Thank you, Patrick. I’m very happy to be here in Washington again. I was thinking to myself as I was preparing these remarks that the last time I was in Washington was nearly two years ago when I was here with some of my news industry colleagues to have a little chat with the members of the Commerce Committee about Election Night 2000.

It was not a great night for us. Tom Brokaw, you might remember, allowed how we didn’t just have egg on our face—we had a whole omelet. So then, of course, a couple of months later I sat in front of Congressman Tauzin and company, ready to explain how we will fix the computer models that sunk us and support legislation for universal poll-closing times across the country. In anticipation of the questions I would get, I was fully briefed by my crackerjack staff to describe and discuss the intricacies of recount standards, ineffective voting machines, absentee ballots, and so on. So you can imagine my surprise when I was asked this question—I made a note of it here, so I could get it right for you: “There is an allegation making the rounds that Jack Welch ostensibly intervened in NBC’s decision to call the election for George Bush. I don’t know if you have heard that rumor before. I’d like to have your comment on it. I understand there is a tape of it.” I’m thinking to myself now under those delightfully bright, sweat-popping television lights in those committee rooms: “What did he just say? Am I nuts?” None of these things did I express aloud but fair to say Mr. Welch has moved on to enjoy a very quiet retirement, and fortunately the Congress has moved on to other things, too.

I tell you this because I wanted to explain how I come to be standing before you today.

I am the beneficiary of Patrick Maines and the Media Institute—along with many other organizations—who were quick to come to our support and eloquently point out the First Amendment complications for what some public officials—well, in this case, one public official—was asking of NBC News. Not to imply, Patrick, that there was a quid pro quo at work … but I did mention that I’d be happy to come down at a future date and speak to the Cornerstone Project. So, here I am at that future date.

Since that 2000 election, we have obviously been through a tremendous ordeal, with serious implications in terms of the First Amendment and freedom of the press.

Not being a legal scholar, I’m afraid I don’t have much to add to this morning’s discussion. But I do want to give you briefly the perspective of an old news guy, an old television news guy, on at least what I think we’re dealing with in this post-9/11 world, though I warn you that the last NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll that described the job of a TV executive tied it for credibility and importance with “used car salesmen,” so take this with a grain of salt. As Patrick pointed out, my current role at NBC as president and COO encompasses a wide area of business at NBC, but in my heart I’m still just a news guy.

I do watch a lot of other television shows, however, and in one recent episode of one of my favorites, Law & Order, McCoy and Southerlyn, if you follow the program and I hope you do, were discussing whether evidence gleaned from intercepted e-mail constituted a violation of the suspect’s right to privacy.

McCoy asked his partner: “Do you think the cops overstepped constitutional bounds?” And Southerlyn, with her uneasy reply, said what many of us I think are feeling: “A lot has changed since 9/11.”

In addition to being a very good show, Law & Order is a terrific barometer of public feeling and opinion. And yes, a lot has changed. The public’s attitudes toward the press and private liberty are dramatically changed, I think, since the 9/11 event. The public gave the press high marks for reporting the story fairly and comprehensively. But then, the press delved into the causes, and the lack of preparedness, etc., and the conflicting views of American policy—and the marks plunged. One could, of course, give a whole speech on this, but it’s worth pointing out that the public seems a lot more comfortable with the media when they report facts, and a lot less when they probe more deeply and seek out opinion.

I’ve heard some in the press say they are frustrated operating right now in the most restrictive environment in recent memory. And I think that’s probably so, and this is a very serious matter and I know you spent a fair amount of time discussing that this morning. But I’m not surprised.

We do often have to operate within the parameters set up by a government during a crisis or a war that has a well-oiled machine to manage public opinion and public knowledge. And this always raises the possibility, at least, that the government is using the rubric of national security as a decoy for what is in fact simply spin or control of information. It was ever thus. Lyndon Johnson in … Nixon in Watergate … Bill Clinton and his impeachment. The press just doesn’t get it, they’ll tell you … the press just doesn’t understand the problems.

Now the difference here may be that 9/11 is different from the previous examples because 9/11 united the country, much, arguably, like World War II. Whereas these other examples, it’s fair to say, divided us. And while we have a razor thin political majority in Congress, the people, I think, have put more trust in the current administration and the press has to still dig in and deal with that.

The work of the press is naturally in tension with the government and the objectives of government. And thank goodness. Even that brilliant defender of a free press, Thomas Jefferson, said as much going back to his second inaugural address in 1805. He complained that “the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare.” I think Ari Fleisher said much the same thing last week.

Now, Jefferson also wrote that “the press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral, and social being.” I don’t think I’ve heard that actually from the White House recently. But you have to give President Bush some credit here. And I know this may be a contrarian view in this room today.

Yesterday, my good friend Bob Woodward’s new book, Bush at War, hit the nation’s bookstores and has been on the front page of the Post for the last several days. What’s he done? Well, go read it, but among other things what you’ll find, to the benefit of all of us, is that you have one of the sharpest investigative reporters in the country sitting down with the President of the United States for a couple of hours with a tape recorder by his side and asking him any question he wanted to, and the President of the United States answered every single one of them, in the middle of a war, in an extraordinary moment in our history, in real time.

Only in this society could you get that interview at this moment. Generally speaking, we would read about this five, ten, fifteen, twenty years later. So I think it was pretty smart and straight up of the President, whether you believe he answered Woodward well or not. He was forthcoming, and he was forthright.

Oh, plenty of folks will still complain that the administration has ratcheted up their public relations efforts as we head down the road to Baghdad—and they’ll be right, absolutely right. And we’ll make some fun of it in other areas of my company, in the entertainment piece and broadly across all media. David Letterman will joke that when we have to get our inside information from Martha Stewart, something’s wrong. My guy, Leno, will chuckle that now the administration is claiming if the U.N. inspectors don’t find any bombs it’s because Winona Ryder stole them. Conan O’Brien will say that Dick Cheney is so hidden from the public eye that his secret service men call him “Waldo.” And on and on. You can set your watch to it, those jokes are coming.

“In real time …” That’s for me almost a bigger issue here and a separate issue worth touching on.

I’m actually talking about two things: speed and competition. They’re two of the salient features of any news organization, and today more than ever. Together, they help to create an environment in which it has never been more difficult to produce the kind of high-quality, responsible journalism that the network news divisions have been doing for decades. It’s tough.

Because of these powerful new technologies that we’re all dealing with, and a competitive landscape full of these media outlets, televised news today is capable of things that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.

Today, for example, we can put a story on the air live from Pakistan using nothing more than a lightweight videophone. Now this gives us, obviously, incredible flexibility in newsgathering and reporting, as long as we can gain access to the places we are trying to get to.

Broadcast journalism, when you think of it in this context, has come a long way since 1949 and the 15-minute nightly Camel News Caravan with John Cameron Swayze, with news footage purchased from the Fox Movietone newsreel studio.

Today, you have live satellite feeds from around the world, along with mobile satellite up-linking vehicles, for instant viewing of live events. Even newer technology is coming that will permit the transmission of words and high-quality pictures from anywhere on Earth. This is really James Bond stuff. The technology that transmits a picture by satellite—I was just given a demonstration of this the other day—can be carried around in a little suitcase. But keep in mind that the so-called evildoers are also using modern technology. Now think of the impact of the bin Laden videotapes that are shot on low-cost, highly portable video equipment. Ironically, the same technology that has permitted the media to go everywhere is being used by people who would like the media to go nowhere.

Today, we operate quite literally at the speed of light. And that means making decisions at the speed of light, too. Decisions that used to be made with the luxury of hours of careful thought—I used to sit in some of those rooms, it was a lot of fun, you got to deliberate, and think, and get researchers to do things for you, and had time to find out a lot more information—now those same decisions are made literally in seconds.

In the case of live events, technology often means that broadcasters are unable to control the process at all. There was a situation recently when our executives at NBC News were telling me they were deliberating about whether or not to disclose the name on-air of a juvenile crime suspect. As they were in the process of making that decision, the sheriff in the case held a news conference—which was of course covered by the cable news outlets—and he disclosed the juvenile’s name himself.

Now assume that was an inadvertent disclosure. A few years ago, there would have been the opportunity, at least, for the sheriff to ask the news organizations to edit the tape and keep the name out of the press. In today’s world of instant coverage, it was too late. The decision-making of our own news executives was really made for them.

And this raises in my mind a huge question for all of us: How does one proceed responsibly in a world where the flow of information and misinformation is relentless? … Where news comes not in a cycle but in a constant stream of bits and bytes?

Our answer at NBC News is simple. Get used to it. Get over it. Take a breath. Take a step back. Think harder than ever, in spite of the pace required by the technology and the competition.

And I think, overall, we do a pretty good job. But I’ll leave that judgment to others.

It seems to me that what is really called for in this day and age is just a ton of common sense. The government could stand to be less defensive and paranoid about the American press. No question, but that isn’t going to change. Journalists need to exercise a little more caution and discretion, and that won’t change. But we’ve got to keep pushing.

I can’t come to this town without quoting the great Washington Post editor who was a mentor to so many in my generation, Ben Bradlee, who said: “The more aggressive our search for truth, the more some people are offended by the press. The more complicated are the issues and the more sophisticated are the ways to disguise the truth, the more aggressive our search for truth must be and the more offensive we are sure to become to some.”

My experience has always been when we’re at our best we’re not winning any popularity contests. And we’re struggling, and it feels awful, but we’ve got to go in there every day and keep fighting.

We depend on a public that understands that. Which, frankly, makes the results of the Freedom Forum’s critical annual State of the First Amendment report worrisome to me. When nearly half of the survey’s respondents say that the First Amendment goes too far … when 42 percent say that newspapers should not be allowed to criticize U.S. military strategy … when more than 40 percent think the academic freedom of professors should be limited … we should all be concerned.

But not deterred. You have to fight back, you have to push back. We were having a vigorous conversation about that just a few moments ago at our table on the Homeland Security Bill. But it’s going to take resolve and it’s going to take some good strategic thinking, and that’s what every press corps has done in every administration going back at least since I’ve been covering the news.

So in the end, in this survey, what I get from it is every member of the media needs to think how he or she can help their readers, their listeners, their viewers understand the First Amendment: what it says, why it is significant, and what its role is as one of the fundamental principles that makes America a great nation.

I still like Russell Baker’s definition best of what we journalists do. This is the one I carry around in my hip pocket. Russell Baker, the wonderful New York Times reporter and columnist said once: “After all, what is a newspaperman? A peeper, an invader of privacy, a scandal peddler, a mischief maker, a busybody, a man content to wear out his hams sitting in marble corridors waiting for important people to lie to him, a comic-strip intellectual, a human pomposity dilating on his constitutional duty.” Jefferson would have loved that.

In a democratic society, for me there is just no role more important than the role journalists play. And if we don’t fight for ourselves and support each other’s good work, as we are doing here today, no one else will. That should be our greatest passion, and that I suppose is why the Media Institute threw this swell luncheon.

I thank you for your time and consideration, and I thank Patrick again for the lovely invitation.