10.10.11

A leading light in broadcast journalism, Jeffrey Fager has reached the pinnacle of his profession and brings the historic values of 60 Minutes to bear in his new role as Chairman of CBS’s News Division.  A media veteran with uncompromising values in accountability reporting and a passionate believer in the responsibility of the media to break stories that educate and inform the body politic, Mr. Fager will address the challenges, opportunities, and responsibilities of the media in providing audiences with the information we need to participate meaningfully in society.  His leadership falls at a critical moment for the broadcast medium, and his remarks promise to provide a stimulating perspective on the future of media and speech

The City Club celebrates its centennial at a defining moment in the history of free speech, as a confluence of great forces changes the conditions under which we exercise our speech rights. Prominent among these forces are the seismic shifts created by the rise of the internet, through which we are all—immediately, globally—speakers in a vast public conversation.  Just as networked technologies empower new speakers to participate in public dialogue on an unprecedented scale; these same new technologies create new challenges to the conditions necessary for free speech to flourish.  The first panel assembles thought leaders on the front lines of free speech in the age of the internet to discuss:

• The battle over who owns, and can control, the online public forum;
• The current challenges of protecting free speech on the internet and the future of free speech in cyberspace;
• The speech implications of the evolving relationship between online platforms, governments, private companies, and the news media
• Wikileaks and its discontents;
• The relationship between speech and anonymity in an age where information is indelible, indexed, and available to all through an instant, unfiltered, global communication stream; and
• The ability of newly empowered intermediaries to censor individual speakers; and
• The upset in the news industry and the future of journalism.

Mr. Williams will address the ramifications of what he has described as a "chilling assault on the freedom of speech" and the pressures it exposes on free speech and public commentary. Keynote address will discuss issues of freedom of speech from a firsthand perspective. NPR fired Mr. Williams after ten years of service for making a statement on the Bill O’Reilly Factor. This public action has had ramifications for individuals involved and has shaken the media community.

Provided by Sammy's Catering

World Have Your Say (WHYS) is the name given to the conversation between all of BBC Global News and all of those tuned into the programming. Conversations continue 24 hours a day, through its blog, Facebook, Twitter account, and all of the programmes on BBC radio and BBC television. The programming creates a global conversation where the BBC provides the platform, but contributors control the topics and shape the discussion. WHY uses all available technology to make the programme as open as possible, receiving phone calls, calls over the net, text messages, tweets, emails and comments on this blog.

Ros Atkins will facilitate an on air conversation with leading experts on free speech in the age of terrorism. However, depending on the breaking news from around the globe the topic may broaden. 

The twenty-first century has opened with violent global events, and as governments worldwide address the new threats posed by terrorism and the requirements of national security in a globalized, interconnected world, the scope of traditional speech rights are constantly in flux. In less direct ways, free speech has been the catalyst for the sweeping revolutions of the Arab Spring, and governments have leapt to defend the speech rights of demonstrators, protestors, and revolutionaries, but are challenged to draw appropriate lines to ensure that speech does not facilitate terrorism and insurgency. Continuing the conversation begun with the BBC's World Have Your Say for the Cleveland audience, this panel explores questions about the nature of free speech amidst the global events of the age of terrorism, including:

• How are First Amendment freedoms compromised by the requirements of national security?
• What role do speech rights play in, and how are speech rights affected in turn by, regional revolutions?
• What are the challenges facing governmental transparency & unfettered reporting in the context of national security?
• What is the appropriate scope of free speech in an international environment where communication can itself facilitate, or even constitute, terrorist activity?

The stakes for free speech are particularly high in the political arena.  This panel, moderated by Gwen Ifill and including election officials, lawyers, and leading commentators, explores vast changes in the evolving discussion of public affairs.  

Money talks differently than ever before.  Citizens United and landmark campaign finance decisions have reoriented the balance of power among political speakers, but so too have communications technologies and the internet which give immediate public platforms to unprecedented numbers of commentators. Changes in the media industry affect the public conversation: the accelerating pace of the 24-hour news cycle has created pressures on the depth and substance of political commentary, and shifts among the major networks and online platforms fragment audiences into what some commentators call interest communities and others call echo chambers.  

Participation in the political conversation has changed as well.  We speak in unprecedented ways and on an unprecedented scale, but with the instant transmission of thought to text, or speech to broadcast, has come what many would characterize as an erosion of civility.   As social media blurs lines between personal and public communication, we know more than we want to, perhaps, or say more than we need to.  With the pressure on media entities and individual pundits to assemble the biggest audience and capture the public’s attention come serious concerns about the depth and tone of public discussion.

This panel assembles elected officials and leading commentators in law and politics to discuss the future of political speech, including:

• How has the balance of power shifted among political speakers? Among commentators?
• Does the new media environment’s guarantee that somewhere, somehow, someone is watching and recording chill political speech?  Does improved government tranparency similarly chill free speech?
• To what extent does an explosion in new speech come at the expense of sound civic deliberation and civil public discourse?   Does the public taste for scandal displace public conversation of serious issues?
• What authorities can we trust for accurate discussion of public affairs?  
• Does the immediacy of modern coverage inevitably oversimplify issues? How does political deliberation respond to the depth of coverage? Has politics become more or less responsive to the electorate?
• With unfiltered individuals replacing institutional publishers as speakers, can false, abusive, or slanderous speech in the political arena ever meaningfully be deterred?

Rock and roll and hip hop have thrilled and outraged listeners since the early 1950s. The music has been attacked by parents, broadcasters, politicians, and religious leaders. This panel will explore some key historical moments—the emergence of rock and roll in the mid-1950s, the Parents Music Resource Center’s congressional hearings in 1986, and the ongoing battles over the impact of rap and heavy metal on young listeners.