Lesson Learned

You've thought a lot about citizenship. You wrote a book on how we have to redefine citizenship in light of the new technologies. In looking back at your career, your experiences, what is it that makes that extra margin possible, so that if you have information, it's meaningful information, that people use it in effective ways? Because one could make the argument that one of our problems now is we have too much information, and we don't have the background and training to actually use it well.

That, too, is a very important criticism and an accurate one. You can get amazing kinds of information on the Internet, on the World Wide Web right now. What you don't have is authoritative, validated, peer-reviewed information. You have some, but it would be useful to have teachers teach based on responsible and reliable information. And you have enormously exciting opportunities. One example is the University of Illinois has an electron microscope, and they allow kids from all over the country who collect insects, to show their insects on the Internet, to rent time for free, by the way, using this microscope, to have graduate students talk to them about the anatomy of insects, and the functions of the various parts, and seeing them enlarged, so that these techniques now can become available to every classroom and every kid at home, if we only put the priority into developing the ways of doing that.

I look back at ancient Greece -- you've talked about the changes in our government -- increasingly, we are moving toward a hybrid form of government, which is very different from anything we've ever had, where nothing is done in Washington or in the state capitals on a major issue without first testing public opinion. So the public is becoming a kind of fourth branch of government, thanks to television, thanks to polling, thanks to Internet instant response.

We've got to have our population better informed, and really engaged in civic activities. Everybody's dropping out of the public wheel these days, and that's got to change. And it can only change through our education system.

At one point in your book, you quote the autobiography of Steven Spender, where he had written, "Today we have become spectators of reality, which has become a photograph." In the "Digital Gift" you raise this implication of the new technology, which is that it empowers people to say, "I want to see for myself." We have the resources to implement the new technology, to give us meaningful vehicles for the superhighway, so that people can say, "I want to see for myself," and it opens up all sorts of possibilities. Is that fair?

Oh, it definitely is fair. Television is a one-way medium, and radio is going from one to many. But the Internet, with its e-mail and its chat groups and its ability to respond, and the new digital television technologies enable people to interact. And it's making profound changes. We're no longer just couch potatoes. The kids are sitting there, admittedly and worrisomely, looking at the screen, playing games, but we can figure out or should be able to figure out how to engage them in stuff that will use their minds in the best possible way, and not just for amusement and diversion and entertainment.

Let's try to draw on your broad experience and your proposals, and look at the events that are occurring now. This interview is being conducted on September 12th. Yesterday was the national tragedy, the destruction of vast numbers of lives and of major symbols of American power and authority, the bombing of the World Trade Center and of the Pentagon. Let's have you put on your hat as former president of NBC News and of PBS and talk a little about coverage, and what your feelings are about the way the media has handled those horrible events.

Well, this is still very early in the game, obviously. Here I was in San Francisco, far from home, which is New York. I was able to sit there all day long because all of my appointments were canceled, and watch, along with everybody else in the country, what was going on. What was impressive was the ability to know what was happening, to the extent that anybody knew, and to know what was happening at the same that the President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense knew. Not to panic; to have a sense of what the limits are, what the enormity of the problems and the catastrophe was -- and at the same time, to have the opportunity to talk, through e-mail and chat groups, and get out some of the emotions, respond to other people. This morning, the day after, before I came here, I checked into my e-mail -- I couldn't do that under any other circumstances; this is 3,000 miles away from where my computer is, but with my laptop [I could] -- and I got messages from all over the world -- from Poland, from Russia, from colleagues and friends, from Japan, as well as from all parts of the United States, knowing that my family was in New York, wishing us well, hoping everybody was safe, and asking if there's anything they could do, and wanting to know what was going on. Well, that's a tremendous release, and a hugely important element in our society, that does bring us back into a small globe, a single world, with all of our differences and so on.

And I guess one senses the anger felt by people through the United States. The various networks and PBS stations were, in a way, assuming a leadership role in bringing the community to experience, but also to absorb all the information in both an emotionally helpful way, but also in an informative way.

I think both were true. PBS did not have any coverage on television, although all the public radio stations were enormously good, I thought. And I was also impressed by the network broadcasters, who very seldom succumbed to knee-jerk emotionalism. There was a good deal of restraint being shown, which had not been the case in many previous, particularly, the sex and other scandals in government prior to this. But restraint, in terms of casualties and numbers and speculation about causes, blame -- too early as to who was responsible, which was not true, for example, in Oklahoma City. So they've learned, and I thought their coverage by and large was very responsible and very responsive. And people have, I think, less tolerance now for being told what to think, now that they can see for themselves what is happening. And so the idea that not only can they see for themselves through these pictures that everybody's getting, but that they can also communicate back to others, is, I think, a very important new development.

One of the things that struck me was that on the radio stations, the pubic broadcast stations or any of the radio stations, was, the recounting of events through individual eyewitnesses, who were quite lucid and moving. Whereas, television, in a way, was dominated more by the images, which, in some horrible way, were created by the terrorists.

That's an interesting point, and you're right. Radio has to create the scene, or recreate the scene in your imagination, and so they go to the people who were there and talk, and, particularly, public radio does a very good job. I listened to Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and Special Edition. Television, you get the pictures, and sometimes the endlessly repeated pictures of the most spectacular tragedy, and the most dramatic and violent scenes. So it does have a distorting effect. But as I say, given the enormity of the calamity, I think a reasonable amount of restraint was shown, even on television.

If the endowment that you're talking about were in place, and we were further along in the implementation of your digital promise, how could it inform that discussion of what America should do about the future? We're obviously on the threshold of a new debate about U.S. policy in the world, how to deal with terrorism and how to address the issue of civil liberties [in the context of] security measures which may or may not be necessary.

I go back to basic education. Look at the opportunity you have, just, for example, [with someone like] George Lucas, who does Star Wars. He is brilliant and wonderful, and an imaginative creator. Suppose he were working with educators, and an historian like David McCullough, and they took the Constitutional Convention and developed simulations, sort of 3D reconstruction, and said to the students, in effect, "You be a representative of a small state, and you be a representative of a big state. How do you create a nation? What compromises are necessary?"

Or to take what you're talking about one step further, "You're in the Oval Office, and the Secretary of Defense gives you a briefing, and you are the President. What is it that you recommend doing?" And the Secretary of Commerce says, "Well, this is the way it's going to affect our economy." And the Secretary of Transportation says, "People are stuck all over the country, when can we unleash the airplanes again?" (You know, I'm dying to get home from San Francisco, back to New York.) So you can engage even our youngest children, [let alone] adults, in developing models of participating, and figuring things out, and getting them interested in civics. The imagination can run all over the place, in terms of what can be done.

You know, we teach pilots to fly by simulations. They don't have to crash planes to see what happens; they can address the problems [on the simulator]. And they don't test them six months later, or three months later, or at the end of the week, to see whether they pass the test and remembered it all. They're testing right there when they're doing the simulation and they find out whether they crashed or not.

We can change the way testing and evaluation and teaching [are done] through these new technologies, with good teachers who are trained to use them properly and with good content that feeds into the classroom, and get kids interested and experienced in civics again.

So what you're proposing is that we think about how we dealt with new resources in the past, how we've ensured public access and innovation, and also [think about] what we need to make good citizens who are well-rounded and are culturally and artistically informed.

That's exactly right. And the opportunity now is not just to present entertainment and diversion, which is important, but which we have an overwhelming amount of -- we're awash in it -- but to present our greatest teachers, and our greatest scientists, best authors, best performers, at your convenience, at your level, to do what it is that you could be interested in.

If students were watching this video, and they will be, what lessons would you like them to draw from your life experience? You have this fascinating story of moving from the public to the private sector, addressing the question of new technologies, but at the same time, maintaining a commitment to certain basic values. How would you sum it up?

Well, I would sum it up, I would say, in a very selfish way. I've had great opportunities that had great luck associated with them. You know, success is so much a matter of timing and luck. I was lucky in my parents, and the training that said you have a responsibility back to society, not only to yourself, because of what this country, this society did for all of us. I would hope that the new generations -- and I know from my grandchildren, I see much of that -- would [also] have that sense [of responsibility].

There's also one other thing that I think is important. I remember when I left my first job at Look magazine to go to CBS, I called my mother. I said, "I have a new job, and it's paying me more money." And she said, "How dare you leave that company! It was paying your salary." She was a product of the Depression, and people stayed with one place until they retired, assuming they had work. My career is a career of constant change, and I think that's more typical of what is happening in this day and age. People should be able and willing and excited about adjusting and making changes, and learning new things, as scary as that can be very often.

How would you advise students and your grandchildren to prepare for the future?

That's a question that deals with all of life -- to have the spiritual values, but focus on education and focus on how to use these new technologies, not just to buy things and not just to entertain yourself, but to improve yourself and to learn things, and to be curious about the world. And that is the number one fundamental issue. I remember when I first became president of NBC News, with no experience at all, I was really terrified. And then I got a wonderful note from one of the great people in the world, who had been the head of CBS News, a man named Dick Salant, who said, "I took that job, and I was a lawyer, and I had no news background, and I got a note from Ed Murrow saying, 'You don't need a news background, you don't need to have a lot of expertise, what you need is a passionate, caring curiosity about the world and then you'll be all right.' And if you have that passionate curiosity and caring, then you can handle anything."

Mr. Grossman, on that positive note, thank you very much for being here today, talking about your vision for the digital future, and telling us your fascinating story.

Thank you.

And thank you very much for joining us for this Conversation with History.

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