Jury selection has begun for the George Zimmerman trial. We'll talk about what type of juror is each side looking for. Then, is it really dangerous to use electronic devices on planes during takeoff and landing? And we'll discuss the media's reluctance to air gory images. Later, are people okay with government surveillance because of who the president is? Finally, we'll take a look at the evolution of Chinatown and preview Yes, Prime Minister, a British play that's coming to L.A.
Jury selection in the George Zimmerman trial
Jury selection at the murder trial of George Zimmerman continued for a second day Tuesday. Zimmerman admitted to shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. last February but claims it was in self defense after Martin attacked him. Assistant State Attorney Bernie de la Rionda and Zimmerman's lawyers Mark O'Mara and Don West are quizzing potential jurors about how much they know about the case, whether they had formed an opinion and whether they could give Zimmerman a fair trial. The makeup of the jury could have a huge impact on the outcome of this high-profile trial.
So what type of juror is each side looking for? How does the court keep jurors from following media coverage? Are jurors ever totally impartial?
Guest:
Richard Gabriel, the President of Decision Analysis, Inc. a national trial consulting firm with offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Please turn off all electronic devices for takeoff and landing
Americans are losing out on 105 million hours of digital time when they have to turn off their iPads and smartphones during takeoff and landing, according to a new study by DePaul University. Current rules say that anything with an on/off switch must be turned off when the plane is below 10,000 feet. The FAA has considered lifting that ban but has yet to change the rule.
The same study estimates that 35% of travelers use gadgets like electronic tablets and smartphones at some point in a flight, up from 28% in 2012 and 17.6% in 2010. Passengers may just be playing Words With Friends but the ban is still costing them valuable digital time.
Is it really dangerous to use electronic devices during takeoff and landing? Why is it taking the FAA so long to reconsider its ban on electronic devices? If the FAA gives the green light to electronic devices, will cellphones be far behind? As an airline passenger, do you want to be able to use your phone or will the thought of your seatmate chatting away on the phone make you want to keep the ban?
Guest:
Patrick Smith, former commercial airline pilot and columnist. He has a new book out called "cockpit Confidential: Everything You Need to Know About Air Travel"
Why does the US media recoil at the idea of running graphic images?
When the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC aired footage of American casualties in Vietnam it became the subject of intense debate. Is it ok to air graphic images as long as those images aren’t of Americans? The program also aired the NBC footage of a South Vietnamese general executing a soldier of the North Vietnamese Army. Many of these segments were preceded with a warning that people might want to send their children out of the room.
The much celebrated civil war photographer Matthew Brady’s photos showed mostly dead Confederates. Similar debates have arisen about Iraq war, including civilian Iraqi children hurt and maimed, 9/11 victims, and the Boston marathon bombing. Across the Atlantic, European media freely displayed graphic pictures of Madrid bombing victims.
Are Europeans less squeamish? Is there some particular reluctance by American news media, something in our character or psychology, or in our business model, that resists this? And in a digital world, where images circle the globe at the speed of fiber-optic light, is our handling of these upsetting and powerful images any different?
Guests:
Al Tompkins, senior faculty for broadcasting and online journalism at the Poynter Institute, and the author of “Aim for the Heart: A Guide for TV Producers and Reporters”
Kenny Irby, founder of the Poynter Institute’s photojournalism program and former deputy director of photography at Newsday
Support for government snooping and the Obama factor
A new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center and the Washington Post has found that Americans’ attitudes toward government surveillance has largely stayed the same in the last decade, with 56% of those surveyed finding the National Security Agency’s tracking of phone records an acceptable means to thwart potential terrorist attacks. Support was just slightly lower in January 2006, when 51% of respondents backed the Bush administration’s surveillance program weeks after it came to light.
The data is more telling once you take political affiliation into account. Today, only 52% of Republicans say it’s ok for the NSA to track phone calls of Americans, versus 75% in January 2006. The same trend goes for Democrats: 64% now supports the program, compared to just 36% in 2006. While civil libertarians, privacy advocates, and supporters of limited government are outraged by the Obama administration’s domestic surveillance program, the response from the American public has been somewhat muted.
Is your attitude on the privacy swayed by who is in the White House?
Guests:
Carroll Doherty, Associate Director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press
Julian Zelizer, Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University and editor of “The Presidency of George W. Bush: A First Historical Assessment”
Farewell to Chinatown's Empress Pavilion after 24 years
A Chinatown institution is no more. After close to a quarter of a century, the dim sum palace located in Bamboo Plaza on Hill Street has shut down. The owners told the Los Angeles Times that they were evicted last Sunday by the plaza’s landlord after having fallen behind on rent.
The 600-seat restaurant opened in April 1989 and was once the byword for dim sum in Los Angeles.
"When it opened, it really was unique," says Lisa See, author of "Shanghai Girls, who frequented the Empress Pavilion. "There were some places in Chinatown where you could get dim sum, but this was the first Hong Kong-style dim sum restaurant with those push carts. People could point and say I want to try that."
That’s no longer the case, however, as folks began flocking to the San Gabriel Valley for authentic Asian grub. In a way, the closure of Empress Pavilion is about Chinatown as well.
The original Chinatown in Los Angeles was established in 1880 and centered around Alameda and Macy streets. The Chinatown most of us know now, officially dubbed the “New Chinatown,” was rebuilt and relocated to make room for the construction of Union Station. From there, the fortunes of this historical district rose and dipped.
Its latest renaissance came courtesy of an unlikely group of people: artists and gallerists who moved into the area around the late 1990s, congregating specifically on and around Chung King Road, attracted by its cheap rent and plethora of available spaces.
"Even though there are all those new galleries there, even though some place like the Empress Pavilion closes, or some of the old shops that were owned by the pioneer families are gone, it still is a place for new immigrants," said See.
And See says that's because of Chinatown's history, in which Chinese-Americans had to live there because of the land laws — not the case for the San Gabriel Valley.
"Those people were coming in a very different way than the early immigrants had come, and they didn't have to ever live in Chinatown," See says. "They didn't have to shop there; they didn't have to work there; they didn't have to go to school there. So, the San Gabriel Valley developed in a very different way than our Chinatown or Chinatowns in other cities."
See says that even today, ethnic Chinese coming from Cambodia, Laos and Thailand use Chinatown much like it was used 50 years ago.
Guest:
Lisa See, novelist; her latest novel is “Shanghai Girls” (Random House, 2009)
Nuran Alteir contributed to this online article
Yes, Prime Minister
What do the American and British governments have in common? Jonathan Lynn says one similarity is that they’re both based on the same principle: “if no one knows what you’re doing, no one knows what you’re doing wrong.” Lynn is the co-writer and director of the play Yes, Prime Minister, which follows the lives of a few “morally confused” British government employees over the course of one hectic weekend; they try to solve a debt crisis, resolve the country’s energy crisis, sand save the Euro from collapsing. The play is based off of an 80’s BBC television series with the same name.
Guests:
Jonathan Lynn, co-writer and director of Yes, Prime Minister
Michael McKean, actor, plays Jim Hacker in Yes, Prime Minister