Terence F. Smith

YULETIDE, BOWLTIDE…

I don’t know about you, but I love this time of the year: Christmas, New Year’s, the turkey, the mistletoe, all the traditions that make it special.

Like the Papajohn’s.com Bowl.

That holiday football classic pitted South Florida against East Carolina this year, just before Christmas. If you missed it, don’t worry. This season, you can also watch the FedEx Orange Bowl, the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl, the Toyota Gator Bowl, the Auto Zone Liberty Bowl, the Chick-fil-A Bowl, the Pioneer PureVision Las Vegas Bowl and the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl presented by Bridgestone.

There is also the Outback Bowl, the Alamo Bowl, the Motor City Bowl, the GMAC Bowl, the Capital One Bowl, the Champs Sports Bowl, the Meineke Car Care Bowl and the Sheraton Hawaii Bowl.

At least the Rose Bowl, the queen of all the post-season college classics, is still the Rose Bowl…but its proper name now is The Rose Bowl Game presented by Citi.

It is the perfect symbiosis of holiday tradition and the American free enterprise system. Virtually nothing has been left unlabelled. Once a named-game gets underway, you can try to answer The Aflac Trivia Question, see the Offensive Lineup presented by Outback, or watch a recap courtesy of the Southwest Airlines Playbook. And there is suspense: who will be the Cingular All-American Player-of-the-Week? Or the Chevrolet Players of the Game?

It is not just the college game that has branded every moment for your pleasure. Tune into any “Fox NFL Sunday” and you can vote for the FedEx Air and Ground Play of the week. There’s the Kia Pre-Game Show, the Visa Halftime Report and the A.T.&T. Postgame Report. On Christmas Day, there was the Chevrolet Pre-game Countdown before the Cowboys-Eagles matchup.

If you enjoy thoroughbred racing, you probably caught the Emirates Air Breeder’s Cup, which was “powered by Dodge.” The trophy presentation in the winner’s circle was fun to watch, until the Century 21 sign obscured Ashley Judd’s face as she handed over the cup.

There is no reason why this marketing magic has to be limited to televised sports. The government could offset the ballooning budget deficit by selling naming rights to some of its chief attractions. Like the Lockheed-Martin Pentagon, or the Goldman Sachs Treasury, or the Weyerhaeuser Interior Department. How about the Iraq war brought to you by Halliburton? Or The NASDAQ Social Security System? Or the Pfizer Prescription Drug Program?

Public broadcasting always needs money. MacDonald’s National Public Radio would be a nice thank-you to the late Joan Kroc for her generous gifts. The Archer Daniels Midland NewsHour would recognize a long-time underwriter.

These are all possibilities to consider as we get ready for the Big Game, the Bowl Championship Series playoff between Ohio State and Florida on January 8 to determine the top collegiate team in the country. It is generally known as the BCS Bowl.

Excuse me, that’s the “Tostitos BCS Bowl.”

RED ENVELOPES

In the course of the 10-day journalism seminar at Fudan University in Shanghai mentioned below, we devoted a couple of classes to ethics. That is when the term “cultural clash” came home to me.

The 24 students were mostly graduate students and young Chinese professionals interested in pursuing a career in financial journalism in either print or broadcasting. All of them knew English to a greater or lesser extent.

Al Kamen, the columnist for The Washington Post, distributed copies of the Post’s “standards and ethics” guidelines that read in part: “We pay our own way…We accept no gifts from news sources.”

At this point, the Chinese students began to squirm.

Things are different in China, they finally explained. It is standard practice for Chinese reporters who attend a news conference called, say, by a corporation to announce a new product, to accept a “red envelope” stuffed with cash. The payments range from 200 to 800 Yuan ($25 to $100) depending on the company and whether it is an individual reporter or two-person television crew.

“Isn’t that a conflict?” I asked. Long silence. Then one young woman spoke up: “Of course it is, but everyone does it. Reporters aren’t paid much, so this is the way they supplement their income.”

Now other students came to the defense of the red envelopes. “It’s money I deserve,” one young man said defiantly, explaining that his paper would rarely pay for carfare to the news conference.

Reporters typically make around $7,500 dollars a year, he said, not enough to live on. The red envelopes can increase that by half. Besides, “gifts” are a standard way of getting things done in China. “I can’t imagine getting something from an official without a gift of some sort,” he said.

“It is good will from the company,” said another young man.

“If you take the money, do you feel obligated to write a positive story?” I asked.

“Sometimes, yes,” he said. “But every company does it, so it doesn’t matter, really.”

“It is cheaper than an ad,” another student said, with a touch of worldly cynicism in his voice. “The company needs the media and the media needs the company.”

The explanations went on and on. By now several of the students were smiling.

Finally the first young woman spoke up. “Obviously it would be better if no one took the red envelopes,” she said firmly. “But this is China and that is the way things are done.”

I am back in China for the second time in six months, this time to co-teach a journalism seminar at Fudan University in Shanghai with Al Kamen, columnist for the Washington Post. Fudan, which has some 20,000 students, occupies a sprawling, green campus on the northern edge of this extraordinary city. It is often described as the Columbia U. of China, and indeed, the students are bright and eager.

While we’ve been here this week, the U.S. has passed the milestone of 300 million people. Impressive, unless you are in China, with its 1.3 billion population. Shanghai alone has some 19 million.

Little surprise then, that the U.S. achievement barely caused a ripple here. After all, in China, 300 million is the number of cellphones its citizens have bought since they were introduced just a few years ago.

*

On October 5, 2006, I went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas to give the annual Sammons Lecture on Media Ethics. As you can read in this excerpt, I took a poll of the audience — actually three polls — to see where they came down on three controversial news stories that the Bush Administration sought to keep out of the news. The results were interesting — and surprising.

TO ME, THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF ETHICAL DILEMMAS FOR JOURNALISTS: THE KIND THAT ANY FOOL CAN SEE IS TRANSPARENTLY WRONG…AND THE KIND OVER WHICH HONEST PEOPLE CAN DIFFER.
THE FIRST CATEGORY IS EASY: IT IS TRANSPARENTLY WRONG WHEN JAYSON BLAIR FABRICATES QUOTES AND WHOLE STORIES FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES, IT IS TRANSPARENTLY WRONG WHEN STAR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT JACK KELLY MAKES UP STORIES FOR USA TODAY, IT IS TRANSPARENTLY WRONG WHEN A COLUMNIST LIKE ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS TAKES $240,000 TO PROMOTE THE ADMINISTRATION’S PET PROJECT, THE NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT. IT IS TRANSPARENTLY WRONG FOR OSTENSIBLY INDEPENDENT MIAMI JOURNALISTS TO TAKE GOVERNMENT MONEY TO APPEAR ON RADIO AND TELEVISION MARTI.
NO ONE ARGUES THAT THESE THINGS ARE WRONG AND WHEN THEY ARE UNCOVERED, NEWS ORGANIZATIONS GENERALLY DO A GOOD JOB OF DISCLOSING AND CORRECTING THEM.
THE SECOND CATEGORY IS MORE PROBLEMATIC. THAT’S WHERE I WANT TO FOCUS TONIGHT. I’M GOING TO TALK BRIEFLY ABOUT THREE MAJOR NEWS STORIES IN THE LAST YEAR THAT POSED DIFFICULT, ARGUABLE PROFESSIONAL AND ETHICAL CHALENGES TO MAJOR NEWS ORGANIZATIONS. THEN I’M GOING TO ASK YOU TO TELL ME WHETHER YOU BELIEVE THE NEWSPAPERS MADE THE RIGHT DECISION OR NOT.
IN EACH CASE, THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION INTERCEDED AT THE HIGHEST LEVELS WITH THE NEWSPAPERS NOT TO PUBLISH ON GROUNDS OF PROTECTING NATIONAL SECURITY. IN EACH CASE, THE NEWSPAPERS LISTENED TO THE ADMINISTRATION’S ARGUMENTS… AND WENT AHEAD AND PUBLISHED.
AND IN EACH CASE, I AM GOING TO ASK YOU TO INDICATE BY A SHOW OF HANDS WHETHER YOU THINK THE NEWSPAPERS WERE RIGHT OR WRONG.
AS A CONTEXT: CONSIDER FOR A MOMENT THE PORTION OF THE FIRST AMENDMENT THAT IS CHISELLED ON THE FRONT OF THE JOURNALISM BUILDING HERE AT SMU: IT READS IN PART: “CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW…ABRIDGING THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH OR THE PRESS.” IT DOESN’T SAY SOME LAWS, OR A FEW LAWS, IT SAYS “NO LAW.”
BUT THE CASES WE’RE GOING TO DISCUSS TONIGHT ARE NOT THAT CLEAR-CUT. SOME MEMBERS OF CONGRESS HAVE ARGUED THAT THE NEWSPAPERS VIOLATED THE LAW AND SHOULD BE PROSECUTED FOR PUBLISHING SENSITIVE, CLASSIFIED MATERIAL.
BUT MOST PEOPLE AGREE THAT THE NEWSPAPERS WERE WITHIN THEIR LEGAL RIGHTS WHEN THEY PUBLISHED. THE QUESTION IS WHETHER THE DECISION TO PUBLISH — AND THEREBY DISCLOSE SOME EXPLOSIVELY SENSITIVE INTELLIGENCE MATTERS — WAS RIGHT OR WRONG IN ETHICAL TERMS.
THE FIRST CASE WAS AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES LAST DECEMBER 16 THAT REVEALED THAT PRESIDENT BUSH HAD AUTHORIZED THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY TO EAVESDROP ON AMERICANS AND OTHERS WITHIN THE UNITED STATES WITHOUT COURT ORDERS. THE TIMES REPORTED THAT OVER THE LAST THREE YEARS, THE PHONES OF HUNDREDS AND PERHAPS THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS HAD BEEN TAPPED IN AN EFFORT TO UNCOVER TERRORIST PLOTS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
THE STORY, WHICH SUBSEQUENTLY WON THE PULITZER PRIZE, CAUSED A SENSATION. PREVIOUSLY, THE NSA — THE NATION’S LARGEST AND MOST SENSITIVE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: (SO SECRET THAT PEOPLE JOKE THAT INITIALS STAND FOR “NO SUCH AGENCY”) — COULD NOT LISTEN TO THE PHONE CALLS OF AMERICANS UNLESS IT OBTAINED A WARRANT FROM A SPECIAL COURT.
CRITICS CHARGED THAT THE PROGRAM WAS AN INVASION OF THE PRIVACY AND CIVIL LIBERTIES OF AMERICANS, WHO ARE PROTECTED UNDER THE FOURTH AMENDMENT AGAINST UNREASONABLE SEARCH AND SEIZURE.
THE ADMINISTRATION DEFENDED THE PROGRAM AS NECESSARY AND JUSTIFIED UNDER THE RESOLUTION PASSED BY CONGRESS IN SEPTEMBER, 2001 — SHORTLY AFTER 9/11 — THAT AUTHORIZED THE PRESIDENT TO WAGE WAR ON AL QAEDA AND OTHER TERRORIST GROUPS.
THE TIMES ARTICLE INCLUDED THIS PARAGRAPH:
“The White House asked The New York Times not to publish this article, arguing that it could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be terrorists that they might be under scrutiny. After meeting with senior administration officials to hear their concerns, the newspaper delayed publication for a year to conduct additional reporting. Some information that administration officials argued could be useful to terrorists has been omitted.
IN FACT, IT WASN’T JUST THE WHITE HOUSE THAT ASKED THE TIMES TO HOLD OFF. PRESIDENT BUSH HIMSELF PERSONALLY APPEALED TO THE PAPER AS A MATTER OF HIGHEST NATIONAL PRIORITY.
ON DECVEMBER 5TH, 2005, 10 DAYS BEFORE THE ARTICLE APPEARED, THE PRESIDENT SUMMONED THE PUBLISHER, ARTHUR SULZBGER JR., THE EDITOR, BILL KELLER, AND THE WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, PHIL TAUBMAN, TO THE OVAL OFFICE TO ARGUE HIS CASE. KELLER LATER SAID PUBLICLY THAT HE PRESIDENT WARNED HIM THAT HE WOULD HAVE — QUOTE “BLOOD ON HIS HANDS” IF HE WENT AHEAD AND PUBLISHED THE STORY AND THE UNITED STATES SUFFERED ANOTHER TERRORIST ATTACK.
IN FEBRUARY OF THIS YEAR, VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY TALKED ON THE NEWSHOUR WITH JIM LEHRER ABOUT THE IMPACT OF THE PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF THE NSA SURVEILLANCE. LET’S LISTEN TO THE TAPE:
“VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Now there are a number of members of Congress
who didn’t know about the program until it was leaked. That was intentional
in the sense that we were trying to restrict it as much as possible so that
the program would retain its effectiveness. The biggest problem we’ve got
right now, frankly, I think is all the public discussion about it. I think
we have in fact probably done serious damage to our long-term capabilities
in this area because it was printed first in The New York Times and
subsequently because there have been succeeding stories about it.
JIM LEHRER: So you never intended this to ever get out?
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Correct.
JIM LEHRER: This would remain a secret forever? That was the intention of
the administration?
VICE PRESIDENT DICK CHENEY: Well, certainly as long as there was a war on.
SINCE THE SO-CALLED GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR APPEARS TO BE OPEN-ENDED, THAT COULD BE QUITE A LONG TIME.
SO, WHAT DO YOU THINK? WAS THE TIMES RIGHT TO GO AHEAD AND PUBLISH ON THE GROUNDS THAT IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR THE PUBLIC TO KNOW WHAT ITS GOVERNMENT IS DOING? RAISE YOUR HANDS IF YOU AGREE.
(Two-thirds of the audience agreed with the Times’ decision.)
OR WAS THE ADMINISTRATION RIGHT THAT THE STORY SHOULD NOT GET OUT IN ORDER TO KEEP POTENTIAL TERRORISTS IN THE DARK ABOUT THE SURVEILLANCE? RAISE YOUR HANDS.
(One third agreed with the government’s argument.)
AS A POSTSCRIPT, I BELIEVE THAT THE PROGRAM CONTINUES TO OPERATE TO THIS DAY. SO, IF YOU ARE CHATTING WITH ANY FRIENDS IN AL QAEDA ON THE PHONE, EXPECT TO BE LISTENED TO.
AND IF YOU HAVE ANY DOUBTS THAT THIS HAS BECOME A POLITICAL FOOTBALL, LISTEN TO WHAT PRESIDENT BUSH SAID ON TUESDAY OF THIS WEEK — TWO DAYS AGO — AT A FUNDRAISER IN CALIFORNIA.
“If you don’t think we ought to be listening in on the terrorists, then you ought to vote for the Democrats. If you want your government to continue listening in when Al Qaeda planners are making phone calls into the United States, then you vote Republican.”
AS I SAID, YOU CAN TELL THE ELECTION IS NOT FAR OFF…
THE SECOND STORY WAS PUBLISHED IN THE WASHINGTON POST ON NOVEMBER 2ND, 2005. IT REPORTED THAT THE CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY HAD BEEN HIDING AND INTERROGATING SOME OF ITS MOST IMPORTANT AL QAEDA CAPTIVES AT SECRET PRISONS IN EIGHT DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, INCLUDING SEVERAL IN EASTERN EUROPE AND AS FAR AWAY AS THAILAND.
THE ARTICLE SAID THAT THIS NETWORK OF SO-CALLED “BLACK” PRISON SITES WAS KNOWN TO ONLY A FEW TOP OFFICIALS IN THE U.S. AND HOST COUNTRIES, AND THAT THE PRISONERS WERE SUBJECTED TO WATERBOARDING AND OTHER INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES THAT AMOUNTED TO TORTURE. IT NOTED THAT SUCH DETENTION CENTERS WOULD BE ILLEGAL INSIDE THE UNITED STATES, SO THEY WERE LOCATED ABROAD.
ONCE AGAIN, THE ADMINISTRATION INTERCEDED IN AN EFFORT TO PERSUADE THE NEWSPAPER NOT TO PUBLISH. ONCE AGAIN, THE PRESIDENT PERSONALLY URGED THE EDITOR, IN THIS CASE, LEONARD DOWNIE OF THE POST, TO WITHOLD THE STORY IN THE INTERESTS OF NATIONAL SECURITY. ONCE AGAIN, THE PAPER HEARD THE ARGUMENTS…AND DECIDED TO PUBLISH. THE POST INCLUDED THIS PARAGRAPH IN THE ARTICLE:
“The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S. officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counter-terrorism efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of possible terrorist retaliation.”
The Post had agreed to that after conversations with the National Director of Intelligence, John Negroponte, and the then-director of the CIA, Porter Goss, both of whom were opposed to publication of the article. But it quickly came out — within a day — that the unnamed countries were Poland and Rumania, which held the prisoners in FORMER Soviet-era compounds.
The President immediately denounced the publication as “shameful” and argued that the disclosure had jeopardized an important tool in the war on terror. THAT STORY ALSO WON A PULITZER PRIZE FOR ITS AUTHOR, DANA PRIEST.
Recently, of course, the President announced in a speech that the prisoners had been transferred to the facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It is not clear however, whether new prisoners have been detained abroad since then OR WHETHER THE SECRET PRISONS HAVE BEEN DISMANTLED.
SO, ONCE AGAIN, WHAT DO YOU THINK? HOW MANY BELIEVE THE POST WAS RIGHT TO PUBLISH? HOW MANY AGREE WITH THE PRESIDENT?
(show of hands: Again, two thirds agreed with the Post, one-third with the Administration))
THE THIRD STORY APPEARED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES ON JUNE 22 UNDER THE HEADLINE: “BANK DATA IS SIFTED BY THE U.S.IN SECRET TO BLOCK TERROR.”
THE TIMES WROTE ABOUT A SECRET BUSH ADMINISTRATION PROGRAM UNDER WHICH COUNTER-TERRORISM OFFICIALS GAINED ACCESS TO FINANCIAL RECORDS FROM A VAST INTERNATIONAL DATABASE AND EXAMINED BANKING TRANSACTIONS INVOLVING THOUSANDS OF AMERICANS AND OTHERS IN THE UNITED STATES.
THE RECORDS, OBTAINED FROM A BELGIUM-BASED INTERNATIONAL BANKING CONSORTIUM KNOWN AS SWIFT, INVOLVED MAINLY WIRE TRANSFERS OF MONEY IN AND OUT OF THE U.S. THE TIMES DESCRIBED THIS PROGRAM AND THE NSA SURVEILLANCE PROGRAM WE DISCUSSED EARLIER AS one of a number of , QUOTE, “ATTEMPTS TO BREAKDOWN THE LONGSTANDING LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL BARRIERS TO THE GOVERNMENT’S ACCESS TO PRIVATE INFORMATION ABOUT AMERICANS AND OTHERS INSIDE THE UNITED STATES.” LET ME READ THAT AGAIN….
ONCE AGAIN, THE ADMINISTRATION ATTEMPTED TO PERSUADE THE TIMES NOT TO PUBLISH. THIS TIME, EDITOR KELLER MET WITH TREASURY SECRETARY JOHN SNOW AND JOHN NEGROPONTE. LATER, WHEN THE STORY WAS PUBLISHED, KELLER ISSUED A STATEMENT THAT WAS PUBLISHED AS PART OF THE ARTICLE IN WHICH HE SAID:
”WE HAVE LISTENED CLOSELY TO THE ADMINISTRATION’S ARGUMENTS FOR WITHOLDING THIS INFORMATION AND GIVEN THEM THE MOST SERIOUS AND RESPECTFUL CONSIDERATION.” KELLER CONCLUDED, HOWEVER, THAT THE PAPER BELIEVED THAT THE DISCOSURE WAS A “MATTER OF PUBLIC INTERST.”
THIS ARTICLE SENT PRESIDENT BUSH AROUND THE BEND. IT CAME, INCIDENTALLY, AT A MOMENT WHEN HE HAD REACHED A LOW POINT IN THE PUBLIC OPINION POLLS. HERE IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY PUBLICLY FOUR DAYS AFTER PUBLICATION:
“The disclosure of this program is disgraceful. We’re at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America.” And for people to leak that program and for a newspaper to publish it, does great harm to the United States of America.”
THIS COMMENT, AND A CHORUS OF SIMILAR ACCUSATIONS BY VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY AND OTHER LEADING REPUBLICANS, PROMPTED THIS RESPONSE FROM DANA PRIEST OF THE WASHINGTON POST ON NBC’S MEET THE PRESS:
“07/02/06 “Meet the Press”
Priest SOT: “Every time there’s a national security story they don’t want
published, they say it will damage national security, but they, for one
thing, they’ve never given us any proof. /////The point is the tension
between the media and the government is long-standing. And that’s to be
expected. And in fact, all these-many of the people getting up to lambaste the media now are also people that we talk to with our stories.”
THREE DAYS LATER, BILL KELLER EXPLAINED HIS REASONING ON THE NEWSHOUR:
“Keller 7/5/06 on the NewsHour
KELLER: I mean, our job, as news organizations, is to tell people how well their elected representatives are doing in the war on terror. That doesn’t mean that we just tell them what they’re doing wrong. It means we also try to take the measure of what they’re doing that works.
So, you weigh what would be useful to citizens, voters, in appraising the
performance of their government, against whether or not the release of this
information would do any significant harm.
And I have been party to a number of decisions where I thought releasing the
information could put lives at risk, and we haven’t released that
information in those cases.
NONETHELESS, A NUMBER OF MEMBERS OF CONGRESS URGED THAT THE TIMES BE PROSECUTED UNDER THE ESPIONAGE ACT. NO SUCH PROSECUTION IS CURRENTLY UNDERWAY AS FAR AS I KNOW. WERE THESE CALLS FOR PROSECUTION POLITICAL POSTURING OR A SERIOUS CONCERN FOR NATIONAL SECURITY? I’LL LET YOU BE THE JUDGE.
SO, FOR THE THIRD AND LAST TIME, WHO WAS RIGHT? THE TIMES? THE ADMINISTRATION?
(SHOW OF HANDS: three-quarters of the audience endorsed The Times’ decision, one-quarter the Administration.)
MY POINT IN THIS EXERCISE IS TO DEMONSTRATE THAT SOMETIMES ETHICAL QUESTIONS COME DOWN TO JUDGEMENT CALLS. THEY ARE NOT ALL TRANSPARENTLY RIGHT OR WRONG. SOMETIMES EDITORS ARE ASKED TO BALANCE THE NATIONAL SECURITY AGAINST THE PUBLIC’S NEED TO KNOW WHAT THE GOVERNMENT IS DOING WITH THEIR MONEY AND IN THEIR NAME.
AND ON A PERSONAL NOTE, I HAVE KNOWN BOTH BILL KELLER AND LEONARD DOWNIE FOR 30 YEARS. THEY ARE SERIOUS PEOPLE WHO TAKE THEIR JOBS SERIOUSLY.
THE PRESS’S RIGHT AND OBLIGATION TO EXAMINE THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT IS ENSHRINED IN THE FIRST AMENDMENT. TAKE A LOOK AT THE INSCRIPTION NEXT TIME YOU PASS THE JOURNALISM BUILDING AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF HOW IT SHOULD BE INTERRPRETED IN THE MIDST OF THIS GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR.
THANK YOU.

This summer, as in summers past, we’ve heard and read reports of the disturbing “dead zones” that afflict as much as 41 per cent of the main stem of the Chesapeake Bay. But now, more systematic and careful monitoring is revealing similar, oxygen-deprived areas in some of the loveliest rivers, including the Severn.

At the very least, these lifeless patches are a bad omen for the people who live along the Severn’s shores and for the rockfish, perch, crabs and other creatures that struggle to breathe in its waters.

I got a first-hand look at some of these areas recently with John Page Williams, the senior naturalist for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. His home in Arnold overlooks the Severn and he has been monitoring the river’s health for decades. In 1993, he took me and a camera crew from CBS Sunday Morning out on the Severn for a report on the water quality of the Chesapeake. Now we were retracing portions of the same route 16 years later.

“We didn’t understand dead zones as well back then,” he said, as he and my wife, Susy, and I set out from Chase Creek on the northeast shore in “First Light,” the 17-foot Boston Whaler that serves as his floating water-quality testing platform.

The center console of his little boat bristles with antennas and LCD screens — there is hardly room to set a water bottle in all the high-tech clutter. He carries six fishing rods, a 16-foot-long pole to probe the bottom, buckets, anchors, rubber boots and crab and fish nets. First Light is a workhorse, not a showhorse.

It was a sunny, comfortable day with a gentle breeze and the Severn looked gorgeous as we motored upriver. On the southwestern shoreline, kids frolicked and splashed on the beach at Sherwood Forest. To the east, a huge, 16,000 square-foot house dominated a bluff. “That used to be the biggest house on the river,” Williams said. “Now there are houses half-again as big.”

John Page eased the engine back as we reached a midpoint in the river. We drifted a bit and then the first of several dead zones became vividly apparent on the screen of his Lowrance sounder.

From the surface down to a depth of 30-plus feet, the water was alive with fish. Below 35 feet, nothing moved. The screen was blank. “There is very little oxygen down there,” Williams said, “so fish and just about everything else is forced up the water column into water that is warmer than they would normally choose to be in.”

A quarter-mile up the river, we stopped again, this time cutting the engine altogether and drifting. Williams pulled out one of his favorite teaching tools, a hand-held Yellow Springs Instruments water-quality meter. Using a sensor at the end of a long, weighted cord, it measures the dissolved oxygen and salinity levels in the water, as well as the temperature.

As Williams slowly eased the sensor overboard, the screen blinked and told the story: at the surface and down six or seven feet, the brackish water had seven parts per million of dissolved oxygen, more than enough to support fish. At a depth of 13 feet, the oxygen in the increasingly salty water was reduced by half, making it perilous for fish and barely suitable for crabs.

At 26 feet, the water was “dead,” with only a trace of dissolved oxygen.

“Nothing can live at that level,” Williams said, frowning at the meter. The screen showed the same results all the way down to the bottom, which was 39 feet at that spot. “Pretty ugly,” he muttered.

What robs the Severn of oxygen and life?

“Runoff, essentially, on this now-suburbanized river,” Williams said. “The nitrogen and phosphorous from the fertilizer on our lawns, and, God forbid, the stuff that comes through our stormwater drains.

This super-sized meal of nutrients that we are feeding the Bay, especially after a heavy rain, nourishes fast-growing plants, like algae, which in turn decompose and suck up the oxygen. It is not a complicated process, just deadly.

Why should we care? Two reasons: the dead zones are a sign of a fundamentally unhealthy body of water, along which we choose to live and play. Second, because the dead zones reduce the livable habitat for the rockfish and perch and crabs and oysters that we love to harvest from the Bay.

And, needless to say, the deterioration of water quality in the Severn is being matched in many of the Bay’s other rivers and tributaries.

It is true that there have always been oxygen-deprived areas in the Bay. They existed 400 years ago when Captain John Smith first explored these waters. In those days, natural runoff from the forested shores decomposed on the bottom and sucked up oxygen. But the scale of the dead zones was negligible compared to what we are generating today.

“We’ve asked this river to adapt to us humans for a long time,” Williams said as we motored back to Chase Creek. “Now it is time for us to adapt our life styles to it.”

And, indeed, there are some hopeful signs. Across from the Sherwood Forest shoreline, there is a rich bed of luxuriantly healthy underwater grasses that Williams points to as a sign of recovery. “These grasses died out around 1980,” he said, “and came back in 1994 and have been growing ever since. They are a symbol of the essential paradox of the Chesapeake: some things are getting better, while others are getting worse.”

John Page Williams is not the only person monitoring the Severn. Pierre Henkart, a semi-retired scientist who lives on the river has been taking samples for Fred Kelly, the Severn Riverkeeper, every 10 days or so this summer from the Naval Academy to above Round Bay.

“I’ve been amazed at the dead zones we have found,” he said, “even in relatively shallow creeks, with as little as six feet of water. We have repeatedly found dead zones at the bottom of Round Bay. That startled me.”

As it should.

*

AGASSI AGONISTES

Somehow, while I was looking the other way, Andre Agassi became the grand old man of professional tennis.

How did this happen? I still remember vividly the long hair, the denim shorts and the black shoes when Agassi won Wimbledon in 1992. I remember the blistering, two-handed service returns, the unbelievable quickness, the élan with which he attacked every game. That Andre. You know him. As entertaining a player as ever stepped on the court.

Now, suddenly, at the tennis-ancient age of 36, he has a bad back, drops out of tournaments, gets eliminated in the early rounds. The long hair has been replaced with a shaved head, the denim shorts by center-court white. With 60 singles titles to his credit, including eight majors, he has announced that the current U.S. Open — his 21st — will be his last competitive tournament. Andre, say it ain’t so.

The odds are against him as he takes on players little more than half his age. He struggled last night in a four-set opening match against Andre Pavel, but ultimately prevailed. Nonetheless, Agassi is the undisputed sentimental favorite of the over-the-hill gang, all of us older weekend players who choose to see a little of themselves in Andre and our own struggle against the clock. Tennis, after all, is a game where top players may peak in their 20’s, but many of us can play actively and enjoyably for decades more. Agassi isn’t alone at Flushing Meadows, he has the tennis geezers like myself rooting for him. Big time.

But Agassi represents something else as he approaches the end of his career. His departure marks the end of an era… the golden years when American players dominated the game. Over the last 20 years, there was always a Sampras or a Connors or a McEnroe or an Evert or a Williams sister in the finals. This year, no Americans got close to the finals at Wimbledon or the French open. The young hopefuls, like Andy Roddick and James Blake, gifted as they are, are struggling with their games, and the Williams sisters have been dogged by injury. The number one, Roger Federer, of Switzerland, aged 25, appears unbeatable. Behind him, Spain’s 20-year-old Rafael Nadal, is astonishing. The top women? They are all European and gorgeous and terrific. What they aren’t, is American.

What explains this drought? Is the American Century over? Is there some broader message here about American competitiveness in the 21st century? Some lack of moral fiber? Poor diet? Too many sugary drinks? Are we all fat and happy in our mediocrity?

I doubt it, but John McEnroe, who scores his points in the announcer’s booth these days, laments the trend and says he intends to reverse it by creating a top-quality training academy at the U.S. Tennis Center in Flushing Meadow, New York. It is not an entirely new idea, but he argues that American tennis has to draw talent from the big urban areas, from the masses, not just from the privileged who can afford to move the family, the Volvo station wagon and golden retriever to a high-priced boarding school-slash-tennis factory in Florida.

I think he is on to something and I hope it works. I am sure the American talent is there somewhere. In the meantime, I’ll be pulling for Agassi to overturn the odds and finish his career on a high note by beating some of the kids, maybe all of the kids. And I know I won’t be alone

THIS COMMENTARY WAS BROADCAST ON NPR’S ALL THINGS CONSIDERED ON AUGUST 7, 2006:

OSPREYS INC.

I have been watching the ospreys from my window overlooking the Chesapeake Bay…watching them arrive in the early spring, hatch their young, conduct flight training and prepare to head south again. They provide great entertainment and a natural calendar of the seasons. Better yet, they are an environmental success story, proving that sometimes, against the odds, people can fix what they carelessly imperil in the first place.

The osprey is a splendid bird, white on the bottom, brown on top, with a sharply hooked beak and a wingspan of about five feet. Its spiked talons are perfectly designed to spear fish.

Unlike fickle humans, ospreys mate for life. But like humans who can afford it, they spend the winter in the Caribbean and further south. They come north to the Chesapeake for romance and parenthood.

These undocumented migrants usually arrive in the second week of March and immediately begin building their nests on dead trees or navigational markers — anything that stands out over the water. Creatures of inflexible habit, the same pair will return to their old nesting site year after year.

By late spring, the pair outside my window had hatched two offspring. They are diligent, protective parents, delivering fish to their young ones in the nest and screeching angrily at me when I pass too close in my motorboat. By late July, the chicks were almost the size of the adults and their survival lessons got underway.

With their parents circling nearby, the younger ospreys teetered on the edge of the nest and then, hesitantly, took their first flight, dipping dangerously towards the water for a second or two, then catching on and soaring.

Like student pilots, they practiced touch-and-goes on the water, dragging their talons briefly along the surface. When it was really hot the other day, the chicks took turns diving into the water, splashing and cooling off and then, after a prolonged struggle that frankly scared me, taking off again, shaking the water from their wings. Just this morning, I watched as one of the parents dive-bombed a great blue heron that dared to intrude into the same fishing grounds.

In another month or so, the parents will head south, leaving the chicks to follow. One day in the early fall, the younger birds will be gone too, heading some 3,000 miles to their winter playground.

In the 1960’s, if you lived on the Chesapeake, you saw fewer and fewer ospreys. Like bald eagles, they had ingested the pesticide DDT and been unable to reproduce. But common sense prevailed and DDT was banned in 1972. Since then, the ospreys have come roaring back.

The birds are everywhere now. If anything, there is an osprey housing shortage around the Chesapeake, with too few choice nesting spots. It is a joy to see them rebound. It suggests that sometimes, people can do the right thing.

STEM CELLS AND DIABETES

I broadcast the following commentary on All Things Considered on July 18, 2006, the day the U.S. Senate passed a bill that would have expanded federal funding for embroyonic stem cell research. On July 19, President Bush vetoed the bill. The legislation is dead for this year, but the argument is far from over.

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I was recently diagnosed as a diabetic, joining millions of other Americans who have Type-2 diabetes, one of the fastest spreading illnesses in the nation today. So far, I have been able to control my blood sugar level through diet, exercise and medication. I can even enjoy a glass of wine and — mother of all evils — the occasional ice cream cone. But I am aware of the frightful consequences of this disease when it gets out of control. So I play a lot of tennis and work out, not as often as I should, I suppose, but more often than before this diagnoses.

No surprise, then, that I and many other Americans — there are an estimated 20 million Type-2 diabetics — paid special attention as the Senate addressed the emotional and politically-loaded issue of expanding federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. There are no guarantees, but scientific evidence suggests that such research could provide new treatments and possibly even a cure for numerous diseases, including diabetes.

After years of covering similar debates as a journalist, I have discovered that nothing brings home a public policy issue like the possibility that it could affect you individually and intimately. You evolve very quickly from disinterested observer to participant. I not only want to benefit myself from any treatment that might emerge from embryonic stem cell research, I want my children, Elizabeth and Christopher, to share that advantage should diabetes prove to be genetic.

President Bush has repeated his opposition to this legislation, as recently as this week. He has said that in his view, such research, using the estimated 400,000 excess embryos that are currently frozen in fertility clinics, “crosses an important moral line.” He says this, despite the fact that most of these frozen embryos would otherwise be discarded.

I don’t doubt his sincerity. But I do question whether we elect our political leaders to assert their moral or religious views over scientific evidence and, polls suggest, the will of the majority.

Honest men and women can differ over this question. It is not black and white. But I have to admit my bias. I have a dog in this fight. The President has pledged to use his first veto in six years on this legislation. I hope he listens to this debate and decides to keep his veto pen in his pocket.

MORE FROM THE MIDDLE KINGDOM:

After three weeks in China — my first visit — I came away wondering: is this really a communist country?
A more thriving capitalist culture could hardly be imagined, at least in the big cities. The broad avenues are lined with stores of every description, stocked with all manner of consumer goods, high-end and low, imported and locally-made. The skyscrapers springing up in Shanghai and Beijing are crowded with new business enterprises, from Chinese start-ups to western banking giants. And, as all the world knows, China makes everything …and sells it to the rest of us.
After the hardships of the early years of the communist party’s takeover in 1949, the famine of the Great Leap Forward, and the suffering and shortages of the Cultural Revolution, the former leader Deng Xiaoping shattered socialist orthodoxy and famously declared: “To be rich is glorious.” Today’s Chinese, especially the young, have taken him at his word.
Huang Guangyu, a smiling, crew-cut 37-year-old is a case in point. The son of a peasant, he moved to the big city and founded an electronics retailer, Gome Appliance Holdings. Today he is worth an estimated $1.7 billion dollars and is considered to be China’s richest man. To the generation coming behind him, he is a hero.
His is not the only success story. China is now said to have seven billionaires, some 400 entrepreneurs worth $60 million or more and 300,000 garden-variety millionaires. Its economy has expanded at a white-hot average of 10.1 per cent annually for the last 15 years. The accounting firm Price, Waterhouse, Cooper recently forecast that China will outstrip the U.S. and become the world’s largest economy by the year 2050.
And yet the inequities are as glaring as the glitter. The income gap between urban and rural Chinese is large and growing. Some 200 million Chinese still live on less than $1 a day, according to the World Bank. Corruption is endemic at every level and the pollution that is choking the big cities threatens the whole country’s economic future as well as its health.
Frankly, it all seems pretty capitalist to me. I recognize that the CCP, or Communist Party of China controls the purse strings and cracks down hard on any signs of dissent. Just ask some of the Chinese journalists who have stepped out of line.
So the country is arguably authoritarian, and undeniably socialist in some respects. But communist? Not in any fashion that Marx or Lenin or even Chairman Mao would recognize. Not China. Not today.

SOME NOTES FROM THE MIDDLE KINGDOM:

To a first-time visitor, China is simply amazing.
With its 1.3 billion people, it is so huge, so crowded, so frantic, so energetic, so driven, so confident, so determined to take its place in the world that it overwhelms your senses.
I lived in Asia for three years during the Vietnam era when China was inaccessible to an American, especially an American journalist. The best we could do was to sit in Hong Kong and speculate about what was happening on the other side of the frontier. “China watching,” it was called.
Today, of course, the doors are wide open to American tourists, American businessmen and American dollars. A three-week visit opens your eyes about the world’s most populous nation and stretches your imagination about what the future may hold.
An Australian tourist I encountered summed it up as he gazed across West Lake at teeming Hangzhou, one of China’s smaller cities with a mere six million residents. “Watch out world,” he said, “here comes China!”
Shanghai is an example of the future as envisioned by China’s planners. It is home to 20 million people. The colonial architecture of its famous waterfront, or Bund, is all but lost in a forest of new skyscrapers that have mushroomed on either side of the busy Huangpu River. Riding along the elevated freeways among the clusters of skyscrapers is like sweeping through a video game. The future seems to have arrived.
But then, take the fast elevator ride to the top of the Jinmao tower, currently the world’s fourth tallest building, and look out from the observation deck and suddenly, China’s future seems less certain. Looking west on a recent, sunny afternoon, Shanghai’s vast stand of skyscrapers faded and then disappeared in a dreadful, thick smog. The city of the future is literally choking on its own success.
Travel around the country, and there are contradictions at every turn: McDonalds and KFC outlets hard by the ancient city walls in Xian… a rice farmer standing in a paddy outside Guilin in a conical hat with a wicker basket over his shoulder. He looks like a figure out of a traditional Chinese scroll, except for the cellphone in his ear. And the billboard advertising new apartments for sale that touts them, in English, in this allegedly classless society, as “upper class.”
There are contradictions as well in the U.S. approach towards China these days. We like doing business there, but politically, does Washington see Beijing as an ally or an adversary? A trading partner or a competitor? It seems to vary from day-to-day. It is a relationship that deserves high-level attention, because, as my Australian friend put it, like it or not, “… here comes China!”