I am Hari Sreenivasan - Anchor/ Sr. Correspondent at PBS NEWSHOUR - so bring it

Can you discuss any prejudice you have faced being an individual of Indian descent while breaking into broadcast journalism and how you overcame those challenges?

the explicit stuff ... well i've worked in some small towns or shall we say places who might not have had much experience with people like me... so from yakima wa to rural n.c. there have been incidents that have been discouraging. it sucks. but its not about rural vs. refined. i was at a pretty high brow event last week- and this guy comes up to me and tells me he found a program under the seat- as if i was the usher. but honestly- the job is what the job is and the deadline is a great force to help you get on with the day. your news director, your audience don't care what hardships you endured when getting the story, they just expect it to get done. we can go on and on with this answer- but i'll stop here. thanks for the q

How do you feel about PBS not airing a movie because the Koch brothers told them not too....

i think i read the article you're referencing. i don't think it was as cut and dry as the reporter painted it out to be. there were two different stories and two different institutions the reporter was talking about but by the end of the read, it seemed to paint a causality between them all. that all said, i'm not a fan of censorship and i think there is far less influence from commercial underwriters and individuals/ family foundations than the conspiracy-sphere leads one to believe. thanks for the question.

Snowden.

Thoughts?

we have many- each night. its complicated. while i'm for greater transparency in govt., i think there might be better ways of furthering that agenda without creating an international situation where you're stuck in an airport.

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Sunlight Foundation

PBS is the shit.

tnx

ur welcum

ftw

I really enjoy the Shields and Brooks segments, I hope those guys live forever.

Also, I wanted to ask your opinion on the experts the News Hours sometimes has on the air. I find that most of the time each guest debates their side with the goal of winning the argument, rather than two people with different perspectives trying to find their way to the truth or at least some form of agreement (like an industry representative versus someone in the non-profit sector). In the end, I don't really feel like we've gone anywhere. Would you be able to speak about that at all? I'd like to know what you think.

so we start planning for every conversation segment with the intention of finding the smartest folks around- then we sort for folks who are able to articulate their point of view well, then we sort again for the hardest filter; who is available at the time and perhaps space we need them. so while not all the pairings are perfect, i think we are still the only place on tv where you can find intelligent informed people disagree agreeably about matters that matter, night after night. thanks

Thanks, I agree, you guys do it better than anyone else on TV.

I saw Mark Shields on the street in Dupont the other day

did he see you back?

You Internet very well.

lulz

Brook shields?

if any of you know her- that'd be a funny promo to get her to say on camera- "i'm brook shields and i love shields and brooks on the pbs newshour".

Hey, I know you're American and not Indian but proud to see someone with the same roots doing well.

Cheers from Bangalore and my respect grows with the AMA.

many thanks.

looking at my answers the next morning... just a point of clarification without opening a giant identity can of worms, yes i became an American citizen in 2008, but hopefully that doesn't rob me of the right to stay an Indian. I've got an OCI (overseas citizen of India) card from the government so i think they're cool with it.

Vanakam Mr. Sreenivasan! Yepdi irkel?

vanakam. nanna irken

That answers my question (if you knew Tamil or not). Favorite south Indian dish? Thanks for the AMA, a big fan of Newshour.

i grew up in bombay-(yes i know its mumbai but till i die it will be bombay and the generations after me will bow to the will of Bal T & the Shiv Sena) so honestly my favorite foods are Chaat items. i enjoy the occasional trip through ambika applam in chennai- you really can't go wrong with almost any of their dried goods, and frankly you could put almost anything in front of me on a banana leaf- and it's likely to taste pretty good. vague non-answer? perhaps.

Always good to see a fellow tamil!

fellow tamilian reporting in

ok so that's all 3 of us. dispand before nsa or Indian equivalent considers this the meeting of a cell.

good to be seen.

What is one story you would like to do in depth but can't?

wish i could continue the work on how communities are coping with climate change. we were able to do a dozen+ stories last year (here's a playlist) I wish i could expand it to how communities around the world are coping.

Why do you and Kwame both do the newswrap? Is it a coin toss?

its a symbiotic relationship.

What's Big Bird really like? Is he really as much of a diva off set as I keep hearing?

In all seriousness though, if PBS was shut down tomorrow and you could work anywhere you wanted, where would you go and why?

video response- thoughts on big bird +

Wow, cool answer. Thanks Hari. Good morning from Australia btw. Did you know Newshour gets aired here?

yes- we love you all. i push for an aussie story in the other news when i can.

was I the only one expecting big bird to come knock something over?

i was too.

Can you speak any Indian languages, such as Tamil?

yes- though i'm illiterate in them, i speak enough palghat tamil to get by, enough Hindi to know when i'm getting ripped off by a cabbie and understand a smidgen of malayalam.

hey hari my boss absolutely adores you. she actually has your news correspondent picture hanging from her door in her office. if you could give a shout out to erin the librarian i'd probably get a substantial raise. keep fighting the good fight for quality journalism

erin the librarian- please hook this employee up. and dougie- i'm no karl castle but i'll record a vmail greeting for your boss- ( i don't even know how to do that btw) if you get this giant raise and wanna kick a donation over to a local pbs station ;-)

Which movies have you seen this summer, and which were your favorites? Which are you looking forward to seeing? (Hey, someone has to ask a non-news question...)

i just saw white house down - and it was AWFUL. the best part was going to one of these theaters that had the super plush seats. i mean i know a summer blockbuster is not supposed to be heady and i like jamie foxx- but dear gods it was not worth the 48% on rotten tomatoes. i'd give it a full 8% splat. i don't get to movies nearly enough, so there's nothing i'm dying to see right now.

Hari - tsk tsk - White House Down? The title didn't give it to you that -8% splaaaat would be generous?

i know, i know... but the lazy-boy seats were awesome. my first time in them.

They should've carved out a cameo for Gwen in White House Down.

she's not for sale.

dear gods

I see what you did there.

multiple times even ;-)

Layer Cake Sixteen Candles (happy cake day!)

i liked layer cake (the one with daniel craig right?) 16 candles- meh.

Hi Hari, did you realize you are doing an AMA the same day as the head writer for futurarama and Snoop Lion? How do you feel about the competition?

i will lose in the "competition". but then again, we don't have the largest audience night after night, and we still hold our heads up.

Fellow Indian-American here! Did you have a lot of pressure to change your name when entering journalism, especially broadcast journalism? Thanks for representing us at a great level! I love Newshour. It's what news should be.

Well my full name is Hariharan Sreenivasan so you could say i've already sold out to the man. The truncation was due to the fact that the size of the font gets smaller and smaller the more letters you squeeze on screen. so in Yakima, WA. when i first faced this challenge, if i wanted to go with my full name, it would have looked smaller than the size of the words marking the location.

Not just change your name, but pronounce it wrong. Don't get me wrong, Lakshmi Singh is great, but I cringe everytime I hear her say "lacks-me" on NPR.

yes- Hah-re is different from huh-re. but i lived with it because its a bit like hare-krishna which is not completely un-Indian.

Hi Hari! Since doing an AMA 2 years ago, from your position in the industry, how do you think popular news outlets have changed (for better or for worse)? Also, do you believe that substantive investigative journalism has lost its power as news cycles and consumers' attention spans continue to dwindle in length?

i think "popular" is defining news outlets perhaps more than it ought. buzzfeed was not on my radar 2 years ago, it is frequently crossing my social streams now. i think they're continuing their march toward trying to give audiences what they "want" at the expense perhaps of what constitutes news- which i think is quite dangerous. i don't think investigative journalism has lost power per se- its as much as the demand we create for it, as it is the supply. in a market of information and idea, we're partly responsible for the "success" or failure of content. again i'm not big on victimhood when it comes to ourselves. we're totally capable of absorbing long form, slow news and journalism- we're just collectively choosing to consume less of it. thanks for the questions.

Apart from PBS what organizations do you believe still maintain a shred of journalistic integrity?

a few that come to mind quickly are Propublica ,CIR, Pulitzer Center. I know you said not PBS but i'd like to give as big of a special shout out to my colleagues at FRONTLINE who do amazing work.

What would you rather fight, 1 horse sized duck, or

What is your opinion of the Canadian health care system as opposed to the US health care system? I'm Canadian BTW.

i like canadians. i have visited often (go expo 86) but haven't gotten sick there. so while i heard all the talking points during the ACA debate, i don't think i'm much of an expert to comment on it.

Hi Hari,

How much influence does the government and corporate entities have on news broadcasts and what stories are aired? There seems to be quite a bit of important topics out in the world that don't get covered on television.

i agree about the important topics that don't get covered enough, but i think the influence of corp entities is greatly over-rated. the only time we at the newshour hear about corp funders is when we have to identify themselves at the end of our news stories as an underwriter. trust me it would be far easier if pbs or the newshour didn't need a single dime from any corporate citizen, but that means "viewers like you" would need to step up even more. thanks for the Q

Do news outlets ever receive pressure from government agencies to not report on controversial topics?

Case in point, George W switched gears on everyone by going after Hussien instead of Bin Laden. No one called him out for it back then.

i think sometimes people forget that "government" isn't some monolith that brainwashes everyone who works for it. we did some solid work on veteran's benefits backlogs for example and while it may portray them in an unflattering light, the Cabinet Secretary did sit down with us. Inversely, I don't get emails from the WH or any other agency telling me what I should or should not do. thanks for the Q

Hey Hari! What's one story you think is not getting enough coverage right now, and what do you think is getting too much coverage?

In general, what do you think American newsmedia excels at covering, and what do you think could do with some improvement?

answered above re- climate - second part - i think we excel at conveying emotion, i think we could improve in conveying fact.

What has been your most embarrassing moment in live broadcasting?

there was some story at a mall in raleigh, where i just lost the signal in my ear- and could not hear a thing... i didn't assume i was on tv- and i must have just been standing there like a deer in the headlights... as the anchor repeatedly tried to talk to me. that sucked... but fortunately it was in an era pre-youtube.

Civilization seems to be going through some serious growing pains right now. For example, the Defense of Marriage Act was partially overturned, but there is a the rise in religious fundamentalism across many sects. What is your outlook on the next 20 years, and what are some examples of things that give you hope as well as keep you up at night?

dear gods- this is deep. keeps me up at night- probably same things about the world goin' to hell in a handcart- strain on global resources, massive class inequities etc. etc., gives me hope: babies, graduations, old people holding hands and other cheezy postcard moments... but also bad ass immigrant entrepreneurs who don't take America's opportunities for-granted. (don't get me wrong the native entrepreneurs are cool too but generation 1, 1.5 have a very real and vivid memory of how bad it can get elsewhere on the planet and are willing to seize opportunities in ways the rest of us are not).

Just how big of a dick was Ryan Seacrest back in the day on CNET tv?

he wasn't. we got along fine. i doubt he remembers me ;-)

lol and ty, sir

its true. he is now gi-normous that he could probably single-handedly fund PBS ;-) if he does an AMA- please do ask him whether he remembers me.

When did you last eat ice cream? When did you first eat ice cream? When do you plan to eat ice cream again?

two days ago- i had some RUBY JEWEL ice cream sandwiches left over. they were still awesome. first ate ice cream when i was about 3 (that i can remember). you're making me hungry so i might have some ice cream between now and the broadcast.

Please give us an on-air signal that you consumed ice cream. Like an ear tug or something.

Considering he has a reddit alien taped to the wall behind his chair sometimes, I don't know that he could really give any more of a signal.

dear gods- thanks for noticing.

Woah, I've never had the OP respond in an AMA with someone who I consider to be famous. 7/2/2013 never forget.

By the way, the girlfriend and I watch Newshour every night as we're getting ready for bed, it's rebroadcast in Iowa at 9p to 10p then they carry BBC World News from 10 to 10:30p. I really think it's the best 1 1/2 hour of news available. Thanks for what you do.

I guess I need to take a moment to say KIIN-12.3 represent!!! IPTV for the win!

you're welcome. regardless if you get us over the air, have cut the cord, stream us or jack us straight in through your teeth in the future, thanks for watching and staying smart.

that's a bit small ball no?

Any advice for wannabe journalists, Mr Sreenivasan? Print journalism, broadcast journalism (radio and TV both, of course), anything you feel qualified to discuss. Thanks.

just focus on storytelling. there are more tools today than there ever before. understand that there are strengths and weaknesses to each medium. i would get less caught up in broadcast vs x vs y- we're heading into a transmedia world. understand enough about each to figure out how to get the story across.

How does PBS decide which sponsors to take money from? Has PBS refused to work with a sponsor because they would affect PBS too much? For example, what keeps a political organization from just sponsoring all of Newshour to prevent any bad press about their candidates?

might sound old fashioned but there is clearly a wall between what the sales force is doing and what editorial is doing. we get a list every few weeks that say- btw- here are new sponsors so WHEN (not if) they are in the news- we clearly identify that in the interests of full disclosure.

I'm sorry I missed Gwen Ifill's ama, and I don't really have a question for either of you. I just want to express my thanks to you both for showing what news should be.

tnx

I learned that you will be anchoring a weekend edition of News Hour. I'm very happy to hear this. Will it be the same format?

similar but not the same- 1/2 hour in length, from ny. to use an easy print analogy - first half a bit more like the front page and the second half a bit more like a magazine.

How do you feel about the job cable news is doing in general? Do think it is actually news or more entertainment?

EDIT: Before someone points it out, I know PBS news hour is not a cable news show, I want an outside perspective.

cable news is what cable news is - an audience business. i've got friends from my time at the networks who work there - so i mean this with no disrespect at all. it clearly fills a niche. if you/we didn't watch it, it would not be around the way it is today. if you wanna see change, vote with your feet, your behavior. if you want more content like the newshour, then start watching it, and support the pbs stations in your area that carry it. tnx.

When you were a little boy, what was your plan for a career? What other kinds of work did you do as a teen or younger adult and did any of that prepare you at all for what you do now, and do so well by the way.

watched peter jennings growing up- and would help translate the news for my parents. so yes i wanted to be him for quite some time. that said i had some misguided thoughts that i was going to be an engineer for porsche- which led me to take German instead of Spanish (idiot move), and at some point i wanted to be an architect that could design chic looking housing for low income folks to give them a greater sense of pride int heir homes. i worked a paper route in seattle, and worked at a video store for a while, mowed lawns etc. etc. they taught me responsibility.

Thanks, Hari. I've watched the News-Hour since it was a 30 min show and it has educated me about important matters thousands of times. Thanks for what you and the News-Hour staffers, anchors, and contributors do.

thank YOU for your continued support.

Is there a reason why news organizations seem to be following the day to day of snowdens whereabouts, and not discussing the details of his revelations.

I have not seen any discussion of the newest revelations and how they fit into the last 10 years of "secret" (but now public) projects that the intelligence agencies have been using.

In particular, the IAO and the internal fights to programmatically build privacy controls into the system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Awareness_Office

Newspapers seem to be much better at delivering this context. Why can't the news television shows do this as well?

sometimes complicated text and layers doesn't translate easily to good tv, other times, tv is lazy.

Where do you see PBS headed within the next 10 years? programming? independence of journalism?

pbs is much bigger than the newshour so i can't figure out all the kids/ drama programming etc. as long as there are "viewers like you" willing to support public media, we'll stay independent.

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1st rule of anchorman fight club...

I'm very interested in broadcast journalism. I do broadcasting as a competitive speech category, and last season, was the best female broadcaster in my state. Anyways, for the question: What classes did you really focus on to get where you are now? Anything you wish you had done differently that would have put you in the same place, if not a better one, than you are in now? Thank you so much!

take every class but journalism;-) take history/ geography/ politics/ music/ art - things that you may do stories about in the future. easier to teach someone to be a storyteller than to help them understand the story.

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fair amount of input, and fair amount of supervision even above me. will slow it down (tonight).

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hoped you were watching. tell me that's not interactive television.

When Texas senator Wendy Davis did her filibuster of the state senate, there was almost no coverage of it at all in the mainstream media (though the Newshour did cover it). Why do you think that was?

i don't think it was a conspiracy. i don't think we had video of the texas tribune live stream ready by the time we got on air. i can't speak for the rest.

On a silly note, do you ever imagine yourself as an Indian Ron Burgundy?

you mean i'm not?

What is the most memorable story that you feel you have ever covered?

immediate gut answer says Katrina.

Someone gives you $50 million and tells you to set up a news organization. Who (besides yourself) would be your first hires?

hmm.... depends on how much i'd have to pay them ;-)

Hari,

As a fellow brownie i'd just like to convey how awesome it is that you're excelling in a field that very few people of south asian descent even pursue.

I was wondering, did your parents ever pressure you into taking a more "traditional" career path? (i.e. doctor, lawyer, etc.)

yes- but eventually i just wore them down. not until i had my everything i owned in my car and my two bikes strapped to the back in the driveway, and leaned down to touch their feet and get their blessings did they get i was serious. (even then i think they might have thought it was a phase) when they heard from some of their friends in India about a piece of mine which was picked up by cnn- well, that's when their tune started to change.

tamilian here. in the mid 90s i used to stay up all night just to watch the cnet tv show at 6am on a sunday on the USA network (i was a huge nerd in high school and it was the only tech show). it was kind of surreal to see another indian on cnet and later sumi das on techtv (i think).

with that being said...if you can think back to the old cnet days, what story pops out in your mind that was very accurate or blatantly inaccurate when they talked of future technology?

yes- you were a big nerd ;-) and yes Sumi is awesome. i think we (cnet) were cheerleaders for the new world we imagined to be enabled by the web. overall i think we did a good job at introducing the wide world to the web but perhaps not as good a job in contextualizing it. there was a news.com program we produced for cnbc's distribution which was a bit more realistic and if you watched enough episodes- you could see the crash coming.

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are you awesome? can someone vouch for that on your behalf? have you made friends at other radio stations in the past year?

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pirate radio dental plans not so great.

What's some advice you would give to a young journalist?

see below.

Why are so many news outlets refusing to cover important stuff like protests in Egypt and Brazil? Why do the outlets favor boring, unimportant stories such as obstacles preventing African Americans from swimming (an actual story my local channel covered a few months back). The media should be reporting on life-changing, history-making events, not going around town asking people why the black kids won't go swimming.

you'd have to ask them. we've been covering egypt and brazil and haven't focused on swimming stories.

I'm moving to DC in the fall. Any recommendations for what I should do, eat, drink etc? Also, we have a FB friend in common. Small world (but not really).

yelp and trip advisor might be smarter... there's likely a subreddit right?

There's a r/washingtondc subreddit but figured I'd get some personal faves from you.

puppatella pizza on wilson off george mason, and district taco on lee hwy are pretty good. will add more as i think of them. Founding Farmers and the Fisher one they have on the water are pretty decent. So is Zatinya (sp). Aredeo Bardeo ain't bad in Cleveland Park. For Indian food Indique and Rasika/ Rasika West End.

Any interesting stories from your TechTV days?

so i was cnet- the cross town rival- but i loved some of the life experiences i had. if there was a web page for it in 1998- we had an excuse to do it ; ice climbing, river body surfing, skydiving, bungee jumping, flying an marchetti (sp) aircraft- wow that was amazing.

What is your favorite color?

probably orange/saffron something in between.

What do you like on your pizza?

purist- cheese. vegetarian but one who doesn't like too many veggies on a pie (that's what salads are for right?)

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i think that's pretty dumb. here's why. i'm not a monkey that votes and thinks and lives and breathes a party line, nor are any of my peers in this newsroom as represented by the conversations we've had. i don't know the party affiliations or voting records of my colleagues and i don't particularly care. bias is often a cheap substitute where the real critique ought to be shoddy journalism. i'm not talking about some sort of holier-than-thou perfect objectivity but i try to be fair, i try to listen and frankly in this highly polarized environment, labeling yourself as part of team wolf or team vampire only get the other team that much more ticked off and reluctant to speak with you. if you want to know my affiliation- ask.

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but i'm questioning your premise that we can't do our jobs without conflicts of interest in our lives. are you wearing nikes right now? does that mean you're a mouthpiece for a company that once had sweatshops? are you anti-FILA? also - i have several friends who disagree (almost violently) with their party on some things. i think its an equal amount of laziness to think that someone could not transcend their race, creed, party affiliation to tell you a fact. should i not get information on religion from people who believe in God? should i never or only get news on immigration from immigrants? you might see this as a fallacy of the slippery slope, but i don't. I agree that there is significant difference in selection - but i don't think that's as much as what someone does once every two years in a booth. when you start taking away those sorts of privacy rights, we're walking into dangerous territory. thanks again for the response.

Social media has been pointed to as having sped up the newscycle over the last decade or so. What positives and negatives have you seen on news during this time?

social is just what it is- just another tool, a platform. if you rely on it exclusively, you're an idiot, same as if you rely solely on tv, radio etc. as the amount of noise increases, the value of the filter increases as well. at some point, you want someone you can trust who has done the sorting for you and can help you understand something complicated in more than 140 characters, i hope you'll give the Newshour a chance to do that. thanks for the question.

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i've got a couple of challenges- i want to figure out how to put the public back in public media a bit more (we're not just talking about hashtags on tv) and i'd like to harness them into helping distribute these stories as well. i don't consider network broadcasts my competitor, i consider everything that gets your attention my competitor. So i've gotta figure out how to take the long form work we do and get it into your social stream- or consciousness or radar regardless of what device and when you want to watch. thanks.

I find that it has become increasingly difficult to find well-written, researched, and plain/uninfluenced journalism, and PBS/NPR are usually my go-to's. However, there are many that I know who will refuse to pay attention to either due to bad press about 'bias', or a sense that only the elderly, hipsters, and sleep centers tune in. Do you think that there may be a watershed point where "corporate" news outlets shake off their sleepy doldrums, shy away from ideological pandering, and stop talking to leaders like children and get to a point where they aren't afraid of 'burning' sources?

i think its less burning sources and more burning audiences. behaviors change when there are tangible consequences.

Obligatory follow-up: Can those types of outlets really recieve and be influenced by tangible consequences when they largely opperate under the auspices of very wealthy oragnizations who can afford to take financial hits? It seems like those outlets who produce more reliable stories and journalism are the ones who are more in danger of resource evaporation.

when you lose money repeatedly over time, shareholders punish. agree about your second sentiment.

if you could become a superhero, what would your name and special abilities be?

invisiman?

Do you think there is a rivalry between print and broadcast journalism?

we have different fight clubs.

Prob too late for this but what do you make of the current state of the news media in India?

And if you weren't at PBS which other news network would you want to work for? Al Jazeera/BBC/CNN?

i don't know enough about the media in India besides what i see when i visit annually. i think there will likely be a massive consolidation coming soon. addressed the other question in a video response below.

Wassup dude

sup

Hey Hari. Glad you're doing AMA. What made you go into journalism? Did your Indian parents urge you to go into medicine, IT, law, or engineering instead of journalism?

its a license to be curious, and a safe harbor for people like with me who probably had shorter attention spans as a kid. yes i'm sure they wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer, but i'm not smart enough to be either of those things ;-)- so i make a living by talking to those smart folks and hopefully helping translate those smarts to larger groups of people.

I wish I had a good question for you right now because you're the man, but I'm blanking, soooo...

Do you have any insider info on what Gwen's chances are to moderate a presidential debate? I got the vibe that she was on the shortlist to replace Jim until they convinced him to come back last year, but personally I would like to see Gwen get the job over anyone out there (you're on my shortlist though haha). Should I get excited for 2016?

the choices are made by a commission. I want Gwen on stage as well (if she wants to be there) she is very very smart and i think would do a fantastic job.

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nah.

Out of 10 rate Jim Lehrer.

Out 10 rate Bill O'Reilly.

Then give yourself a pat on the back!

they're on different scales.

As a foreigner, every time I watch an American news programme or channel, it seems to be more opinion than news, and worse than that, opinion disguised as news. PBS and NPR are the two exceptions to this, but why do you think so much of the televised news media in America is more about people shouting really loudly, rather than someone telling me the news and offering reasonable analysis, rather than crazy talk. Or am I just looking in the wrong place?

shouting is cheaper to produce.