say it's mine.  It's not going to your grave. So I gotta get it why he can So they buy house after house field after field until everyone is evicted And you live alone in the land And we just had a california who had lost their lives and God have mercy upon their their lives and 39 people or more had passed away God's grace and mercy is comfort be with the families who's lost their lives and the The uh Disparities among the rich versus those that didn't have so much. I would say the poorer class The they saw that in reality those that were rich had organized themselves to to go ahead and Pay for private firefighters to save their homes. This is what the rich had done and some Also aided others, you know, their neighbors, but those who didn't have that income or that um The capital to do that There's burned to the ground And it says woe to that until everyone is alone in the land And it says but I have heard the lord of heaven's army in isaia five Swear a solemn old many houses will stand deserted even beautiful mansions will be empty 10 acres of vineyard will not produce even six gallons of wine 10 baskets of seed will yield only one basket of grain What sorrow for those who get up early in the morning looking for a drink of alcohol And spend long evenings drinking wine To make themselves flame and drunk They furnish wine and lovely music at their grand parties Lair and harp tambunes and flute, but they never think about the lord Or notice what he is doing So when we get caught up in our luxuries when we get caught up in Everything's hunky dory And we don't wake up in a tune ourselves to acknowledge a living being within our own soul a living being Who was set high and we set low who's waiting To have a relationship with us who we need to acknowledge He is the king of king and the lord of lords who has who is mother nature. Okay Who makes life to being and who also subdues the nations Okay, so my people will go into exile far away because they do not know me Those who are great and honored will start No matter how honored you are Guys can set those who are on high passive stills and can cause them to fall as we saw in many um Christian sects As far as bishop eddy long or what have you before he passed away Then he was greatly honored But then it says how great how How what do you call it how great that the mighty has fallen people How how you get there? Is also how you would serve god. It's not for your self-service.  I am awestruck You know they're gonna be in awestruck, but the lords of heaven's armies will be exalted by his justice The holiness of god will be displayed by his righteousness and that day Lamb's little children will find good pastors and fat and sheep and young girls will feed among the ruins so Just take and consider some of the things that you And I are seeing in these Tough and hard days that we have seen Week after week months after months the shootings the floods The tornadoes the fires More shootings more floods more fires So I pray that you have a right relationship with god He says if you confess with your mouth the lord jesus and believe in your heart That god raised christ from the dead you shall be saved It says with them with the heart Man believe if humankind believers onto salvation And what the mouth Confession is made onto salvation So I just want you to continue to bask in god's glory It says god has not given you a spirit of fear But of love of power and a sound mind and just Continue to consider those things And and the mist of all the chaos and confusion that this world can offer there is still peace There is still beauty. We just actually enjoyed um veterans day Um a week ago a couple of days ago And it remember the hallmarks of which this country Was erected Established oh beautiful. Oh gracious guys, you know from sea to shine and sea, you know And so just know that you have some hallmark songs of our nations that we hold on to Um, there's a lot to be proud to be an american.  He said i've called you my by name He called you by name and you are mine Hallelujah, isn't that beautiful and i can read that with you and isaiya You i called you and you are mine Says the lord hallelujah, hallelujah isaiya 43 and 1 Redeemer of israel says but now the says the lord who created you o jake up And he formed you o israel when you see those names just put your name there That's what i was taught when i was growing up, but however jake up Was giving a new name israel because he Stride with the lord and he prevailed And god called him when he was a child Or when he was not a child i would say youthful naive when he was Adult and gave him a new name israel and tells him fear not and tells you and i fear not For i have redeemed you I have called you By your name You are mine, so therefore do not fret Know that you are redeemed and some people say i can't be redeemable I've done too much god's just like how god forgave isaiya the prophet whom he used and said i am a man of unclean lips I work among people who Are half unclean lips and god had to remove his guilt and forgive him And god is the only one that has the power to forgive our human sins Which are many okay, and he can cleanse us as a nation and forgive us as a nation As the chronicles mention if my people who are all of us We are all created and we were created to give him glory If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves don't want to be arrogant Don't want to be prideful will humble themselves Seek my face turn from their wicked face And seek my face Then will i heal their land and forgive their sin and heal their land Wouldn't you want god to heal your territory? heal your city heal your state heal your Nation heal your region heal heal the world But it's going to take you and i to continue to be ambassadors for christ to be uh ministers of reconciliation Reconciling reconciling people to god Showing that there's peace that we are peacemakers in this world Showing peace to one another Giving out peace for giving one another loving one another and sometimes it might trip you up But know the resiliency of other uh other Humanities and and there are um particular race or niceties and how they Was able to sustain me being a woman of color and share both uh African-american history and also rather distant, but it's still a native american history the atrocities on both sides Imagine being shipped here forcefully You know being beaten being tighten it with with all manner of disease chained Even though didn't happen to me physically, but that's in the history books Of when we say african americans we have to go and Instead of saying americans sometimes some people put african americans that our society and america Places us and separate us and put that on paper So i am not naive to that so when you are in societies you have to know your narrative Of of of what people group? And what nationality does it matter in god's sight?  Amen. Amen.


Hello, Columbia. I thank all of you for your support to raise awareness about domestic violence and helping support victims in our community. As you've heard from Councilwoman Devine, there's still so much work that needs to be done in our community, and especially across the country. Recently, the Violence Policy Center reported that South Carolina ranks 11th in the nation in the rate of women murdered by men. This is the first time in the 27-year history of the study that South Carolina has not been in the top 10. While on its face, it may be a positive sign, it doesn't tell the whole story. Since 2014, the rate of women being murdered by men has increased by 19% nationwide, and South Carolina's dismal rank of 5th last year would have ranked 10th in the most recent study. This year has added to the many challenges we face on a daily basis. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, calls for help in relation to domestic violence have increased nationwide and in our community. It's so important that we continue to spread the message of hope to all of our citizens, and reassure them that we're here for them, and we're ready to help at any moment. Again, I thank you for all that you've done in our community to speak out against domestic violence, but please note that our efforts don't just end today or this month. We must continue to fight against the census violence, and I'm proud to fight along with you. Thank you, and Godspeed.


So, Merry Christmas, tis that magical time of the year where I actually have some time to take a break and upload some more tutorials.  This isn't really a technique, but it's extremely good practice. If you're working for a company, obviously use whatever naming conventions they require. But even if you're just working for yourself, try and get into the habit of naming your layers as you go. For example, here you can see we have a leather gingerbread cookie character, and if you were trying to navigate this stuff, it makes sense that all the layers pertaining to the arms would be under one folder, so name it appropriately. Then within that folder, take one extra step and organize it a little further. Because if you do, it's easy to tell that all the button stuff would probably be here, all the orange seams would be in here, all the sleeve stuff would be controlled over here, all the watch outline stuff would be here, and the base leather is obviously gonna be at the bottom. But can you imagine trying to figure out what layer controls what if you open this file a month later after a vacation, or even worse, if you're working on a team, can you imagine another texture artist trying to navigate your work, seeing it for the first time?  But again, even if you're just working by yourself, let's just say that you're working for a client, and you did your job perfectly. You follow their description and their concept art with flawless precision, and then they mumble the four cursed words. I changed my mind. And then they say something like, my new favorite color is red, I want you to change everything that's light blue to red. So you open your file, and hopefully, if you named everything appropriately, you'll be like, okay, well, the designs are probably on the body. And they are on the front of the body. So probably here in, bam, you're in, you're out, the client's happy, you're done. So name your stuff. You will be grateful later on. But as always, hope that helps. Hope you have a fantastic day, merry Christmas. Please enjoy the holidays, and I'll see you around.


Man, I'ma shift gears on you, man. Earthquake, man. Right. You know, Blackrod, he came in here and he was talking about, Earthquake was, you know, hooked him up and helped him out. A couple of dudes that been on here. Yeah, his daughter is my manager. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, we on boss talk one on one, one on one. Yeah, we gon' talk. Well, let me ask you this, man. I seen you on a Kurtbone TV shot out. That's a guy from DC, right? Yes, sir. You turned me on to it. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Looking through your stuff? Kurtbone is a legendary, legend in the city, man. I liked that. I was like, man, cause we everywhere, you know what I mean? And for him, y'all to lock in like that, somebody will see that and they'll understand it. Man, I might can do something. Or, damn, I never thought, cause if he been through what I've been through, somebody see him sitting there, they gon' be like, yeah, man, if he made it. Oh, yeah, but that's what it was for me, like, for him, when I met him, the fact that he knew me was like, Nicky, you know me, cause that was, you know, at a time in my life, that's what I aspired to be. Be, yeah.  Yeah. You know, one of them type of do the streets, like that was what we was into. Like I was into it. Like it wasn't no, you know what I mean? I ain't never been no thug, you know, but I was a hustler's hustler. That's it. That's like, you know, I don't, I never had a problem with a problem. I'm the epitome of a DC nigger to the core. But to see him embrace me in a way that he talked to me when I met him, let me know that, man, this is a real Nick. I like that. Beyond what he did and what he known for, he didn't approach me on none of that. He came humble to me when he didn't have to, you know what I'm saying? He didn't have to approach me in a capacity under what he did. He could have been, it could have been a situation where a lot of people don't understand, like you got to give grace to gangsters in a lot of sense, especially when you successful, because they really can, you know, make it hard for you. I come from out of the extortion game. Like it's, it can go down and they can motherfucking choose to give you problems instead of grace. So I always respect that. Whenever I come in contact with anybody that comes from out of that lifestyle, when they meet me, because I understand, because I come from it too, you know what I'm saying? So I appreciate another dude, Jojo Capone out of Chicago, like I appreciate when people come with love because I understand that that ain't what is being given out here, especially in environments that we come from. Love is pretty much the last thing that you get when you come from out of these places. So somebody like Kurt Bohn embracing me, it's like, man, whatever I can do to give you that love back, I'm willing to do because I know that for you to look at me as somebody that's representing a culture that you help set the foundation for, man, that's an honor. Man, I'ma shift gears on you, man. Earthquake, man. Right. You know, Black Ron, he came in here and he was talking about, Earthquake was, you know, hooked him up and helped him out. What do the dudes depend on here? Yeah. His daughter is my manager. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, his daughter is my manager, somebody who I would say, I don't even know how to put boss lady in the words, but like the most important person to me being able to be who I am totally is Natalia Strowman. That's all. All the way. So how did you meet Earthquake and how did that whole? I met Quake, which was crazy. I was emceeing at the Comedy Zone, which was my weekend job. It was a comedian named Tom Simmons. Okay. And Tom Simmons was just really impressed with me in my hosting skills. So in between shows, we do two shows every night, I go out in between the first and the second show and he was like, man, you're really good. You're just starting, man. Like, man, who are some of your influences? I'm like, man, Earthquake, my favorite comedian. He was like, oh, that's cool, man. That's cool, man. That's cool. So we had our conversation. I go back up, start the second show, bring the feature up. When I walked back outside, he hands me the phone and says, walk and talk. I'm like, hello? He like, hey, what's up, nigga? Like, who is this? Like Quake. I said, Quake who? He was like, Earthquake nigga.  Yeah, yeah. So it just happened like that. And when we had the conversation, he was like, you know, I told him I was from DC. You know what I'm saying? I was a young comedian. He said, well, Tom is somebody I gave a start to. And if he talking about you like that, man, when I come in town, I'm gonna holler at you. You know what I mean?  You know, I was just excited to have the conversation. I am like, this nigga ain't finna holler at me. But when he came in town, and this was like six months later, he hit me up and was like, man, come to the show. They had a show at the Greensboro Coliseum. And he invited me to the show. I came and watched the show. He bought me backstage. Again, I'm just the nigga in the room. So I'm in the room. Everybody's D-Ray. I tease D-Ray about this all the time. D-Ray is my, I love that nigga. That's my big homie. I mean, from D-Ray to Samoa to Bruce Bruce and all of these different legendary people came in the room and I was just a nigga on the wall.   Cause if you, what you say you is, and what Tom told me you is, you will see all these motherfuckers again. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened. Everybody that walked into that room is a peer now. You know what I'm saying?  Man, thank you. Thank you so much, man. Cause he here this weekend too. I didn't even know. Yeah. Man, go see Quake, man, go see Quake, man. That's the, that's the, that's the one. Cause I was just looking and I see, he already sold out. Oh yeah. Well, you know, Sunday is my birthday. Oh, happy birthday, man. Yeah, we might have to try to work that out, man.  But yeah, but you know, like I said, just the irony of it, I ended up doing a show at Southern University. Okay.  And uh, just, you know how you feel energy? You know what I mean? Lovely, just black girl just walked around the court. I'm like, she just had the biggest smile or if I'm like, who is you? She's like, hey, you know what I mean? I'm Natalia, nice to meet you. You know what I'm saying?  You can feel it immediately. And so, uh, this is my first time in New Orleans. I had never been in New Orleans. I didn't know. And New Orleans is one of them cities like Houston was like, like heavily influenced you on me in regards to the music. And, uh, we was having a conversation. We don't go there, we go here. We having a conversation after the show.  I was like, yeah. She was like, you ain't never been to Bourbon Street. I was like, nah, she was like, we going. So we drove from Baton Rouge to Bourbon Street and we out there kicking it, you know what I mean? Having a good time. And she asked me, you know what I mean? Like, who your favorite comics? I was like, man, Earthquake, my favorite comedian. She was like, yeah, that's dad. I was like, yeah, I feel like that nigga my father too. She was like, she was like, no, that's my father.  I had no idea. I had no idea. That's just how, that's why I always say to her all the time, like, that's divine. That's why I know. Can't nobody tell me nothing about what I'm doing. I know God put me here to do what it is that I'm doing because of the way it come to me. I don't ask for any of it to just come to me like that. And when I tell you, like, every since I met her, like we started officially working together.  Nobody really wanted to, you know, you know, the game is different. Everybody wanna, you know, they rock with who they rock with.  And I hadn't, you know, had anybody to talk to that understood the game. But she grew up in the game. She earthquake daughter. So she knew the game.  Would you be willing to do that? So she wasn't doing that at that time? No, and that was the first person that gave her that ability to do that. Wow, that's dope. So that's how we got to getting like, you know, I'm telling you, man. She has more clients now too? Oh, yeah. Black Ron is one of her clients. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, she's a savant, man.     Somebody else said that too. Somebody else said they could not have a male. Who was that saying they couldn't have a male as that person? It won't come up.  Because females is just something that a female can do. Yeah, she's going to. And she can tell you, get up, and you have this girl together and you will listen to that. But when you deal with a man, it's just the ego thing.   And that's gonna come crashing down no matter which way you look at it. You gotta have that feminine energy.   Or this the move you need to make. And having that level of trust, man, you know, I thank God for it every day.


And this is a very special moment for Accra. The Accra State has always been in a hurry, because the population cannot wait for the ideal conditions of an international negotiation, of a national debate about the issue of the network. It's kind of this laboratory for innovative policy. As a poor state, we need to be more creative. The BR364 Highway cuts across the Brazilian state of Accra towards the border with Peru. Rainforest still dominates in this part of the Amazon. Accra still has 87% of its forest cover. But the paving of part of the road in 2010 means this area is now at risk of increased deforestation. So Accra's government has identified this strip of highway as one focal area for initiatives to slow deforestation. The government would not like to make other places that we have found in the form of deforestation to be repeated, such as the expansion of the paving in a disordered way, the expansion of the fires, the problems we have found to make the producers generate income and at the same time guarantee survival, food sovereignty. Smallholder farmers like Sebastião Lima da Silva receive assistance from the state to adopt more sustainable practices. They were encouraged to develop fish and chicken farming, given assaí seedlings to enrich their forests with the popular fruit and taught agricultural techniques that reduce the need for fire. If the teacher had never been here, what would you be doing? I was on the same lawn. On the same lawn. We were burning the grass. Because we didn't have any other alternative to live. We had to make the same for the consumption. We had to be on the lawn, on the lawn, on the lawn, on the rice. If we didn't burn it, we wouldn't have had a living. Even paying for a lot of money, but we didn't have any other option. We didn't have anything to eat. Everything is getting better. What's happening along the BR-364 highway is just a small part of a much broader and bolder scheme. Arcade's statewide system of incentives for environmental services, or CISA, which was passed into state law in 2010. Arcade has a really special history that I think when you look at the innovation of the state system for incentives for environmental services, it really is the culmination of nearly 15 years of policies that were focused on forest-based rural development. We are trying to move to another model of development based in forests. The CISA scheme aims to reduce deforestation while improving local people's livelihoods. And in exchange, Arcade State hopes to receive funding from governments or private investors who would purchase the carbon credits generated in Arcade's forests. Like other tropical forests, the Amazon is of huge global importance, especially when it comes to climate change. Converting forests to pasture or degrading them through fire or logging releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and hastens global warming. To help address this, a United Nations-backed scheme called Red Plus has been proposed, which would see tropical countries compensated for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation. Despite high hopes for Red Plus, international negotiations are moving slowly, but Arcade has pushed ahead on its own. We cannot wait for everything is in agreement and we cannot wait for everything is regulated at the international level to have our own initiative because the world needs action today, not in the future. But also, we don't call the carbon program as a red program of Arcade because we're trying to avoid the traditional concept of red, trying to put other benefits together in the process of emission reductions. It's also an important reframing of red because it is more palatable to people who are actually on the ground and people who need and want development. It's just development in a different way. Arcade's Attorney General, Rodrigo Neves, was involved in establishing the legal framework for CISA. So today, even without a national system, a national system of red, we were able to develop a consistent system that we understand brings credibility because it has permanent institutions. This obviously creates a low incentive for the union itself to move and in international negotiations we consider what we're doing here. And now we understand that the state is already matured to take the second step and really enter the regulated market and make the first public offers of credit. Arcade is currently in negotiations with another state, California, about supplying carbon offsets to its cap and trade system for carbon. My surprise was that at least there are in the world some countries that want to believe that something is possible and that wants to help initiatives like Arcade in order to continue moving forward in this initiative. Because if we don't have this kind of flux of money to enter in those initiatives, we can't finish with the motivation for the governments because we wait and wait for something that never comes. But De Los Rios believes the money will come and whatever happens in the national and international negotiations over Red Plus, she says Arcade has shown that subnational action is possible. I think what we really see here in this region is a lot of incentives for doing the right thing. Incentives for making your production systems more sustainable and that has a lot of power because people just can't be punished if they have no alternatives and here the government of Arcade has basically given people a host of alternatives. The environmental issue transcends the issue of laws and transcends even ourselves. So this has moved the state's spirit. Those who know Arcade know that it has different characteristics in relation to other regions of the Amazon because there is a story in which people come as a community because there is a historic fight for a long time, for the defense of the forest and this damages everyone who is here. So, as a lawyer, the chance to do something that transcends the work itself and its existence benefits not only the people who are here but also the humanity makes us try to do a lot more than what we normally do at work.


Appalachian Wireless and Samsung proudly introduce Black November all month long. Get the Samsung Galaxy S9 for just a penny. The Galaxy S9 Plus just $99.99 and the Note 9 just $249.99. Black Friday all month long at Appalachian Wireless. Two year agreement required, see store for details. Well you know anytime the dog's out you know he's treated this like an officer and you know anything that you know happens to him is treated you know just about like an officer. If he was shot at or somebody went to stab him you know it's gonna help him. A television star.  Yeah. So they... Hey, clap.


Thanks for staying with us. The bill to introduce state police has killed second reading in the National Assembly. And we're being joined by Mr. Abioddon Shoramy, who is a political affairs analyst who will be talking on this topic. Good morning and welcome to the program, Mr. Shoramy. Okay. I can't seem to hear you. I don't know. Yeah. Good morning. Okay. Good. Thank you. Very good. Thank you for your first, second reading. And you know, we are very close to it. What are your concerns or what are your high points, if you may, whatever it is? Yes. We've been on this issue of state police as part of federalism. When you practice through federalism in the federation, you only have the federating units and the coordinating center, which is the federal government. And therefore, the idea of maintaining security is the responsibility of both the federal and the constituting states, you know, in the case of Nigeria. But what we have is over the years, the state governors have been tasked with the responsibility of being the chief security officer of their state with no control, no direct control over either the appointment, the choice, or the discipline, or the regulation of the conduct of police institutions within their state. So consequently, making them just like a paper with chief security officer, the control has always been the center simply because the schedule in the schedule of the attached to the constitution, the responsibility for policing is strictly that of the exclusive right of the federal government is not on the concurrent list. And because of that, we've had series of issues over a period of time relating to security of lives and property in different parts of the country. The weaknesses of the federal structure, federal policing structure, you know, then became so obvious. It is not more obvious than now that even people could not go to farm. Many people felt threatened and being harassed locally and the response time, you know, from the federal government has always been very slow. States we have been able to arrest security challenges as states where they have a kind of a mini-health fit, a mini-security health fit provided for by the state's assistive assembly, but they are not as equipped or coordinated as the Nigerian police force. So learning from that angle and coming from that one, learning from it, it then becomes so obvious that states, police institutions can only help to improve security. Because the states are concerned, they know the environment, they are concerned about security issues in the environment. Nobody knows everybody, certain communities and therefore it would be a lot easier to police those communities. Unlike trying to police the whole country from Abuja, you know, it can't work and that has become so obvious. So one must say the time is right for legislation to change the situation. Fortunately, those who are opposed to state police are now the one, you know, championing the cause currently because of the security situation in the country. You can imagine if you have state police in Benway, it will have been impossible, almost impossible, you know, to have sustained killings of people as what we are witnessing in Benway. Same thing in Canada, that would not have been possible because the governors would have bracing to the occasion and stop the carnage, you know, going on in those parts of the country. Okay, what about the recruitment process? Do you think it should be left for the state or the recruitment and training should be done by the federal and then the states will take over? When you look at the bill, which is being, which has just passed through the second state, they're trying to address some of the concerns of people who think maybe the issue of standardization would be a problem at what stage will the federal police get involved? How would we ensure that the commissioner of police in the state is not turned into a tool of the governor and all that? They've been trying to address some of the issues, including recruitment and standardization. Of course, they will be trained to the same standard as federal police and that is part of the reason why the commissioner of police is being suggested as contained in this bill, which has just passed the second reading, to come from the federal police. Federal answerable to the state governor, including, you know, the state police service commission, which will have the utmost responsibility for this. So it's, if the bill has been pushed currently, you know, can see the light of the day, I have no doubt that at least the recruitment will be the same, you know, the standard, the training of operational procedures and all of that will be the same. And some of the fears of those who are opposed to state police may not be realized eventually because they are trying to build in safeguards into it to ensure that those will not happen. It's a different thing whether it will not pass, go through the required, apart from national assembly, the required to talk of states, houses of assembly, if it's approved as it is being presented currently. I think we will have done a long way to address the issue of standardization, the issue of operational procedure, the issue of at what stage can the federal police get involved is when there's a total breakdown of law and other, and again on the invitation of the state governor. So I think they are working on a very good bill, which we should be supported. Okay. My concern is having state police is one thing, but being able to fund it is another thing. A lot of states have not even been able to pay minimum wage and all that. And right now the sharing formula for the allocation of the FARC allocation is 52% to the federal government while 26% comes to the states and 20% or 20.6% comes to the local government. Can these states fund these state police that we're talking about or will just have state police very strong in one state and in the other state because they cannot fund it? Maybe they have just 10,000 personnel? Well, currently many of the state governments are funding a section of police, even though it's on the exclusivist list, they do not have responsibility for it currently. If you go to some states, in legal states you have RRS, in local states you have KRS. You have all these manners of formations all over the whole place, including buying minamod vehicles for police, including buying uniform guns and all that. We have records of that going on currently in order to keep the federal police. So basically it means even the federal government has not been able to adequately equip the Nigerian police force. That is what that shows. But when it comes to the issue of state police, we should not forget that the funding of it will actually come from the federal allocation. It's not a matter of asking the states to provide state police without providing the means for the states to finance them. Of course there would have to be an adjustment to the federal, to the sharing principle of the federal allocation in order to make provision for it. Otherwise we will only have maybe a third of the states or 50% of the states able to adequately fund state police while the rest are unable to adequately fund them. But if we think the cost of policing is high, we really need to look at the cost of not policing. That is society would fracture and probably collapse. Currently people are worried not only about poverty, they are worried about insecurity. And we see now insecurity can affect food production in the country. And that has partly led to the rising cost of foodstuffs in the country. So therefore it's important for us to have state police at the same time and show that they are adequately funded to the same standards in each states. Okay Mr. Shoomi, we'd like to thank you for being a part of our show today. I'm glad that a lot of people are on the same page about this state police. And we do hope that the right policies, the right T's and the I's are dotted and crossed so that we have state police that will make us proud and security will be top notch. Thank you for being a part of our program today. Thank you for having me. We've been talking to Mr. Abyo, don't show me a public affairs analyst. We were talking about the fact that state police, the bill for state police has passed the second reading in the National Assembly. We'll take a short break now. We'll return with the next hot topic. Stay with us.


Large fire broke out in some of the camps that we support the government of Bangladesh to manage. Camp 9 was mainly burned down and three other camps have been affected. It's very unfortunate that we have almost 10,000 families without a shelter. This is equivalent to around 45,000 individuals that have lost all their possessions. Since yesterday more than 2,000 families already received shelter kits and non-food items kits. They have the basic elements to restart, recovery, cleaning and building up of shelters that provide them some dignity. But we already set up basic and temporary structures. The services continue. Our machine and our commitment to the refugees have not stopped. We now ask your support so that we are able to continue, rebuild and stay focused on the needs and the requirements that all the refugees in Bangladesh need.


All right, I got a good one for you. All right, let's hear it. Why did the tardy man stop to buy a clock? I don't know why the tardy man stopped to buy a clock. Cause you needed to buy a clock. Oh, that was horrible. And if you don't want to buy a clock, but you got enough time to build a clock, we did ours for 20 bucks. We're going to show you how we did it today. All right, for this project you're just going to need five one by fours. We cut all of our one by fours. Our longest one is 37 inches long. That's going to be our center. Then we made four 36 inch long ones, a 30 something, 30. We're going to put all the measurements down below. We're kind of figuring it out on film. We'll make plans in the end and attach those down below or unless you're on Facebook up above. Kim wants a 36 inch clock. So we're going to take a piece of scrap wood that's about 19 inches long. We're going to put two holes in it, 18 inches apart. And we're going to use this as our compass. First, we're going to find the pretty side of each board. All right, we put all of our pretty faces down. Now we're going to find the center of the center board. I'm going to take a little two inch screw, probably through the hole. I'm using a flat pencil. So I didn't draw a second hole. I just measured 18 inches down. I'm going to lay the pencil against the... All right, all of our boards fall within the circle. Now we're going to give them some glue, tack them with some tack strips that we cut to be 36 inches long. All right, we're going to glue the 36 inch long tack pieces. We're going to lay those down, put them in with an inch and a quarter brad nail. And then we're going to flip it over, draw the circle on the outside, and then do the cut. I'm dripping glue everywhere. Well, I'm talking. And that is losing it. Hmm. Is that a circle? All right, time to tack it down. All right, now we're going to flip it and draw our circle on the outside so that we cut it out with the jigsaw. Almost done. Almost done. All right, let's find the center of the center board again. All right, we're going to draw the circle on the front. We have our circle drawn. I think the hands are going to be too small. My hands are too small. I think I got baby hands. I might have to order some bigger hands.  Cut out with the jigsaw. Now it's time to sand the edge. And we're going to try to get up to that pencil line. Keep it nice and round. All right, we're just going to sand around the edge. We're going to use a belt sander. I love this freaking thing. Works quick. Yes, it's amazing. I'm just going to get the side, and Kim's going to spin it for me. That's the plan. Woo-hoo, mom. So our circle's been cut, sanded, and sanded. We're going to stain it. All right, now it's time to put the white border around our clock. We're going to leave a natural edge. We're going to have a five-inch white border that the Roman numerals or the numbers will go in. And then we want the center natural again. But what I've done for my compass, I've drilled a hole in one end for a screw. And then I drilled two holes on the other end. Five inches apart that the pencil fits in. And we're going to draw a line.  All right, we're just going to put the pencil in there. Now we'll go to the outside. All right, now we're going to tape it off around that line that we just drew. Now I'm going to draw another line. Now we're going to cut it out. Tape it off, drew the lines on the tape. Now we're going to cut it out. First, I'm going to try something. I'm going to try putting the X-Acto knife in the jig I just made. Let's see if it works. We'll leave that attached until I'm sure that I cut all the pieces. The circle's been cut out. Now we're going to paint it. Two minutes, and then we'll peel the tape off. We're going to peel the tape off and see what kind of ring we got. I hope it's a ring like Uranus. Perfect. So we're going to take some time and make it look old. We're going to make it look a little distressed. Now it's time to drill the hole and add the clock bits. So we tried to get them at Michael's and Lowe's and Home Depot, but they all had these same little ones. We wanted some bigger ones, so we got them off of Amazon. Some big hands. We're just following the instructions for the clock bits and pieces. All right, place the plastic washer over the shaft. Insert the shaft through the hole in the clock surface. Plate brass washer over the shaft. Attach dial fixing, brass hex nut, our hand, the hand. Wait a minute. Brass cap. How hard does it go? I guess that's it. That's what our clock's looking like so far. Now we're going to glue our numbers on, and that's it, right? Man, time flies. Time to put the numbers on. We gave it a quick wet down so there's no dust. I'm going to put some glue in this and I'm going to paint the glue on the numbers, and I feel like you've got a straighter eye than I do, so I'm going to paint the numbers, hand them to you, and you will place them on the clock. So if they're crooked, I can yell at you later. Oh, so it'll be my fault? If we're late, it's going to be my fault. All right, so if we're late from now on, my fault. So we were going to flip a coin about which letter we went with, but we let you guys vote, and you guys voted to go with these flat black ones. It's the time. It's time to get ill. Holy crap, that's a good-looking clock. Six dollars in parts, and like, somewhere around there. We did it all for under 20 bucks, and we ended up buying two clock pieces, so not bad. If you enjoyed watching us make our clock, why don't you like, subscribe, hit that bell, or that bell. One of these bells will do something, and that will notify you of our new episodes on Wednesdays and Fridays. Hit one of these bells. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching.