Should Disaster Insurance Be Mandatory?; Los Angeles Times: Softer, Flashier And More Profitable?; Rebuilding New Orleans; Conquest – USC Football
Should Disaster Insurance Be Mandatory?
A mandatory national disaster insurance program is being considered by insurance commissioners from several states, including California’s John Garamendi. Such a program may require homeowners to purchase disaster insurance, much like car owners are required by law to purchase car insurance. Insurance companies would manage the program, but the federal government would guarantee it. Consumer advocates are skeptical. Larry Mantle speaks with Norman Williams, assistant deputy commissioner for communications in the office of CA State Insurance Commissioner, John Garamendi, Joel Kotkin, Irvine Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, and Doug Heller, Executive Director of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights about the idea.
Los Angeles Times: Softer, Flashier And More Profitable?
Larry Mantle talks with New Yorker staff writer Ken Auletta about the Los Angeles Times. Auletta believes that tensions have been growing between the newspaper and its Chicago-based owner, the Tribune Company, over cost-cutting. According to Auletta, the Tribune Company is pushing the newspaper to be softer and flashier to increase profits. This pressure, says Auletta, led to the recent resignation of former editor John S. Carroll, who believed the new direction would sacrifice the quality of the newspaper’s journalism. The Los Angeles Times won 13 Pulitzer prizes during Carroll’s reign as managing editor, but profits were relatively flat.
Rebuilding New Orleans
What should be rebuilt? What should not? The amount of federal taxpayers needed to rebuild the entire city will be massive. And if a category 5 storm hits the city, some areas of New Orleans and their residents are sure to be devastated again. Larry Mantle talks with Amanda Paulson, a reporter with the Christian Science Monitor, Kwame Asante, President of the NAACP of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Adam Kushner, Assistant Managing Editor for The New Republic, Christina Ford, an environmental studies professor at Bowdoin College, and Peter Brink, Senior Vice President, National Trust for Historic Preservation about how much of the city should be rebuilt, how much should be left behind, and what criteria should be used in making these decisions.
Conquest – USC Football
USC Coach, Pete Carroll, rebuilt the school’s football program and led the Trojans to two consecutive National Championships in 2003 and 2004. Larry gets the inside story on the history of Trojans’ football from Los Angeles Times’ sports writers, David Wharton and Gary Klein, whose new book Conquest: Pete Carroll and the Trojans’ Climb to the Top of the College Football Mountain looks at the teams downward spiral and road back to victory.