All free speech systems are works in progress: interview

KZ: Which is more powerful; the written media such as newspapers and magazines or the audiovisual media such as TV channels and radio stations? What's your estimation of the rivalry between the newspapers and magazines with the audiovisual media outlets? Who will be the winner? Which factors make one more privileged than the other?

CL: I have no particular insights on the future.  I am biased, too, and favor the written word, which is infinitely better at explanation, detail, complexity and nuance than TV or radio.  So I naturally think serious people are print people.  At the same time, radio is the world's most ubiquitous and popular medium, and I get most of my daily news that way.  It goes places where print cannot or does not (eg, rural and far-flung parts of a country).  TV is the last survivor of the digital revolution - American still spend 5 hours a day watching one, more time than they spend with any other medium, including the Internet. As for "privilege" in media, that is often a matter of system architecture and law.  The West European countries, for example, hold on vigorously to their large public broadcasting systems (eg, the BBC), which are supposed to serve specific public interests, and provide specific public goods, that private media will not.  I think that's a good thing.  So I don't imagine that there will be one winner.

KZ: Will the emergence of new media outlets, including blogs, social networking websites and electronic magazines endanger the life of the traditional media? Will the people put the newspapers and magazines aside at some point?

CL: Clearly they already have, mostly by further dividing audiences and, more important, undermining or destroying the financial foundations of old media.  US newspapers, for example, used to get most of their revenues from classified advertisements , but lost all of that advertising long ago to the Web, to which they have also lost readers and other forms of advertising.  It is also the case that for many serious subjects - military affairs, the environment, international law and politics, health care, trade and commerce - I can and do get my best information from blogs, not TV or newspapers.  I imagine you do, too.  That said, my favorite regular media are traditional - a magazine and public radio.

I hope, for your sake and mine, that there will always be a place for honest inquiry and serious discussion, and above all for understanding.  For that, you need journalists who are humanists, not mere technicians, not mere businessmen.  When I work overseas I am always impressed by how little I know, how much I need to understand.  I think, I hope, that makes me a better journalist, a better person.