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Well I was part of the early team that put it together in terms of . . . It was a very new concept at the time in terms of packaging it and promoting it in an . . . as a, you know, sort of the innovative new media form of the moment, which is what it was back in the early ‘80s. But moving on from there, I had a succession of jobs at MTV, but then also MTV Networks which was Nickelodeon, and Comedy Central, and VH1, and so many of these branded, you know, sort of television experiences where you would try and create a brand in this new crowded television __________ that would really go after a specific audience for . . . with a specific program type. And you know the buzzword of the day was “narrowcasting”. I really can kind of laugh at that, but that’s what it was sort of called at the time, and it was a new form of television. But I . . . I was a prime driver, not to take too much credit, in terms of sort of the global expansion and internationalization of some of these television networks, which I think, you know, was . . . we ended up covering with hundreds of networks the entire world with hundreds of different versions of Nickelodeon or MTV, which in a sense I think, as you look at globalization and the globalization of media, it played an important role. It was an important way for young people to connect with each other, see each other, see what’s going on in a different part of the world; give young people a sense that there’s a certain amount of their life that they can control; and give them not necessarily role models, but examples of what their life could be outside of where they might happen to live. It was running a creative enterprise. You know became one of significant scale and scope. And you know, and it was highly gratifying. I got to give a lot of iconoclastic people opportunities to develop shows and go on to other careers.

Well the impact that I had in my world as a media executive was, I think, to . . . to put . . . to really bring people closer together; to give people a better idea of what they could be; to allow them to see and experience works of others – different points of view; participate in sort of the modern global . . . modern global marketplace and so forth; and hopefully give people some sense of, you know, responsibility about things on the sort of what we call “pro social front” – the commitment they should be making, or ideas they should be aware of, or issues they should be aware of in the modern day world, and hopefully help shape their attitudes towards that.

Well we did an awful lot in many different countries on just sort of the participation in the political process. And understanding that you’re a prime mover in a democratic society; and knowing what those issues are; knowing what the candidates in any particular election, for example, were talking about. We did an awful lot of programming about everything from, you know, gun violence; you know on the . . . on gender; on gay . . . sexuality issues; on substance abuse; you know sort of the norms of acceptable behavior, trying to break down stereotypes in our society, to do that in a very conscious way. A lot of things along those lines.

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Tom Freston. I grew up in Connecticut – suburban Connecticut in a very homogenous, small, typical suburban town. My father was a commuter, and I guess it shaped me in the sense that it was such a homogeneous place. So when I was 17, I sort of went off to college and never really came back, and just sort of kept going. And it was sort of an idyllic childhood in many ways – a nice place to grow up, but somewhat limiting in its diversity. Had access to New York City, which was nice. But I would say that I found the place a bit stifling overall.

Maybe one of the biggest influences was always my peers. You know I learned a lot from my peers. And I kind of grew up in the early days of television and was quite influenced by the media as well. You know picking up signals from wherever I could get them.

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“Am I part of the problem or am I part of the solution?” And I think that’s pretty simple. At least . . . and that’s not an either or, I suppose. It’s always a question of balance. But you know are . . . are you helping move things forward by your personal behavior? Are you acting in a way that’s in line with your . . . your sort of personal beliefs or are you not? I guess underlying that, are your personal beliefs ones that are positive? But that has to do part of the solution, part of the problem, and walking the walk and talking the talk.

Recorded On: 7/6/07

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Oh boy. It’s hard to just give money away. Sometimes that’s the worst thing you could do. But I mean I would look to, say, the Gates Foundation, which now has 60 billions of dollars to give away. How are they doing it? And I think they’re going about it rather wisely. I mean they have put processes in place and objectives in place; and they’re targeting certain things in certain parts of the world that appear to be at first some of the lowest hanging fruit; some of the things that need to be done that might have the greatest leverage for us to move forward – looking at things like, you know, population growth, endemic disease, corruption, and try to apply it in ways that the money gets handed to people who are responsible for it; using techniques that seem to be proven to be effective. Hundreds of billions of dollars have already been wasted in people giving money away. But at the same time when people say, “Aid doesn’t work”, that’s really not true because a lot of aid does work. You can just look at some of the money that’s been spent recently for eliminating simple things like malaria and other diseases. And there’s been a lot of ways to effectively do that, and certainly we should learn from that. And there’s plenty of smart people working on exactly this. And there are . . . There would be ways to give away 100 billion dollars, although I’m sure you wouldn’t do it all in a . . . You wouldn’t do it all at once.

Recorded On: 7/6/07

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Well I think we’re doing a lot of things right. If you look around the world, you see more and more countries have adopted . . . Africa . . . Many parts of the world democracies exist for the first time. People have an ability to chose their rules. People have an ability to increasingly hold their rulers to some form of transparency, and you know have some ability to control their lives. I think that that trend is a good trend. It isn’t equal in every country. It isn’t perfect in every country. But overall you’d have to stand back and look at . . . The age of self-determination is, you know, sort of where we are. And I think overall that’s a good thing. I think a lot of what’s going on with international law, international trade, ways to link countries together in ways that sort of subliminate or eliminate their militaristic tendencies is a good thing. A lot of work needs to be done obviously with global warming, extreme poverty, so on and so forth. But the building blocks to do that seem to be in sharper focus. People seem to be more connected or have the ability to be more connected than ever before. Certainly a lot of groups are not seeing eye to eye on things. But again as an optimist I think that, you know, everything we need to sort of achieve and to do what we . . . What has to happen is within our grasp if we can have some reasonable moments with ourselves.

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I think we’re in some kind of transition period, you know? We’re between centuries. We’re at the beginning of a century. It’s almost sort of apt, and nice and neat that as a transition period we’ve entered this new, interconnected, digital age where globalism is really an important characteristic of life. But everyone isn’t sure how to deal with it yet. There’s a lot of . . . There’s a lot of change that really still needs to be digested, and it’s . . . You’re gonna probably stand back and say, you know . . . You would say about the ’50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, ‘80s, that was sort of the post-war . . . post World War II era. I don’t know if there’s any label that anyone has come up with yet for the time we’re exactly living in. And I think that’s because it is a transition time. And it’s gonna be easier to label it as that once we embark more clearly on something that’s a bit more definable.

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I’m still an optimist.  You know I look back over time and you say, “Oh, things have basically improved for the greater lot of mankind.”  There’s always been a lot of problems.  Right now they’re acute and we’re more interconnected.  And problems can infect other parts of the world much more easily.  But to date, the lot of mankind I believe has generally gotten better.  There’s been big setbacks.  Look at World War II.  Look at Chairman Mao’s great leap forward.  You know the dark ages.  But in general, like the Stock Market might have a bull market and a bear market, I think in the end problems can be dealt with, and mankind will continue to improve on a whole.

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I think it’s dealing with what some people would call now . . . There’s a great book on this called “The Bottom Billion”. The billion people in the world . . . a billion people who make less than a dollar a day. And what does this lead to not only in terms of their own destiny and wellbeing, but in terms of the . . . the states and nations that they live in – how stable they will be. And what . . . what kind of impact these numbers have in an interconnected world, and what it means for everything from security, failed states . . . you know disease, war, all . . . all of those bad, nasty things. And you’ve got a billion people still with all this affluence in the world; and what had been two of the world’s poorest countries – Japan and China – really on the ascendency. And before that if you look at the countries . . . the so-called “tiger economies” of Asia – Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam . . . all of whom had a lot of people sort of in that . . . what you would say now less than a dollar a day category – they’ve all sort of moved up in a place where they’re relatively self-sufficient, and they have an optimistic outlook about life. But there’s still this barrel of countries that lack the infrastructure, see falling standards, are rife with AIDS, disease, malaria, no education. And you’ve gotta wonder how do they become a Thailand? How do they pull themselves out of this? And it’s unlikely that that’s gonna happen unless there’s a more concerted effort and a smarter effort from the developed world. And I think that’s probably the biggest reason . . . That’s the biggest problem. And it’s a problem not just for the bottom billion, but really for the whole . . . the whole security of the whole world.

Recorded On: 7/6/07

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Well since really the advent of . . . People have always been interested in stars. I mean you go back even into the 19th century, people who were theater stars or, you know, great Vaudevillians, or actors in silent movies. People have always been drawn out of their normal lives and been taken up by a star, which is, in many ways, sort of an intangible aura around somebody that exists for a variety of reasons. And you know the popularization of music, and television, and films that we’ve seen in the last 30, 40 years have created this certain celebrityhood that then began to be . . . At first we were fascinated by the stars and the artworks that they performed . . . and the popular artworks they performed. We liked . . . We liked Elvis Presley when we liked his music. Or we loved the Beatles and we loved their music. But there really wasn’t an awful lot about their lives . . . their normal lives. And you know with magazines like, I think, initially People and others, I mean there were . . . there was sort of celebrity magazine sheets in the ‘50s and ‘60s too. But I think the media began to get onto something that was pretty cheap and certainly resonated with the viewers or the readers, which was their fascination with every aspect of these people’s lives. Now it seems _________ pretty ludicrous if you were to ever go around in Hollywood and sit outside a nightclub and see hundreds of paparazzi wondering, “Who’s in there having a drink?” It’s pretty ludicrous. But the money is flowing. People are paying for these pictures. People are . . . People have whole magazines and TV shows based on exactly this. And I don’t know what it is that, you know . . . it’s hard to define. But the people are just fascinated with larger than life things outside of their own lives. People living some kind of fantasy life that maybe they’d like to lead. Or they’re just fascinated with the lurid details of these basically larger than life figures – people who are . . . have more . . . who stand head and shoulders above their family or friends just in terms of their notoriety, and they’re just interested. And it’s sort of irresistible for certain people to feel that way about certain celebrities, hence the business.

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Well I don’t know. I mean there’s a lot of responsibility to go around. You could say that the media had a case of a post 9/11 lapse of judgment and were maybe as fearful as what we might actually be involved with, or what might be coming that may have been the case; and that was a real national patriotism issue that may be more important than it actually was, and that leadership should not have been questioned. And where was the media? You know there were voices in the media who were telling the truth. There were politicians that were telling the truth. Maybe they weren’t getting as much coverage as others; but to blame the media is like you’re blaming some single blob when in fact it’s thousands of different voices. So maybe they didn’t do well . . . as well on this in aggregate as they have on some other issues, and it wasn’t as balanced. But I think that’s probably the case.

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Well I never really thought of the media as some kind of boogey man, that something has to change. I mean the media now is so diverse and so complex. And there’s so much of it, you know, you can find problems with anything I suppose. But the fact of the matter is a lot of the media today isn’t targeted to me – or isn’t targeted to any person in particular. They look for certain market segments and they go for them, and they really don’t care for anything else or about what anybody else thinks. And you know professionally I was part of that process for a long time. But I do believe today if you’re an active, involved, educated, thoughtful person, you can find a mix of media that appeals to you, satisfies you more readily, and better than at any point and time in history. So you can say, “Oh my god, the media. They’re so exploitative. They lean towards the sensational thing.” Or, “They don’t have enough international news coverage.” But you know it’s your decision what you wanna watch. And there’s just so many other options I really have a hard time feeling sorry for anybody who has that point of view.

Recorded On: 7/6/07

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Recorded On: 7/6/07

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Well I haven’t really talked about this because, I mean, it’s been going on for almost 10 years. And it’s something I feel really strongly about, and it’s really about the responsibility of . . . of public education to people with special needs – with learning disabilities. Many . . . They’re called by many terms these days, but I mean the fact remains is that the public school system in many ways is inadequately resourced to deal with the needs of these types of students. So if you’re a parent, and if you’re a parent from a low or middle income group who can’t necessarily afford to send your child to one of these special private schools where they get two teachers in a classroom; or the classrooms are small; where everybody has a Masters degree and at least in special education; where they teach kids very consciously these strategies about how to deal with this; where they teach kids that you should have a high level of esteem, and basically create . . .

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Well I’m very aware of religion and faith and the impact that it has on the world, and the pull that it has for people – both positive and negative. I think you can make a great case that religion is everything from the . . . I wouldn’t say the opening of the masses, but there’s a lot of religious activity today that you can make a great case has . . . has not overly been official for mankind. It’s basically people looking for some form of exceptionalisn – that my religion is better than your religion. And you know that’s not a good basis for us all getting along, I suppose, in a diverse world . . . a globalized world. But I believe that there’s some sort of force behind the . . . you know behind the universe. I don’t really wanna get into my particular religious beliefs at the moment. But yeah, I believe there’s a God there. He must get confused sometimes watching us.

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Well I would judge myself to be – I’m an independent. I don’t necessarily say I’m a Democrat or a Republican in American terminology. But I do believe that . . . I do believe in the basic goodness of man, and I don’t appreciate, you know, the fear mongering, negative Hobbsian view that a man is basically a beast to be contained and to be wary of. I think that kind of thinking gets you into a lot of trouble if you’re a political leader or a political follower. So I tend to believe more, but not in a naïve way, in the better side of humanity. And I believe that politically anybody who wants to really honestly communicate information, and inform and educate people, and build their awareness about issues in a solid way, that would be somebody . . . And do it in a real voice and not be the classic politician sellout of looking to do anything for votes. I think America . . . a lot of America would agree with me on this, in that there’s really a dearth of candidates today that people would think maybe feel that way.

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Well book wise, “On the Road”, Jack Kerouac was a big inspiration to me. It got me on the road. I’m still on it. I loved that story and that time, and the idea that someone could break out of that sort of conformed world of the ‘50s and do it with such great abandon and such enthusiasm. So “On the Road” was probably my favorite book, and I know it just hit its 50th . . . I think it’s its 50th anniversary, which is a whole other . . . that’s a whole other story.