The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - Are Two Major Wars Near Their End?

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

Things are moving quickly in both the Middle East and Ukraine -- so quickly that we may be near the end on both fronts.  And while that is happening, suddenly. Syria is back in the headlines.  For her regular Monday appearance, Dr Janice Stein of the Munk School at the University of Toronto has her analysis on all this for us with her usual in depth take on the situation.

And hello there, Peter Mansbridge here. You're just moments away from the latest episode of The Bridge. As unlikely as it sounds, is peace at hand in the Middle East and in Ukraine? Janice Stein, coming right up. And welcome to Monday. Welcome to our regular Monday visit from Dr. Janice Stein at the Bunk School, University of Toronto. Dr. Stein will be with us in just a few moments time. To discuss the latest coming from, there are two hot spots that we've been following for the last couple of years, and of course those are the Middle East, specifically Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Ukraine-Russia situation.

Both those stories coming up with some interesting possibilities on both of those in our discussion today. Also, we'll talk about Syria, the new player in the conflict surrounding the Middle East. But first, as we always do on Monday, we try to give you a hint as to what the question of the week is for our Thursday discussion on your turn and the random ranter, of course. But the your turn question, we like to give it out on Mondays to give you some time to think about it and then get your reply in before Wednesday,

back to our regular time, cutoff time of 6 p.m. Eastern this week. Name, location, keep it short. Here's the question. It's a. Eastern this week. Name, location, keep it short. Here's the question. It's a little different this week. And in a way, it's based on what some see as a changing trend in the journalism landscape. And it basically comes down to this. What is a journalist?

That's going to be the question this week, and let me explain it. It comes along because for a lot of people and a lot of observers and analysts and commentators, they've been looking at the journalism story. You know, in large part because of the U.S. election, but it's not just the U.S. election. It's happening elsewhere. It happens in this country. So the question becomes, who is and what is a journalist?

And this is why. Perhaps the most influential broadcaster, we'll put it that way, in the US election was Joe Rogan, who, on the traditional way of looking at things, is not a journalist. In fact, he was a stand-up comedian.

He was involved in boxing, wrestling as a promoter. And then he started doing a podcast, which has enormous influence. Somewhere in this kind of 40, 45 million range of listeners to his podcast, whether they're on, I think it's Spotify, or whether it's on YouTube. So he basically has a larger audience than all the traditional legacy media 6.30 in the evening newscasts put together. And he talks about current events. And some see him as a journalist.

Because he asks questions. He certainly has opinion. But he's not alone out there. I mean, the most popular, or at least he used to be, the most popular morning cable television show in the United States was Morning Joe, which runs from like 6 to 10 in the morning on MSNBC. And Morning Joe, Joe is Joe Scarborough, who used to be a Republican congressperson, congressman. But he stopped being that some time ago,

and he's been hosting this show. He's popular. He's interesting. He certainly has opinion. But is he a journalist? He does interviews, lots of them. Now, the way we used to think of journalists was somebody who came up through journalism school, was a beat reporter,

covered city hall, state assemblies, or in our case, provincial legislatures, or covered the police, covered the fire department, but did daily reporting. That was journalism, or at least that's the way we used to look at it. Has that changed? And if it's changed, is it a good change? Is it more opinion now than it used to be just reporting facts?

That's probably an easy question. I think most people say, oh, it's all opinion. Everybody just gives their opinion now. Well, they do on podcasts. I mean, to be fair, you could look at me and say, Mansbridge, is he actually a journalist? Was he a journalist? Well, I didn't take a traditional route.

I didn't come up through journalism school. I didn't go to university. But I went to the journalism school of hard knocks. I was a beat reporter for 20 years. Covering all those things I just listed a moment ago. And more. And then I became a news anchor. And the chief correspondent.

For the next 30 years. And now for the last seven years I've been a, you know, for the most part, a podcaster and an author, along with my friend Mark Bulgich. We write books. And you could say, well, you know, is he really a journalist? Or if he was a journalist, is he still a journalist? Because now he does this podcast, and, you know,

he expresses his opinion at times in a way he never did when he was an anchor or a reporter. And that's all true. So there's your question. And I'm assuming I'm going to hear some different answers here on this subject. And I look forward to hearing them. But the question is, it's pretty simple. What is a journalist in today's world okay what is a journalist so uh write to me at the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com the mansbridge podcast at gmail.com include your name the location you're writing from. Keep it short. Have it in by Wednesday at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Look forward to your answers,

as I do every week on whatever the question may be. All right. Time to get to our Monday regular guest, Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto. Another fascinating conversation in store for you right now. So Janice, there's really a lot to talk about in both the regions we worry about, the Middle East and the Ukraine story. I want to start on the Middle East, but I don't want to start with Israel.

I don't want to start with Gaza. I don't want to start with Gaza. I don't want to start with Lebanon or Hezbollah. I want to start with Syria, because in the last week, all of a sudden, Syria has leapt to the top of the news stories in terms of the Middle East. We've got these jihadist rebels taking over the second largest city in Syria, Aleppo, and posing clearly a real threat to the Assad regime. What is happening and how does it fit into the overall story of the Middle East? You know, Peter, it sure does fit into the overall story.

It's what you call an unintended consequence. The last time this happened, which was right after the Arab Spring, Hezbollah was a strong force and came to the active defense of Bashar al-Assad. And that's frankly what kept him in power. So the first time Hezbollah forces left Lebanon, went to fight in Syria, and they actually learned a lot and became battle-hardened. That Hezbollah does not exist today. It's on its back foot. It's reeling. It has to rebuild and rearm.

That, you know, it's likely to happen, but it will take years. So Assad does not have the bulwark, those crack fighting forces that he had last time. And these groups that were concentrated in the northwestern part of Syria, Assad was never able, really, to reassert full control. Read the same tea leaves that the rest of us are reading here

and saw an opportunity and astonishing advance, really. You mentioned Aleppo, but it's much broader. They are now in neighboring Homs province. It's a swath right across the northwest. So fast and still on the move. There's been video coming out from people on the ground. You see pictures of a Assad being torn down. And who's the group that's in the lead? Because there is a large number of groups that are one thing one year and another thing another year, and it's really hard to make sense of it. So who are these people?

They're actually well known to people who watch the Middle East and our listeners might remember Jabhat al-Nusra which is they were among the most committed jihadis and actually broke with al-Qaeda. They were affiliated with al-Qaeda, broke with al-Qaeda, and there was fierce fighting a decade ago. These are their direct successors. And these are the groups that are Islamists. There's no question.

But, you know, I'm than the really truly fanatical elements within the Islamic State or within al-Qaeda. You know, governed, distributed food to the population did not exhibit the extreme cruelty to women that some of these groups have demonstrated. So on that whole spectrum of jihadi groups, these are not the most extreme. And actually, what's so interesting is they developed a tactical alliance with the Kurds, which is showing up in the fighting right now. So who is worried about this?

And we're back to a coalition here, familiar characters to us all, Russia. Assad's big champion. Bombing from the air this time and last time, and that's what kept Assad in power. Iran. The Iranian foreign minister is now in Damascus. He was in Beirut last week working on the ceasefire,

pushing the ceasefire. He's now in Damascus because Syria is Iran's oldest ally, but also Turkey. And I think that's the really interesting part of this whole story. Turkey is a strong opponent of Assad, very bad blood between Erdogan and al-Assad. Erdogan was one of the earliest to come out in the last time this erupted and call for his ouster. But why are they in this fight? Because

these are Turkish Kurds just over the border from Turkey, whom Erdogan regards as a mortal threat. So you have all of this going on now in real time as the battlefield changes. Just a few hours ago, you know, to show how fast and how successful this offensive has been, said to the Kurds, thank you very much for your help. We're really grateful now. Would you move out to the northeast?

Obviously trying to prevent the Turkish army from crossing the border. You know, just listening to you tell this story, I mean, there are so many twists and turns. Here's my question after listening to everything you said. Aside from the Kurds, who is aligned with these rebels? Where are these rebels getting their help, their military equipment, you name it? Where's that coming from? Everybody else seems to be against them. That's right. They're not getting it from Iran, and they're not getting it from Russia, and they're clearly not getting it from Turkey.

What do they have, Peter? They have AK-47s and Jeeps,, they militarize as best as they can. But you see these pictures. I was watching the video of them coming into Aleppo. They're coming in, not even in armored jeeps, jeeps with assault rifles. And there is a huge black market in the Middle East for all of this. It is not hard to get this stuff. And they've had it all these years, really, because Assad was never able to fully assert control over the far northwestern part of Syria. And when they saw that he was vulnerable, and he was vulnerable because

Hezbollah is not an effective fighting force right now. You know, we don't talk much about Syria. Syria is in terrible financial conditions. It is exporting drugs into the green markets of the Middle East, and that's how it's getting its hard currency. Its soldiers are not well paid now in the Syrian army. That's why many of them turned around and fled,

frankly, and left equipment behind them as they fled. And that's why he is at risk. I mean, he's still only in the northern part, in the northwestern part of Syria, but he has a really badly trained army with very poor morale that is poorly paid. Where are the Americans on this? I mean, Americans are sort of officially not in Syria, but unofficially they are, right? They are. No, there are about 800 American troops.

And what are they doing as a result of all this? I mean, where were their... You know, it's interesting, Peter, why were they there, allegedly? Because there really isn't, aside from the Kurds, any group that of al-Qaeda, frankly. They have not left that one behind, but they are on the ground. They do not have a group in this game right now. There is nobody on the ground that they are supporting. There was a decade ago, but the small pro-Western force of Syrian opposition figures was routed, and they do not have any opposition group. So the Americans don't, the Russians don't, the Iranians don't, the Syrians don't.

What about the Israelis? Would they care about what's going on? Well, everybody's torn. It's really interesting. You would expect Israelis to be cheering right now. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. He was such a strong supporter of Syria. They certainly have no love lost for Assad. So you might say, you know, as these militants storm out and capture two cities and an airport and they're still moving, you might expect the Israelis to be cheering, but they're not, because Assad is by now a deeply conservative figure, doesn't want to provoke any kind of fighting with Israel.

His army is weak. perspective of stabilizing known quantity. And the last thing that the government of Israel wants now is another Sunni militant, because that's what Hamas really was, Sunni militant group on the northern border. All right, let's move into Israel for a moment, because, you know, a week ago we were talking about well two things really the ceasefire with Hezbollah

and the International Criminal Courts decision to go after Netanyahu and Hamas leaders now Netanyahu fired his defense minister a couple weeks ago Yalon

and now he's come out with some pretty Netanyahu fired his defense minister a couple of weeks ago, Yalon. And now he's come out with some pretty inflammatory descriptions of Netanyahu, basically saying that he's in for ethnic cleansing. Right. That's a defense minister from two governments ago. It's not the one that he just fired. That's right. That's gallant. And this one is yellow, but it's an explosive statement that he made. And of course, Netanyahu

is denying it, but there is a great deal of truth to it, Peter, particularly in northern Gaza. And the reason that statement is so important, it echoes concerns that all the acting generals have, the ones who are currently still in the military, that they frankly oppose the strategy in northern Gaza. They want a withdrawal and a hostage deal in exchange for a ceasefire.

And they have pushed now for months for Netanyahu to make a commitment about what happens the day after. Egyptians are pushing very hard. And so, yes, you hear the howls of outrage from this, you know, from the political class, from Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners. You don't hear any opposition to the statement coming from the military, and that's for good reason. Well, aside from no opposition from the military coming on the statement, what impact does it have? And thanks for correcting me on the, know on which defense minister well he fires

defense ministers on a regular basis there peter's but what impact will it have in the you know in the the political situation in in israel does it have an impact? You know, we're back to the, frankly, it's difficult to find words. You know, it's so inconceivable that a prime minister with a coalition, with a right-wing coalition that's controlled by the most extreme elements of the right wing, opposed by the military, which really matters in most societies, and opposed by 50% of the population roughly, is able to cling to power because in order to force him out, there has to be a majority vote in the Knesset, and he has 68 of the 120 seats.

There's simply no way to remove this guy without a Knesset vote, a vote of non-confidence in Parliament, Frank. And the arithmetic is not there for that. Will it have an impact in the short term? No, it won't. Should we assume that the Biden-Blinken impact is over now? Like it's, there's nothing they can do that is going to have any impact whatsoever on the situation? I frankly, in many

years of watching transitions in the United States, I've never seen one quite like this. Actually, we have two presidents at the same time. And the more powerful one is in Florida, not in Washington. And governments, including our own, fly over Washington to go to Florida. And I think that's what matters to the Netanyahu government. It is Trump and the people that he's appointed.

You know, interestingly enough, there was a very interesting leak again yesterday. Lindsey Graham. Also, you know, there's a very good book to be written about Lindsey Graham. Also, you know, there's a very good book to be written about Lindsey Graham because he was John McCain's great friend. And I can only imagine what John McCain would have to say about this administration. But he became a

close friend of Donald Trump. And he leaked that he had a conversation with Netanyahu in which Trump sent the message, we want this war over before my inauguration, and we want the hostages released. Now, that's not the message that Netanyahu expected to hear. Interesting that Trump said it now. He's not looking to claim that he made peace in a day. He wants it over.

That's telling Netanyahu, you do not have a blank check from me on this. That's likely to have impact. Sure. And you, listen, you and I are old enough to remember what happened in 1980 when it all happened on the day of the inauguration, right? Yes. The release of the hostages in Tehran.

Yes. And that was all worked out, obviously, by the incoming, not the outgoing administration. Exactly. I would suspect much of the same is going on here. Right. So, I mean, the timing, you know, the timing works out if you

want to claim some kind of credit for the end of something. I think it's transparent. Peter, if there's a ceasefire, it would be because Trump pushed. Not all the heavy lifting that the Biden team did. It would be Trump pushing Netanyahu very hard,

and what she's doing. Could not an accident they leaked this story. So we're in sort of whatever way you cut it, we're probably in the final weeks of this story. I hope we're in the final weeks, very long final week until January the 20th. As you see, that was a long time in the Middle East. Everybody, including me, had taken my eyes off Syria, wasn't really watching that corner. And these militants burst out.

So seven weeks is a very long time. But I certainly think the Trump administration is now telling Netanyahu, this is over. You finish this now. And if it is finished, and if we're witnessing something happening in Syria, and if we're witnessing the Tehran government in a period of trying to rebuild from a bad base that they've suddenly found themselves in, and the Lebanon situationon situation same thing what what is the middle

east picture that the the new trump administration um inherits when it takes power well you and i just put a lot of ifs in there um but if all those ifs, if that's in fact what we're facing, we are facing what I would call a ceasefire. And I use that deliberately, Peter. There's no active fighting going on. But I think that's very different from any kind of peace deal. That is much, much harder to get at. This would not be the first or the last time that we've frozen ceasefire lines, frankly. And that's what I think we would expect.

You know, Saudi, there are two or three really interesting players in all this. Hamas showed up in Cairo this week. It's now a five-person coalition there in Cairo. And they didn't go to talk about the hostages. They went to talk about the day after, what would governance look like. So that tells me they're working on it right now. The Iranians have said they're postponed now. Any attack against Israel, any retaliation because of the ceasefire in Lebanon.

And they're reaching out to Trump to talk about their interest in reviving those nuclear discussions, which are, of course, all about getting sanctions lifted. Given all that, I think we will just freeze the ceasefire lines. Now, they can stay frozen for months, if not years. That has happened in the past. The real player here is still the Saudis. And Saudis have the deal that Biden wanted to do with the Saudis. I don't think is on the table anymore.

Mohammed bin Salman pulled back. How much influence Donald Trump has with him and how much influence his son-in-law has with him is, you know, we just he just appointed his son-in-law's father to be the ambassador to France. There's a nice family connection here if you like these things. But it's Donald Trump and Jared Kushner who have deep links now into Saudi Arabia. That's their hope that they can, in effect, get a much bigger deal that the Biden team had worked on so hard. Right now, I don't see any willingness on the part of the new government to do that really critical thing. Break up that coalition, offer a pathway,

just a pathway for the Palestinians, and form a national unity government. And Mohammed bin Salman has said explicitly, without that, no deal. And they are talking to the Biden team now about security assurances, which are much less than what the Saudis were hoping for and what the United States was hoping for. Much more was pulled back objectives here. Okay. We're going to take our break. When I come back, there's

equally a lot to talk about on the Ukraine-Russia front as well. Oh boy, what a week. Yeah, what a week is right. We'll do that right after this. And welcome back. You're listening to The Bridge, the Monday episode. That means Dr. Janice Stein from Munk School, the University of Toronto. You're listening on Sirius XM, channel 167, Canada Talks, or on your favorite podcast platform.

All right, we've dealt with the Middle East. Now we want to venture into the Russia-Ukraine story. And, you know, everything now seems to be hinged in many ways to what to expect as a result of the change of power in Washington. And you have this, and I'm intrigued to see what you think of this statement from Zelensky in the last He's basically suggesting that Russia, he may let Russia hold on to the territory it's achieved so far during this conflict, at least temporarily, if, in fact, Ukraine is given NATO membership. Now, you know, it's hard to believe the Russians will ever go for the NATO membership idea,

but it was equally hard to believe that we'd ever hear coming out of the mouth of Zelensky the possibility that Russia could hold on to that territory. So what do you make of it? It's a huge move, Peter. It's a huge move that Zelensky would say that, frankly. It's now out in the open. What I've been talking about, frankly, now for several months, the situation on the battlefield is dire. Russia is moving forward now in the southern Donbass. They are

circling the last three or four towns that stand in the way of a much larger breakthrough. One of them is surrounded on all three sides. Ukraine is desperately short of manpower at this point. Desperately short of manpower. So yes, they're able to use attack on these longer range missiles to hit Russian military assets on the other side of the border. But you could say it's too little, too

late. They're not game changers. No weapon system at this point is a game changer in this battlefield when you're as deprived of manpower as Ukraine is. And there was a fascinating poll published last week from Ukraine. 57% of the population wants a ceasefire. I think that's what made the terrible conditions on the battlefield, plus the shift in public opinion at home, is what made it possible for Zelensky to make that statement.

But that is a strong, I take it very, very seriously. It's a strong statement. He's willing to freeze the lines now because he knows he has no other choice. Now, what he gets for that, of course, as you said, that will be the subject of the negotiations. Because it's very difficult to believe that Putin, under any circumstances, especially since he's in a much better, he's, you know, this is the most difficult position for Ukraine on the battlefield since the war started. And it's the best position that Russia has been in.

So, but there will have to be some kinds of security guarantees given to Zelensky. They'll likely be bilateral. You know, the United States will give a security guarantee. Canada will give a security guarantee. The United Kingdom will do it. They'll probably be done outside of NATO. What those will be, you know,

how much confidence would you have in a security guarantee from the United States led by Donald Trump or by one from Germany, which is, you know, about to face an election with an uncertain outcome. As well-intentioned as Canada is, you know very well how many forces we could deploy in an emergency to Ukraine right now. None. Well, when you say a security guarantee, what are we talking about?

Are we saying that, you know, Russia will go for this deal, this arrangement, you can keep what you've got, but you cannot step one foot inside what is now accepted as Ukraine. You have a ceasefire line, and if Russia violates the ceasefire, those countries that give him a security guarantee would be obligated to come to Ukraine's defense. Now, there was such a security guarantee, Peter, in 1994 that was given to Ukraine. And it was given to Ukraine when the United States primarily persuaded

the then government of Ukraine to return to Russia all the nuclear weapons that they had deployed in what was the Soviet Union and Ukraine was a republic inside the Soviet Union. And Russia and Britain and the United States signed a security guarantee, guaranteeing Ukraine's borders. If you're Ukraine, you remember, you have a 30-year-old memory, and you remember how, in fact, that security guarantee was worthless. One of the guarantors was the invader. I guess one of the last security

guarantees that actually worked was 39 in Poland, right? That's right. That's right. Britain and France said they'd go in if Hitler moved into Poland. And they did. They did. And, you know, I honestly think, Peter, although if you spoke to, you know, the Prime Minister of Poland or the President of Estonia, I think Article 5 in NATO, which obligates every member of NATO to come to the assistance of,

it doesn't say to defend or to commit troops, but it does say to come to the assistance of, there is the expectation inside NATO that that's binding. And that's, of course, why some members of NATO oppose Ukraine's membership. Because once admitted in that, but you know, look again,

let's just talk a little bit about the past for a minute. West Germany was admitted to NATO when it was divided. Right. Even though West Germany never accepted that division as permanent and always hoped for the reunification of Germany, West Germany was admitted into NATO because at that time, the United States and Britain were so anxious to stabilize Europe

and there was a line dividing, the Iron Curtain was dividing Europe in two. So it's not unprecedented that a country could be admitted, even though there is a part that is occupied by another power. But this is such a live conflict now that there is very strong opposition from NATO members who feel that they wouldn't have to come to the defense of Ukraine. Putin has shown no sign. He's never since really 1921, made a single statement which accepts that Ukraine is an independent republic. What remains of Ukraine is an independent republic.

So there's a lot of apprehension among NATO members about, because it only takes once for one member of NATO to invoke Article 5 and not to get, it's only been invoked once in its history, and that was on 9-11. Right. Right? It's never been invoked otherwise. They did, including Canada, did just that right down the line as the coalition force was formed.

Let me ask you this. Let me ask you to play the proverbial fly on the wall on this one. In the last couple of days, a delegation from the EU has gone to Kiev to talk with Zelensky, and the public face of it is they're there to support Ukraine and offer it the support it needs. What do you think is really happening in those conversations? Oh, I'm sure, Peter. After the statement that he made, I am sure these are detailed discussions with those Europeans about what kind of security

guarantee he would accept. Zelensky is a realist. He knows that the door to NATO, there's not even a clear pathway timeline for Ukraine to enter NATO. So the question really becomes, what security guarantees will you accept along that extended timeline that someday you will enter NATO? What can we do that would be meaningful to you? How can we supplement those guarantees? What kind of commitments on weapons supply? It's a very detailed, granular discussion now.

Because on that one, I'm even more convinced than I am on the Middle East that we are standing now in front of some sort of ceasefire, and it will be very, very soon. You know, even seven or eight weeks may be too long, frankly, for the Ukrainian army on the ground. It's that bad for them right now on the ground. Yeah, that bad. You know, last week we were all at Halifax and these are all generals and commanders, chief of defense

forces. And so I asked one of the Europeans, they are very, very strong, strong supporter of Ukraine. How confident are you that the Ukrainians can hold on until the end of January? And he answered, not completely. And the way the Russians have been playing their hand in the last week or 10 days, I hate to use the term, but it looks like they're going in for the kill. Of course.

The way they're firing missiles and using drones. Yeah. Huge numbers. Yeah. So this is the largest attack against the energy infrastructure of Ukraine that we've seen in years. That's one thing they're doing. Secondly, they're attacking the sources of electricity that support the nuclear plants. Now, if there's inadequate

electricity to cool down the nuclear plants, we could well have a catastrophe. So that is a real risk, a real risk. And thirdly, Putin is engaged in, there's a long, fascinating discussion about signaling, but fundamentally he fired an intermediate range, not an intercontinental one, an intermediate missile last week at Ukraine. But what was the signal in that missile? It's configured, if you think about a tree, it has several branches on the tree. And each branch carries multiple warheads. So it's called a multiple independently reentry vehicle, a MIRV. It's designed to carry nuclear warheads.

It didn't have any nuclear warheads. It's not even clear it had warheads. The damage was done from the impact. But that was a signal. He's sending all kinds of asset signals, changing his nuclear doctrine, using what he claims is a breakthrough missile. I don't think it is. But he's sending all kinds of messages. Don't escalate. Don't provide Ukraine with longer-range missiles than this.

And frankly, he can do that because he feels he's in the driver's seat now. Well, all I will say as we wrap this weekend up is we've all made the mistake of underestimating Ukraine in the last three years, right? Yes. Right from the get-go. It looks bleak right now. There's no question about that. And the language sounds bleak as well.

It's coming from Zelensky. We've never heard that before, Peter. Since February 22, we've never heard a statement like this from Zelensky. Alright, well who knows where we'll be next week on all this, but there's comfort in knowing that you'll be with us to tell us where we are. Thanks, Janice. Have a good week, Peter. Dr. Janice Stein from the Munk School at the University of Toronto

you know I mean let's keep our fingers crossed that in fact we are near the end of the killing in these two in these two conflicts that we have spent our Mondays for the last, well, three years discussing. Let's just hope.

With that, we're going to wrap it up for this day. Tomorrow, I haven't really decided yet what tomorrow's program will be. We'll see. We'll keep that option open. Wednesday is our Encore Wednesdays. Thursday is your turn. You heard the question and you should, if you missed it at the beginning of this program, you should dial it back and check the podcast. The question is going to be, in today's

terms, what is a journalist? Very straightforward question. And I'm hoping you'll spend some time thinking about that one before you send along your answer to it to themansbridgepodcast at gmail.com. Keep in mind, make sure you mention your location, your name, and get your answers in before 6 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday. And keep it short. Looking forward to reading them, as always. I'm Peter Mansbridge. Thanks so much for listening today.

We'll talk to you again in almost 24 hours.