Hariharan "Hari" Sreenivasan

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

we'd like to keep enabling people to disagree agreeably about matters that matter. i think you learn more by hearing alternate views than your own. I don't think there are always simply two views on matters, but there are often more than one. the medium and mode seems less relevant to me over time.

I think we're at a fairly crucial crossroads at the moment. Just realize that in the very short time that i've tried to practice this craft- since the mid 90s- there have been such massive technological changes on how people have access to information, and i think all this points to the large potential for "filter failure" (as Clay Shirky puts it). Over time- regardless of the content, we come to trust the mavens on particular topics (gladwell's tipping point). today the web enables us to have particular feeds (be it twitter or rss or reading blogs) on views and content we trust when it comes to things we're interested in. we decide why we trust some people more or less and we'll probably ebb and flow between sources far faster in the future than we even do now. i'd hate to see a purely eye-ball driven world as was described by the old tv show max headroom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_%28TV_series%29 but i think what we're seeing are the beginnings of that. As i type this, its no suprise that all three cable channels went to the controlled fire/destruction of a house near san diego- because they know human instinct will lead our eyes to that screen... that said... does it matter at the end of the day? if you're giving me the most valuable thing on earth; your time, should i spend a few seconds or minutes telling you that? in my humble opinion- no. So i'm filtering for you. if you like how i filter, you'll stick with me. if you think i add value to your time, if you think i package things interestingly enough- you'll keep coming back. perhaps you'll make the same decision about the newshour.

we don't have nearly as many staff members as those institutions but we would have reached out to partner perhaps with someone the likes of propublica to help sort through the data. as you've seen over the past few weeks, its not just raw data that tells a story, its context and perspective. thanks for following/watching us.

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.

tnx

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.

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.

i've got a few meetings today till noon- but since SOTU is going on tonight- i'm happy to take questions throughout the day. will try to log back in. thanks for all your interest and asking smart questions. the IAMA experience has been a pleasure so far.

Sunlight Foundation

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.