In each case, the press reported the stories in great detail and broadcast virtually round-the-clock coverage. Those could have and should have been considered among our finest hours — but that's not necessarily how the public viewed it.

Where the press saw blanket coverage, the public saw excess. Where the press saw thoroughness, the public saw harassment and disregard.

And where the press saw responsibility, the public saw a perverse fixation — and ulterior motives like ratings and circulation.

I'm not here tonight to judge either side. But I am here to remind all of us that even as more and more editors and news executives go through a period of self-examination, a large segment of the public has made up its mind: They think the media are an uncaring, unfeeling mob — out to get a story at any cost.

A recent survey showed only 27 percent of people across the USA said they looked forward to reading their newspaper each day, compared with 42 percent in 1985.

That attitude has grave implications for all who support the First Amendment's provision of a free press.

We in the media have to remind the public that the First Amendment is not just for our protection but for theirs.

And, at the same time, we must realize that to remain a Free Press, we must have a Fair Press. The First Amendment guarantees the former. The public demands the latter.

That doesn't mean a weak press, or a press with any lack of courage or edge; most of the public never held the media in higher regard than in the heady days of the Watergate stories and other investigative reporting.

But as I noted earlier, times have changed for both the public and the press. While we may still hold ourselves in high regard, the public does not. Poll after poll shows that even as President Clinton's approval ratings rise in the midst of the Lewinsky story, ratings for the press fall.

In Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright said the press had shown a "callous disregard" for the parties' right to a fair trial in the Paula Jones case. She accused the press of using gossip, speculation, innuendo and questionable sources for stories that are "apparently no longer subjected to critical examination ... for accuracy and bias."

That judge is not alone in her views.

At a public forum in February, in New York City, sponsored by The Freedom Forum's Media Studies Center, the same opinions came down loud and strong. Examples:

How can the press respond to those attitudes?

At The Freedom Forum, we have two new initiatives — the $52 million Newseum, the world's first interactive museum of news, and a $1 million commitment by our foundation to study and promote fairness in the press.

The Newseum opened to the public just about a year ago, on April 18, 1997. It has had an enthusiastic reaction from almost all of our colleagues in the news business.

And it has been embraced by the public, who have come to Arlington, Virginia, just minutes from our national monuments to freedom in Washington, D.C., to visit, study and learn — hundreds of thousands in just this first year.

The Newseum and The Freedom Forum are dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people — and to helping the press and the public understand each other a bit better.

It's a role that I see as vital to retaining a free and fair press in this nation.

A quick update on the first year and a half of the Newseum:

Each — public and press — came away from those meetings a little bit wiser about why news people do what they do, and about what the public expects from those of us in the news business.

Perhaps just as importantly, visitors to the Newseum explored a subject that is very important in their lives: the news. And they had fun visiting.

The Washington Post said of our debut a year ago: "This fancy and free journalism showcase is a brassy and classy attempt to tell where the news industry came from, how reporting is done today, and what may lie ahead for a profession whose current practitioners are as deeply despised and distrusted as lawyers and politicians."

In the audio tour of the Newseum, Susan Stamberg of National Public Radio says the Newseum "is saying that journalism is an important institution in this society at a time when journalists are under so much pressure."

As I noted earlier, evidence abounds that the public distrusts and dislikes those in journalism and the reports that they produce.

There's also evidence that the public doesn't yet know that much about where their news comes from, or even the First Amendment that protects their rights to those reports — and to free speech and the other freedoms it embodies.

At the Newseum's interactive newsroom, where the computer exhibits are designed to be easy enough even for adults, the public can tell us their views.

The opinions expressed there tell us fairness "matters a lot" in how to judge the job the press is doing. For example, and surprisingly, some 75 percent object to the coverage of the murder of JonBenet Ramsey as sensational and exploitative.

Accuracy, bias and people unfairly manipulating the news — both news people and news sources — also rated among the public's highest concerns.

Because we believe the kind of interaction between press and public that takes place at the Newseum helps both groups understand each other better, we're now developing a Newseum on wheels: two huge trucks, trailers and a bus, which will take a mini-museum around the country starting next year — including, of course, places like the Twin Cities.

Here are a few more hard facts from public opinion surveys at the Newseum and by others in the past year or so:

I should note that the news is not all bleak. A jury in Texas a few months ago understood the freedom of the press and also their own need for information when it turned back the lawsuit by Texas cattlemen against talk-show host Oprah Winfrey.

In her own distinctive style, Oprah provided the best wrap-up of that verdict: "The First Amendment rocks."

Those jurors knew that they needed the free flow if information in order to make decisions about their lives. The media could ask for no better endorsement.

Let me give you my assessment of today's relationship between the public and the press:

The bottom line is that readers and viewers and listeners more and more will want the information they want when they want it, where they want it and how they want it.

They want it at home and away, at work or at play, night and day.

They want a maximum of information in a minimum of time and hassle.

They will edit in — or out — what they want, when they want it, where they want it and how they want it.

Does that make the job of publishing more difficult? Sure.

The Newseum and The Freedom Forum — and all journalists, professionals and educators — have an opportunity and an obligation to help both the public and the press get better understanding of the role and responsibilities of a free and fair press.

I believe the press and journalism educators have to take the lead in that effort. Most folks don't have that much time in their lives to devote to that issue, no matter how important they consider it to be.

That's why The Freedom Forum's Board of Trustees decided last year to allocate $1 million to study ways to promote better understanding, a project directed from our Media Studies Center in New York City, headed by Bob Giles.

Beginning with sessions last year, The Freedom Forum has sponsored meetings and conversations about fairness and accuracy with a variety of groups nationwide.

"Fairness" and "freedom" stand side by side. Both need to be exercised regularly. We're finding that view confirmed in our meetings across the USA.

There are specific ways to approach the issue of fairness: Mike Wallace of CBS's "60 Minutes" has suggested many times in recent years, including the 1996 Frank E. Gannett Lecture, the revival of the news councils — an idea that rose about 20 years ago with a National News Council, which dwindled and and finally died in 1984.

Mike notes that a few local councils, most notably the one here in Minnesota, have operated with relative success. You are well aware of the pioneering work of the Minnesota News Council — and that Otto Silha was one of the driving forces behind it. Just last month, Wallace decided to favor local and regional councils over a national one.

But there's a real question if that approach will ever fly with journalists, some of whom see it as a threat to their independence and newsroom judgment.

Others favor an approach that emphasizes fairness along with accuracy and accountability — perhaps the only combination that can combat this era of cynicism and criticism.

The best journalists are skeptics. They don't accept things at face value, and they ask thorough questions. They dig for the truth.

The cynics assume the worst and print it. They think their mission is to indict and convict, rather than inform and educate.

The issue before us is whether this old journalism, this derisive technique of leaving readers discouraged and disappointed, mad and indignant, can or should survive and thrive in the 1990s and into the next century.

I doubt that those of us here and the public in general will accept — for long — such an approach.

I hope you will join me in the call for a new journalism every bit as skeptical and demanding, but also a chronicle of the good and bad, the glad and the sad.

A journalism that provides the readers with information they trust and can use to make decisions in their daily lives.

The era of self-satisfied, smug, self-centered journalism is over — gone with falling readership — both the cause and victim of those fading ratings and public trust that I mentioned earlier.

USA TODAY, that modest little experiment I had a hand in starting some 15 and a half years ago, is an example of that new journalism.

Now a huge financial success and the biggest circulation newspaper in the nation, USA TODAY has one overriding quality that readers cite again and again: They believe it, and they use it. It's got a place in their lives, every day, whether it's in the boardroom, the classroom or on the refrigerator door.

There has been a lot of speculation about USA TODAY's quick popularity with readers. Lots of color. Heavy use of graphics and illustrations. All those many short stories which our critics and competitors sarcastically called "shits and bits."

They're the same ones who labeled us "McPaper" and then stole all of our McNuggets.

All those news and editorial features were important. But in my judgment, the overriding reason for success was simply this: We looked the newspaper establishment in the eye and said, "We're going to reinvent the newspaper." We're going to make newspaper readers out of the television generation. We said NO to the status quo.

It wasn't just a new approach to news. But also to marketing of news.

A big reason for our success was a simple sales marketing tool — and those blue-and-white vending machines lousing up the landscape all over America. Those are probably the best low-cost sales and promotional idea any new product has ever come up with. And we really stole that from TV.

We wanted potential buyers to be able to read the top half of page one through the window of the vending machine easily. We wanted the top half of the page to say: Read me. Grab me. Buy me.

In creating the nation's first general-interest national daily, we set out some very basic rules that we felt were important to gaining readers' trust:

The overuse and misuse of this journalistic sidestep by some has done more damage to the credibility of journalists nationwide than any other single thing. I hope you will tell your students to avoid this temptation — readers just don't believe it.

More and more readers are subscribing to the source rule. And more and more journalists are realizing that an unrelenting diet of gloom and doom are not what the public wants or needs in the 1990s and beyond.

Finally, remember that all of us in this country should thank the Lord and our Founding Fathers and our lucky stars that we have the right and the privilege of practicing our precious freedoms.

If that sounds like flag waving, it is. But it is much more than that — for both a free press and a free-enterprise system are very much a part of a free USA and a free global village.

It is fitting that at this gathering you examine not only how you can expand and preserve your business opportunities, but also how to make sure you can continue to deserve them.

Good luck and Godspeed.