Former CNN President Tom Johnson

Summary

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Amanpour – Former CNN President Tom Johnson (September 26, 2025)

Podcast: Amanpour (CNN Podcasts)
Host: Christiane Amanpour
Main Guests: Tom Johnson (former CNN President), Adam Svjanovic (artist), Farah de Boiville (historian), Walter Isaacson (contributor)
Main Theme:
The episode explores the challenges and responsibilities of journalism and free speech in times of political turbulence, featuring reflections from former CNN President Tom Johnson. Other segments honor immigrant experiences through art and examine the nuanced history and fragility of free expression.

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Main Interview: Tom Johnson, Former CNN President

Introduction & Early Life

• Amanpour opens by setting the episode’s stakes: a week marked by heated debates over free speech and mounting pressure on journalists in the wake of late-night show controversies and threats from political leaders (00:38).
• Tom Johnson shares his humble beginnings in journalism, highlighting personal struggles and the formative influence of early mentors:
  • “At age 14, I needed a job... Along the way, I fell in love with journalism. I was then, and I am now, a real news junkie.” (03:30)

Becoming President of CNN

• Christiane Amanpour recalls Johnson’s unusual introduction to CNN and Ted Turner:
  • Johnson humorously describes being offered the job while suffering from food poisoning during an interview dinner with Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. Ted’s parting words:
    • “You’ve still got the job if you want it.” (04:32)
• Amanpour reflects on CNN’s rise during Johnson’s tenure, especially during the Gulf War, crediting innovations in live reporting and technology that positioned CNN as a global leader. Johnson details the historic decisions:
  • “If [Turner] really meant it [to be the best in the world], we needed to lease all the transponders, put portable uplinks in position everywhere... Ted said, ‘You spend whatever you think it takes, pal.’” (06:21)
  • The four-wire technology allowed CNN to report live from Baghdad despite infrastructure attacks:
    • “CNN was still up live with audio and was the only network from Baghdad at that time.” (06:21)

Standing Up to Power & Defining Moments in Journalism

• Johnson discusses the pushback from U.S. leaders during the Gulf War and CNN’s commitment to journalists’ safety and independence:
  • “Ted said, ‘Our policy will be: those who want to stay can stay. Those who would like to come out can come out.’” (08:33)
• Reflections on Vietnam, the limitations of official narratives, and the centrality of independent press:
  • “The press got it right and we were not winning the war. In fact, after the gigantic Tet moment... I really regret that there wasn’t an opportunity to bring about peace earlier.” (11:20)
• On current wars and press restrictions, e.g., in Gaza:
  • “It is reprehensible that the global media... aren’t on the scene there... There’s so grave a need... to be able to report independently and accurately.” (14:02)

The Challenge of Free Speech in Democratic Societies

• Amanpour plays a clip of her own famously tough question to President Clinton during Johnson’s CNN tenure, asking about policy on Bosnia (16:14).
• Johnson affirms journalistic duty:
  • “We must continue to ask the tough questions of the leaders that are in power. We must also fight back... to prevent the type of attacks on media that we are receiving today...” (16:33)
  • “The role of the press is to be the watchdog, not the attack dog, not the lapdog, but to be the watchdog of government.” (17:34)

On Mental Health and Resilience

• Johnson openly discusses his lifelong struggle with depression, emphasizing hope and the importance of support:
  • “If there is one message that I try to deliver in my book, it is depression is a treatable illness... It was such a dark, dark period of my life. I did seriously contemplate suicide...” (18:45)
  • Credits support from his wife and a dedicated psychiatrist as transformative.

Closing Praise

• Amanpour closes with gratitude, and Johnson reciprocates:
  • “There was no correspondent who was more important to the network... than Christiane Amanpour.” (20:53)

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Segment: Art and Immigration – Adam Svjanovic’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral Mural

Celebrating Immigrants in Art

• Amanpour visits St. Patrick's Cathedral to discuss artist Adam Svjanovic’s monumental mural celebrating New York’s immigrant history.
• Svjanovic describes the honor and responsibility:
  • “As an artist, you always dream of having a stage... this is a big stage. So then it felt like... a tremendous responsibility.” (23:03–23:27)
• The mural’s design weaves the story of the landmark’s Irish roots, subsequent waves of immigrants, and the diversity of New York:
  • “I tried to have it so there’s people from everywhere on the planet because that really is New York... the New York City school system has 160 languages in it.” (27:25)
• On the mural’s title, “What’s So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding?”:
  • “As I was painting this, I would sort of check my newsfeed and see what you were talking about... It’s awful out there... Why not? What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding? Maybe everyone should just chill, take a breath.” (30:39)

The Universal Immigrant Experience

• Svjanovic shares his own immigrant story and his mother’s empathy:
  • “She was like, ‘I don’t want to [join the DAR]... These people are just like me. You know, we’re all immigrants here. If you’re not Native American, and it’s just like there’s no difference.’” (35:13)

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Segment: The History and Crisis of Free Speech – Farah de Boiville with Walter Isaacson

Contemporary Threats

• Farah de Boiville, Princeton historian and author of “What is Free Speech?,” discusses government-press tensions amplified by the pulling of Jimmy Kimmel’s show.
  • “It’s terrible. It’s an abuse of governmental power... It shows up the power of the private media to shape public discourse... a terrible precedent for independent voices.” (38:04)

Historical Complexity

• Free speech is revealed as a centuries-old, inherently contradictory concept, born of repeated struggles:
  • “The bad news is... it is an essentially incoherent, weaponized concept... But the good news is... People have been puzzling over this for 300 years and come up with a whole lot of really interesting additional ideas...” (40:07)
• On the evolution from religious to political free speech:
  • “The modern idea... is really about political speech. It’s the idea that every individual has the right to speak out on matters of public concern... a development that doesn’t take off until the early 18th century.” (42:26)

The Public Good vs. Individual Liberty

• De Boiville urges a nuanced view:
  • “Laws should be as minimal as possible when it comes to speech... The only thing I would say is that we do need to acknowledge that speech can cause harm... from history that this can cause genocide...” (45:12)
  • On social media: “They are constantly amplifying certain messages, suppressing others. They are censors on a vast scale. The minimal thing that we need... is transparency...” (46:50)

The Present Crisis

• Drawing parallels to past “red scares,” De Boiville sees the current moment as a direct threat to democratic foundations:
  • “This is really the third red scare and it’s attempts to not just shut down particular voices, but shut down opposition to a would-be autocrat... We should be aware of that.” (49:52)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Tom Johnson:

  • “Depression is a treatable illness... I did seriously contemplate suicide... It was not easy, but [my wife] stuck with me.” (18:45)
  • “[CNN] must continue to ask the tough questions of the leaders that are in power.” (16:33)

• Christiane Amanpour:

  • “Our policy will be those who want to stay can stay. Those who would like to come out can come out.” – quoting Ted Turner’s principled stance during the Gulf War (08:33)

• Adam Svjanovic:

  • “This is a painting about showing the dignity of all people... As long as you understand the basic humanity of somebody who is the other, the whole dialogue winds up in a much better place.” (31:35)
  • “We’re all immigrants here. If you’re not Native American, there’s no difference.” (35:13)

• Farah de Boiville:

  • “Freedom of speech is always a hot topic when people are living through new kinds of communication circumstances. The media revolution of the 18th century is the revolution of print. That’s where it begins.” (42:26)
  • “We need to have independent news media that stand up to power, not just bow down to it.” (38:04)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Tom Johnson Interview (Main): 03:03–21:21

• Gulf War and CNN’s Defining Moments: 05:49–10:09

• Vietnam War Reflection: 11:20–14:02

• Modern Press Access and Gaza: 14:02–14:54

• Free Speech and Media Crackdown: 14:54–18:09

• Mental Health and Resilience: 18:45–20:27

• Adam Svjanovic/Immigration Mural: 23:03–36:57

• Farah de Boiville/Walter Isaacson/Free Speech History: 37:44–51:58

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Summary

This episode of Amanpour serves as a reflection on the past and a warning for the present. Tom Johnson’s journey models the critical stance and courage required of journalists to uphold democracy. Adam Svjanovic’s mural offers a counterpoint: a testament to the enduring value and dignity of all immigrants—past and present—illuminating the importance of empathy in a polarized time. Farah de Boiville’s historical sweep underscores that the free speech debates that dominate headlines today are neither new nor easily resolved but demand vigilant protection and thoughtful consideration by each generation.

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Transcript

[Walter Isaacson]

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[Farah de Boiville]

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[Adam Svjanovic]

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[Farah de Boiville]

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[Christiana Amanpour]

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[Farah de Boiville]

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[Adam Svjanovic]

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[Farah de Boiville]

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[Adam Svjanovic]

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[Farah de Boiville]

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[Christiana Amanpour]

Hello everyone, and welcome to Amanpur. Here's what's coming up.

[Tom Johnson]

We must continue to ask the tough questions of the leaders that are in.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Power as the right to free speech faces an uncertain future. I speak to CNN's former President Tom Johnson about his memoir, how the Modern Media Can Survive.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Then, as an artist, you always dream of having a stage, having a conversation with people.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And this is a big stage celebrating New York's immigrants. I visit artist Adam Svjanovic and his new mural at St. Patrick's one of America's most visited cathedrals.

[Farah de Boiville]

Also ahead, this is much more than just an attack on free speech.

[Christiana Amanpour]

First Amendment Princeton historian Farah Duboisville tells Walter Isaacson what we can learn from centuries of censorship. Welcome to the program, everyone. I'm Christiana Manpour in New York. It wasn't just the annual UN Summit in town this week, but a raging debate over free speech and the Jimmy Kimmel show dominated the space this week. Even in the halls of power, in the face of Trump's diatribes and threats, you could sense the trepidation. Don't poke the bear seemed to be the prevailing wisdom. For the media, the threat is all too real. Even after talk show host Jimmy Kimmel came back on air, a chagrined President Trump was talking about launching new lawsuits at abc, adding fuel to a fire that has been burning for months. Our first guest tonight is someone who helped shape the legacy media landscape and worked in the White House during the most contentious period, the Vietnam War, civil rights and the counterculture of the 1960s. As president of CNN throughout the 1990s, Tom Johnson had a front row seat for many of the moments that defined the late 20th century, from the Gulf War to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Now he's sharing his memories in a new book, A Life in Public Service and Journalism, From LBJ to cnn. And he joined me to reflect on how things have change and the state of Media Today. Tom, welcome to the program.

[Tom Johnson]

Thank you, Christiana. It's an honor to be with you.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Well, I can't believe I'm interviewing my former CNN president during my most important years at cnn. But I want to start by asking you, what motivated you to be a journalist? You had this inspiring sort of setup when you were sort of a wannabe. What helped you really get through it? Also, you didn't really have the money to pursue a lot of your studies and internship.

[Tom Johnson]

At age 14, I needed a job. There were two places to work. First in grocery stores and newspapers. They were both areas that permitted a young person to work. I was so fortunate to get a job on a newspaper where the reporters and editors cared about me. That newspaper provided me with scholarships to attend journalism school and then to attend Harvard Business School, all on financial aid. Along the way, I fell in love with journalism. I was then, and I am now, a real news junkie.

[Christiana Amanpour]

I'm going to skip forward before I get to the detour you took by going into the LBJ White House. A news junkie. Eventually, you became president of cnn. And I honestly, to this day, I just laugh my head off every time I read or I hear how you got your first interview with. With Ted Turner and you weren't feeling so well. Give us a little, you know, give us the short version of that fateful night.

[Tom Johnson]

My first interview with Ted was actually in Los Angeles. We had a dinner with Ted and Jane Fonda, my wife Edwin, and I. I was feeling badly on the way to the restaurant. I could tell that I was becoming nauseous. And I also, by the time we arrived at the dinner, I was going to the bathroom to throw up from time to time. Ted and Jane were totally oblivious. They were so in love. I mean, they were like teenagers. But in any case, Ted offered me the job. And I told Ted that I had to think about it a bit. Anyway, it was a wonderful dinner. On the way home, I was feeling even worse. I asked my wife to pull over. She did. I got out on the side of the road and was very sick. Anyway, it went up. Said, you know, we'll go ahead and take you back to the hotel and to Jane's place. As Ted was leaving, he shouted, you've still got the job if you want it. But it was a very embarrassing night. And yet, as I. It's one of those unforgettable evenings.

[Christiana Amanpour]

I mean, I just think that's so funny, you know, Ted and Jane in the car and you throwing up on the side in any Event you became president of CNN. And it went on for 10 or 11 quite glorious years. Really important because it was when CNN kind of hit the global stage, running with the first Gulf War, just again, remind me, and remind everybody what distinguished us and what technology. And you talk about Robert Weiner, the great producer and the four wire box that put us, you know, ahead of the whole gang.

[Tom Johnson]

In Baghdad, as Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, then Secretary of State Jim Baker and then Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq reached an impasse. President Bush said, this will not stand, this will not stand, this will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait. I, along with Ed Turner, went up to meet with Ted Turner. Ted had told me when he hired me that he wanted CNN to be the best network on the planet. I told Ted, if he really meant it, we needed to lease all of the transponders, put portable uplinks in position everywhere we could outrun the other networks and, and be prepared for war. Ted said, what will it cost? I said, ted, it could cost as much as 30 million or more. I'll never forget his exact words. You spend whatever you think it takes, pal. So when war did come down, we were prepared. And thanks to Nick Robertson, one of our very junior production technicians at the time, now one of CNN's best correspondents, he put in place a four wire technology that permitted us to bypass the Iraqi phone system, the Iraqi power system. So when the bombs did fall, CNN was still up live with audio and was the only network from Baghdad at that time.

[Christiana Amanpour]

That put us on the map, Tom, in a global way. And it was the beginning of my career as well in terms of being a foreign correspondent. But what I'm also interested in is that the President of the United States, the, I think the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Defense Secretary, they didn't want any of us being behind the lines, so to speak, behind the enemy lines. What did they say and what did Ted say? They didn't want journalists to be in Baghdad when the war went down.

[Tom Johnson]

Yes. My first call came from the President's press secretary, Marlon Fitzwater. The next call came from the Chairman of Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell. The third call came from President Bush himself. All three warned me that our staff in Baghdad was in grave danger. They made it clear that the actions were about to occur without telling me exactly when. And I thanked President Bush for the call. And I then immediately called Ted and relayed to Ted that I'd had these three calls. And I'll never forget that moment in time before I could even tell Ted what The options were which was to stay in Baghdad, to go back to Amman, or to go to the outskirts of Baghdad. In a very loud voice, Ted said, tom, our policy will be those who want to stay can stay. Those who would like to come out can come out. I relayed that to our magnificent executive producer in Baghdad, Robert Wiener. And that was our policy. Those who wanted to stay did stay. Unfortunately, those who wanted to come out were unable to get out because the Baghdad airport, the Saddam International Airport, closed. And to this day, I've never revealed and will not reveal those who wanted out, but stayed and covered it with great distinction and with great, really, with great courage.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Yeah, they did. And it was a really huge defining moment for cnn. So can we also just pause to say that yourself and our boss, Ted Turner, stood up to the pressure from the White House, the Pentagon and elsewhere. I think that's important to say at this time in ourin our history. Let's go back now to the detour you took from being a young wannabe journalist. A journalist and then getting into the White House. You were the first class, I believe, or one of the first classes of White House fellows. You worked there under thein the Johnson administration as a young person with Bill Moyers, who was a key adviser and a press secretary. And you kept, you know, moving forward. You were also in the midst eventually of a terrible war, the Vietnam War. What do you remember from then that you then came to the conclusion to afterwards? For instance, in the book, I couldn't stop but think about what you said. You know, I now I'm, you know, ready to admit that I should never have wanted President Johnson to run again. In other words, it was such a bad situation, he shouldn't have run again. And of course he didn't.

[Tom Johnson]

Well, the war was catastrophic. The loss of life both on the American side and the Vietnamese side was just almost beyond description. And I should say that at the time, I was mostly a note taker in the most confidential meetings that occurred, much of which was about the war. I was so focused, maybe with almost tunnel vision about my role and accomplishing my role, rather than, I think, processing the situation. We were getting reports from General Westmoreland and Military Command Vietnam that were unbelievably positive. General Westmoreland said, there's light at the end of the tunnel. However, Peter Arnett, then of the Associated Press and later to be with cnn, was reporting that the war was not going well. Other reporters, Walter Cronkite, there were others that were reporting that the war was not going well at all. I saw reports coming back from media and reports coming back from official sources that were so different. Ultimately, it was very clear that the press got it right and we were not winning the war. In fact, after the gigantic Tetra moment when the South Vietnamese were overrun by the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong, and I really regret that there wasn't an opportunity to bring about peace earlier, say in 1965 rather than much, much later. The bombing pauses, the bombing, the pauses. There were those who wanted to really almost bomb North Vietnamese back to the Stone Ages, the view of General Curtis LeMay and there were others who wanted us to do whatever it could take to get peace no matter what, and we should have gone the peace path.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Just as you're speaking, I just wanted to ask you a reflection about, you know, you just said the press got it right in Vietnam and the military got it wrong. They were giving the wrong information to Rosie. Obviously we know about the five o' clock follies, their rosy press conferences in Saigon, etc. What do you reflect about the war of Israel against Gaza? Because we are not allowed to be there. There are heroic Gazan Palestinian reporters telling the story, but none of us can get there. What do you think would be the trajectory if we were there now or in the last two years?

[Tom Johnson]

It is reprehensible that the global media, including US and international correspondents, aren't on the scene there. There would be dramatic, really grave dangers to correspondence if they were. But those who wish to go, who are independent, genuine reporters, not reporters who are acting as cover for either the Israelis or the Palestinians, but genuine reporters, they should be allowed to report there. We too often now are only accepting the views of the Israeli government press office. And there's so grave a need, so serious a need to be able to report independently and accurately.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And I want to also ask you about free speech. And obviously we're talking in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination, the crackdown by the administration and the FCC on various media and including pulling the Jimmy Kimmel, you know, the late night comedy show from abc. If you don't mind, I want to play something that you were there for because you were president of cnn. Ted was there, I think all these CNN executives back in 94 or 95 when I was asked to ask a question from the field of then President Clinton, I just want to play some of it and have you to react. So my question is, as leader of the free world, as leader of the only superpower, why has it taken you, the United States so long to articulate a policy on Bosnia? Why, in the absence of a policy, have you allowed the US and the west to be held hostage to those who do have a clear policy, the Bosnian Serbs? And do you not think that the constant flip flops of your administration on the issue of Bosnia sets a very dangerous precedent and would lead people such as Kim Il Sung or other strong people to take you less seriously then you would like to be taken?

[Tom Johnson]

No, but speeches like that may make.

[Farah de Boiville]

Them take me less seriously than I'd like to be taken. There have been no constant flip flops, madam.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Well, I remember that really well. And I just wondered was there any pressure from Clinton or the White House to fire me or discipline me?

[Tom Johnson]

There was no pressure to fire you. There was considerable unhappiness by the president and by his press office with the very tough question that you put to him in that forum. I do believe, though, that is what we must do. We must continue to ask the tough questions of the leaders that are in power. We must also fight back in every way we can touch, particularly using our legal resources, hopefully to prevent the type of attacks on media that we are receiving today from the Trump administration.

[Christiana Amanpour]

It's very troubling times and I agree with you. Sort of a joint defense, one for all and all for one is what we and other professions need. And just another question, what did Ted and yourself and the other executives think? Because you didn't punish me either.

[Tom Johnson]

My view was terrific. I mean, I've always felt that the role of the press is to be the watchdog, not the attack dog, not the lapdog, but to be the watchdog of government. And you were doing just that, asking the questions that need to be ask, particularly in a democracy and particularly because we have the protection of the First Amendment.

[Christiana Amanpour]

You know, it sounds very self serving, but I use that because of the situation that we're in right now. So I'm glad to hear that you still feel that way. Tom, can I ask you because you've been very open about it, all your amazing jobs, your amazing success, your beautiful wife and family, all of that that came your way. Nonethele couldn't, you know, spare you from a very deep depression that plagued you for quite a lot of your life. Tell me the worst of it and how you not got out of it, but how you essentially learned how to deal with it and now speak about it.

[Tom Johnson]

If there is one message that I try to deliver in my book, it is depression is a treatable illness. There are now medications and therapies that can enable most people to get better. And I so hope that those who are in the grips of depression, as I was, to understand that you can improve. And I should also say that it was such a dark, dark period of my life. I did seriously contemplate suicide. I really was in the darkness and was having such a tough time coming out. I think in part having a new job, an exciting new job as president of cnn, and also having a new psychiatrist and a guy who was doing enormous amount of research, Dr. Charles Niemiroff, now of the Dell Medical center in Austin, Texas, a combination of the two. And I can't overstate the importance of having a spouse who was able to endure some of the worst of my times. And it was not easy, but she stuck with me. But I also should say that she was the one that demanded that I go to see a psychiatrist then at ucla or else. And I really think that she meant or else I'm out of here.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Well, you know, I think that's a happy, if a little bit sad note, but a happy note because it ended up well. And you end your book Driven with a, as you say, a love letter to Ed winner. So with all of the incredible revelations and there's so much more I want to ask you about, but thanks for being with us and good luck with this book. You know, you were at the helm during a really golden period, and I thank you for everything you did for us and for me.

[Tom Johnson]

During my time at cnn, there was no correspondent who was more important to the network, to news provided to the world in a more significant and a more heroic way than from Christian Amanpour. And I say I'm seriously honored to be on the show with you today.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Thank you, Tom Johnson, very much indeed.

[Tom Johnson]

Thank you.

[Christiana Amanpour]

I told Tom I was going to remove those kind words of praise. He told me, you'd better not. So I didn't. For the record, coming up, one of New York's most famous landmarks gets a revamp. We'll take you into St Patrick's Cathedral to see the mural honoring the city's immigrants. That's after a break.

[Farah de Boiville]

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. I'm worried about this generation in Face to face communication because it's not an easy thing to do. Susan Greenfield is the author behind Mind How Digital Technologies are Leaving Their Mark on Our Brains. We discuss outsourcing our lives to digital devices and how that impacts our human connections. Listen to Chasing Life Streaming now. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Now, you might not believe it today, but America was once proud to be known as the only true nation of immigrants. This week, Trump told global allies that they're all going to hell because of immigration. Arrests and deportations continue here, and whole communities are living in fear. Communities that are made up of teachers, first responders, veterans, and the like. They inspired our next guest to answer the call to transform a side of St Patrick's Cathedral into a giant mural. Did you ever dream that you would have a massive mural in this most important cathedral in New York?

[Adam Svjanovic]

That would be a solid. No.

[Christiana Amanpour]

I visited artist Adam Svjanovic and his work celebrating the waves of immigrants who made this city, New York great. Adam Svanovic, welcome to the program.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Thank you very much.

[Christiana Amanpour]

What did you feel when you knew that you got this commission? It's really a massive commission. And it's the first time I think they've done that here.

[Adam Svjanovic]

My understanding is, yes, the first time that they've done that, certainly in a very long time. And I felt, help. This is a very scary thing. And then I felt, this is a. I mean, it's an amazing opportunity to. As an artist, you always dream of having a stage, having a conversation with people, and this is a big stage. So then it felt like, all right, it's a big stage. I've got, got it. I'm gonna do something. And it just began to feel like a tremendous responsibility. And then I tried not to think about it at all because it wasn't helpful.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And what did the cardinal or whoever presented you and pitched you this. What was the mission? What was the, you know, the pitch?

[Adam Svjanovic]

I think the mission was to show knock and to show something about the church's relationship with the Irish and to show how that continues into the present day.

[Christiana Amanpour]

So Cardinal Dolan, who is the archbishop, he is Irish himself, He just tell us about Knock. Knock, from what I understand is a village in Ireland, and there was almost a mass visitation. There was a vision which many people saw the Virgin Mary. Is that correct?

[Adam Svjanovic]

Yes, they saw the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, St. John the Evangelist, the Lamb of God and some angels.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And the connection is that that vision happened just as this cathedral was being. I don't know what the right word is, commissioned or. It opened its doors.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Yeah. And I don't know what the right. But, yes, the cathedral opened, was finished and opened its doors because I think they still had services in here while it was being built.

[Christiana Amanpour]

1879.

[Adam Svjanovic]

1879. Right.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Tell me the size and the scale of it.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Of the cathedral?

[Christiana Amanpour]

No, of the mural Cathedral's the size.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Of a football pitch. It's enormous. The mural is small in comparison to a football pitch, but big enough. So it's in a part of the church which is where the front doors are, which is actually at the back of the church, which is called the narthex. And so there are three doors in that space. And the space is sort of sheltered to itself, which is really great for doing a painting in there on three sides. And then it's open to the church on the fourth side, and it is 25ft tall. And the total length is probably about 75ft.

[Christiana Amanpour]

So it's big. And when the doors are open, it has. It's a nice day and the right time of day. The light is incredible on these people. Who are the people? Who are the immigrants? Is it a particular group? Is it a particular time when they came in?

[Adam Svjanovic]

Well, it's sort of divided. The painting's divided into four sections. It's the logic that I had to follow around the doorways that are in the painting. So on one section is knock, and underneath knock are Irish immigrants from the 19th century. And they are actually all 20th century people from suburban New Jersey. But your models. Yes, my models. And they're playing Irish immigrants. They're actually playing their great grandparents. In a lot of cases, people actually are Irish who are in the painting and they're sort of. They all have family stories about who came over or whatever. And so they all dressed up in 19th century fashion and such, as it was.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And what you were telling me out there, that, you know, successive groups of immigrants went through really difficult times. I mean, the Irish, they were fleeing the famine, the potato famine. They came over here, but it wasn't like they were embraced. I mean, this is meant to be about an embrace. But they weren't, were they?

[Adam Svjanovic]

No, they were not embraced at all. They were. They were thoroughly discriminated against in every possible way. And I think they had a. And that's not just the Irish. That's the Italians, it's the Jews, it's everybody who came in that chamber.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Chinese. I know they came to the west, but absolutely.

[Adam Svjanovic]

No, it's everybody who came in the 19th century who wasn't Protestant, but some.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Also, you were telling me you've got some Iranians depicted, some Afghans. There's a big Muslim population in New York as well.

[Adam Svjanovic]

There's a big Muslim population in New York. I have people from the Far east who are in the mural. I tried to have it. So there's people from everywhere on the planet because that really is New York. My understanding is that the New York City school system has 160 languages in it. And so, you know, that says something right there. And people tend to narrow it down and think, well, it's only about Central American or South American immigration to the United States. And there are parts of the United States where that is overwhelmingly true, but New York is not one of them. New York is a place where people really do come from all over the place. It has, it really does have a massive Chinese community here.

[Christiana Amanpour]

There are several historical, historic figures who you depict from St Francis Cabrini, Pierre Toussaint and St Kateri Tekawitha.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Thank you. That's it.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Tell me, tell me who each of those are.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Well, we discussed a little bit Kateri Tekawitha out when we were at the painting, and she is Mohawk, the so called Mohawk saint. Really by history, not by when she was canonized, but by history. She's the oldest American saint. I mean, you can't really beat that in America, all that. And standing next to her is Archbishop Hughes, who built the cathedral. And so he is there for obvious reasons and very dear to the heart of the Irish American community in New York because he really stood up for their rights in a moment when, as we discussed before, it wasn't so good. And then next to Kateri, on the other side is Al Smith. And he's just there because I like Al Smith and no, that's not true. He's there because there was a moment when I put a paramedic in the other side and had to balance off the painting. So he's an added figure. But they proposed various other saints and I was like, well, you know, sort of redundant. And then it turned out that the Cardinal and I both liked Al Smith.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And there's, of course, the famous Al Smith dinner.

[Adam Svjanovic]

There is the famous Al Smith dinner.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Which brings all the great and the good, but it's secular. Right, because he wasn't a holy figure.

[Adam Svjanovic]

No, he wasn't. But he is a very important Irish figure. First Irish governor of New York, first Irishman who ran for president. First Catholic who ran for president even.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Before John F. Kennedy.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Oh, yeah, back in the 1920s. Now, he got trounced.

[Christiana Amanpour]

He got trounced.

[Adam Svjanovic]

But. But America wasn't ready for that at all. But he did it. And it was really important to a lot of people, obviously, that he did do that. And I think given the fact that it was New York, you know, in the teens and 20s, and we're talking about Tammany, hall at that point. And, you know, corruption was sort of like a natural thing. He was actually pretty good and pretty clean.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And Pierre Toussaint, he's a Haitian born philanthropist. That's interesting that he's depicted.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Well, he is, as far as I understand, the only non clerical person who's buried here. So he's just down the stairs there? Yeah, down the hall, down the aisle, down the aisle in the crypt.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Yeah, I like the title of this work, what's so Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Well, you can thank Nick Lowe for that. That's his title. And then of course, Elvis Costello did a good cover of it. And the title.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Is it your title? You chose that?

[Adam Svjanovic]

Yeah, I did. And I chose it because as I was painting this, I would sort of check my newsfeed and see what you were talking about. And I was like, oh, God, shoot me now. It's awful out there. And here I am, you know, thinking about these catastrophic things happening in the world. And I'm painting angels and saints and everything. And I'm like, yeah, well, why not? You know why? This is actually a good thing. What's so funny about it? What's so funny about peace, love and understanding? Maybe everyone should just like, chill, take a breath.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And again, a really good maxim for right now. Really, really important. So it was interesting when Dolan basically told people about it. He said, look, you know, we live in a political moment where immigration is obviously very, you know, a bit of a. A bit of a lightning rod. But this isn't a political painting. And yet you can't really escape.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Okay? Yes, that's right. This is not a political painting. And whatever my politics are about immigration are not in that painting, except in that. And this is a place where the church and I were kind of in alignment. It's a painting about showing the dignity of all people. And I think that becomes political only in that the dehumanification of people is the first step towards a whole lot of very, very bad things. And as long as you understand the basic humanity of somebody who is other, the whole dialogue winds up being in a much better place. So it has political implications, but it itself is not political.

[Christiana Amanpour]

And go back, you know, hundreds of years, Middle Ages or less. Popes, cardinals, big figures in the church. Let's just keep it to the church. They were patrons of great painters. I mean, Michelangelo and of course, you know, you had the Medicis and etc. But you may not be able to draw a link. But is there some kind of specialness about being, you Know, getting this patronage, so to speak.

[Adam Svjanovic]

This whole project has a specialness to it, which is very strange. And there were patrons who paid for. This isn't paid for by the church, it's actually paid for by modern day Medicis who ponied up the money for it. And that's great that they did that. And then. But as an extension of thinking about this thing connected to another time, there was a. A couple weeks in the studio where I had the gilders in their gilding and Muhammad was making his stretchers, and I had someone assisting me doing a charcoal pounce. This is how you translate a cartoon, a full size drawing to the painting to get the outline. You pounce it through tracing paper with charcoal. And that is a completely Renaissance technique. All of this was happening in the day, a natural light, no one was listening to music. And my wife happened to be there, and that evening we were having a drink and I turned to her and said, look, Juliet, you just saw an amazing thing. You just saw a Renaissance studio in 21st century Brooklyn with all these people doing this extraordinary level of artisanal work for the Catholic Church. You know, when does this happen?

[Christiana Amanpour]

You know, it is remarkable when you put it that way, actually. And I just wonder whether that in itself that, you know, sort of conditions the environment that you're talking about is especially important right now, where people don't necessarily have that, you know, the bandwidth to think to be alone or to be with a whole load of people, but not to be, you know, talking loudly and not to be on their phones, not to be distracted.

[Adam Svjanovic]

It is super special, that kind of space and that kind of time. But the whole act of painting and the whole act of observing painting is on a completely different time frame. I mean, the idea is that this painting is here forever. Now, forever is a long time. But say it's here for a period of time that's longer than our grandchildren's lifespans or whatever, then it means that there'll be a point in the future where people are communicating with this painting and looking at the people in this painting and all of the big pop stars and great celebrities or whatever are going to be footnotes in a trivia show.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Tell me about your own immigrant experience, because I do think what you just said is interesting because, you know, every single day, not only are there the tourists here, but the people who come to mass here, and they're all going out that way. They may not be the front door, but they're all going out and they're all going to see It. Right, that's. That's quite humbling.

[Adam Svjanovic]

It is, it is. And my own. My own family's experience is that my father came on a boat. Like, for real. One of the last people who actually came on a boat through an asylum. Yeah, just before it closed down. So. Yeah, so he came in the early 50s and his whole family came. And so they were all piled in a small sort of tenement building in Cambridge where I grew up before people got a little more prosperous. And I didn't even understand I was in America until I was about five years old, because all I heard were these other languages and everything. And all the customs in the house were different, with the exception of my mother, who was vastly outnumbered by my father's family. But she. Her family came mostly in the 1630s. North Shore, Massachusetts, Puritans, Mayflowery types. Yeah, Mayflowery types. Very stern Protestants, you know, built this country and all that. And the thing, the lesson that I got from my mother, which stuck with me when I was making this painting, is that, is that she was a teacher her whole life, but a very serious, like a double master's, really thought about education. And when she retired, she spent all her time helping immigrants learn how to read English, helping them try to get jobs, how to try to get green cards. And somebody asked her once, she said, well, you could be in the dar. You could be all these. And she was like, I don't want to do that. She said, these people are just like me. You know, we're all immigrants here. If you're not Native American, and it's just like there's no difference. And so that she really saw it that way. And that vision of hers was something that I've always carried with me.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Well, that's a great place to end. Really nice. Adam Svjanovic, thank you so much indeed.

[Adam Svjanovic]

Thank you, Christian.

[Christiana Amanpour]

We'll be right back after this short break. Next, a closer focus on the history. Our next guest says that anyone who thinks this right is uniquely under threat today is mistaken. Farah de Boivilla is a historian at Princeton University. In what is free speech? He traces it from the pre modern age to our present day. And he's joining Walter Isaacson to explain what we can actually learn by looking back. This conversation took place before Jimmy Kimmel's show came back on air.

[Farah de Boiville]

Thank you, Chris.

[Walter Isaacson]

John and Farad de Boivola, welcome to the show.

[Farah de Boiville]

Thank you, Walter.

[Walter Isaacson]

Most recently in the United States, we've seen, with some government encouragement, a network taking off the comedian Jimmy Kimmel. What do you make of that in terms of free speech rights?

[Farah de Boiville]

Oh, it's terrible. It's an abuse of governmental power. It's done in a way that really also shows up the power of the private media to shape public discourse. In this case, private corporation acting in its own interests rather than in the interest of the public, has decided commercially and politically it's sensible to bow down to the current administration. And that's a terrible precedent for independent sources of news, for independent voices, which is one of the foundations of a flourishing democracy. We need to have independent news media that stand up to power, not just bow down to it. The other thing about this that is really remarkable and dangerous is that the fcc, like regulatory bodies in other spheres, the Federal Reserve, the ftc, there are many of them, are all bodies that are set up rightly in the public interest to regulate something that is very important to our community. It's not about individual rights, it's about the public interest. And they're supposed to. All these bodies are supposed to operate on a non partisan basis, or at least a bipartisan basis, and not to be swayed, especially not to be swayed by government dictates. And that system is now being attacked and undermined by the current administration. It's extraordinary that a single person at the fcc, basically, even though it's the chairman, can make these kinds of pronouncements and wield this kind of power. That's a complete abuse of what the FCC is supposed to be doing and what it stands for and why it was set up.

[Walter Isaacson]

You once had your own experience of having your free speech suppressed. Tell me about that. And what did that make you think?

[Farah de Boiville]

Well, I had many experiences because I wrote a book on the history of sexual attitudes in the west. And that's a topic on which conventions in different cultures differ about what you should say in public. Mosun but in particular, I went to China 10 years ago after my book was translated into Chinese. And first of all, my book was censored. The Chinese have different views on what you can say about sex. Even in history, that was trivial. But what really profoundly shook me was going to China and seeing that the communist dictatorship there had put in place this extraordinary system of censorship whereby everything that anyone said in public was continually monitored, scrubbed clean and forced to toe the party line. So that is clearly an oppressive, dictator, dictatorial system that tramples all over individual rights of expression. I came back from that visit knowing that this was horrible, knowing that I believed in free speech, and wanting to find out where that idea came from. Why do we all believe in free speech, and yet we can never agree on what it means within our cultures, across our cultures. And I'm afraid the bad news is that that is an insult because it is an essentially incoherent, weaponized concept, and it has been ever since it was first invented 300 years ago. The good news is, as my book shows, people have been puzzling over this for 300 years and come up with a whole lot of really interesting additional ideas, tools, theories of how to think about it that we really need to remember and pick up on. Because our current mess is partly because we think about this in a very simple way as free speech means just the individual right to say whatever you like. And censorship is always a bad thing, and it always comes from government. Those are too simplistic, a set of presumptions with which to approach. It's very complicated, very interesting, very important, right and ideal.

[Walter Isaacson]

So you've got the book on free speech. Let's go back to the beginning. To what extent is freedom of speech related to freedom of religion?

[Farah de Boiville]

It's tangentially related, but there are many ways of arriving at the idea of free speech. And freedom of religion is just one of those. It happens to be important in the English speaking world because the idea of freedom of conscience, which is the core of freedom of religion, comes out of the reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries. And then people developed the idea, which is radical at the time, that you should be allowed to speak freely on spiritual matters without being persecuted or put to death, because ultimately human beings don't know the truth about salvation. And so it's better to discuss this and let God decide whether you're right or wrong. But that's a very limited idea of free speech. The modern idea that we now take for granted is really about political speech. It's the idea that every individual has the right to speak out on matters of public affair, matters of public concern. And that's a development that doesn't take off until the early 18th century. And it starts first in England, and it starts there because it's a moment of communications revolution like our own day. Freedom of speech is always becomes a hot topic when people are living through new kind of communications circumstances. And the media revolution of the 18th century is the revolution of print. So that's where it begins.

[Walter Isaacson]

Early on in the United States, even before the First Amendment, there was a sense, and this was true of England as well, that even if you printed something that was true, if it undermined society, if it undermined the government, it could be called seditious. Seditious libel. And that was fought against both in England and the United States.

[Farah de Boiville]

So seditious libel lies in the eye of the beholder. That's always the case. That's always the problem with defining freedom of speech in very balanced ways, that ultimately you end up with something very subjective. That's why everyone hates and finds it impossible to make watertight laws. Because it's, you know, communication is exquisitely contextual. It's not just about what you say, it's about who is saying it, about who the audience is, about all these things that we in normal communication can navigate. But once you start to make laws, that makes it very difficult. Laws are based on simplicity, transparency. Everyone should be treated the same. And that becomes then a giant mess. And we see that around the world today.

[Walter Isaacson]

Isn't there a problem with laws that try to restrict my own individual? Free speech.

[Farah de Boiville]

Laws should be as minimal as possible when it comes to speech. The only thing that I would say is that we do need to acknowledge that speech can cause harm. Not just individual actions, but, for example, the spreading of lies and untruth or libels of whole groups of people. We know from history that this can cause genocide, that it can really damage communal relations in all sorts of ways. And that's a problem. That's always been a problem. And so if we have guardrails in place, not against defense, not against people having their feelings hurt, but against real harm, if we try and define real harm, then it's legitimate to have laws against that. And that's what people are trying to do around the world. The real problem at the moment is that public discourse everywhere has become taken over more and more by American online social media companies that now monopolize discourse. And they are operating from different principles. They're operating, first of all from American principles that are more maximalist, more libertarian. But secondly, they're also operating as all mass media in the past have, not in the public good, but to make money. And that is a different kind of incentive.

[Walter Isaacson]

Do you think that you should force, say, online media companies to act in the public good instead of just acting for commercial purposes?

[Farah de Boiville]

I think that the minimal thing that we should understand is social media companies are publishers. They're the most powerful publishers the world has ever seen. They are constantly amplifying certain messages, suppressing others. They are censors on a vast scale. So the minimal thing that we need as a society to require is transparency about how they're doing that, simple transparency. What are their mechanisms that the Algorithms are using to amplify certain messages and voices and suppress others, and then are they applying these consistency consistently? That's all. That's not censorship. That's just requiring some kind of responsible transparency about their huge power to shape public opinion in the world today. And that's what people in Brazil are trying to do. That's what people in the European Union are trying to do with the legislation that's been put forward there. That's not censorship. That's an attempt to hold these giant corporations to account for the power they wield in shaping public discourse.

[Walter Isaacson]

Let me quote something from your book, which you say a paramount purpose of laws and governments has always been to safeguard the public interest. But perhaps I'd say if you went back to the Bill of Rights, which is exceptional in the world, it's not the way other countries do it, that the paramount purpose of the Bill of Rights was to safeguard the individual's liberty, not just the public interest.

[Farah de Boiville]

I think those two things are always in tension. And America has a wonderful, noble, proud tradition of individual rights. The First Amendment has a great history as safeguarding individual rights to political speech and political dissent and attacking the administration, all the things that are currently being trampled by the current administration. But on the other hand, you cannot have a society that works if you don't agree on certain ways of living together. The public good is a very difficult thing to define, but we do need to define it in order to live with each other. And so a minimalist understanding of what the public good might involve, for example, not being allowed to spread untruth and lies about really dangerous things. Or that if you're engaged in political debate, you may not in bad faith, just make it up as you go along. I think that would be helpful in just thinking about what free speech should mean and in policy making as well.

[Walter Isaacson]

When you talk about maybe we should balance free speech with what's good for society and political reasons, do you worry that when a party you may not like is in power, they can use it? In other words, the Attorney General Pam Bondi, saying things like we should crack down on hate speech, which slightly echoes a little bit of what you said earlier in the show, or the head of the FCC saying we should look at this.

[Farah de Boiville]

I think what we're seeing in the United States right now is first of all an outrageous, hypocritical crackdown on free speech. And on the accepted interpretation of the First Amendment, that's absolutely a problem. But it's a much bigger problem. We're seeing really an attempt to undermine independent sources of authority and to silence voices and opinions that the current administration doesn't like. And that's a really dangerous undermining of democratic process in general. So absolutely at this point we should be shouting from the rooftops that this is illegitimate. This is not the tradition that we as Americans are proud of. And ironically, the strong protections of the First Amendment that we currently enjoy come out of the first and second red scares when something very similar happened. The the idea that communists were beyond the pale, that their voices should be shut down without question, that homosexuals didn't deserve to be in government. All these kind of progressive, anti progressive government attempts at censorship in the 1910s and 20s and 1950s led to the First Amendment protections for political dissent that we currently enjoy. So this is really the third red scare and it's attempts to not just shut down particular voices, but shut down opposition to a would be autocrat who is following the playbook that we've seen in other countries in Hungary, in Turkey, in India, whereby you don't just suppress voices that you don't like, you try and cripple independent sources of authority, judges, institutions like universities, the independent working of scientists. And I think this is much more than just an attack on free speech. We should be aware of that.

[Walter Isaacson]

Farad de Boyville, thank you so much for joining us.

[Farah de Boiville]

Thank you very much, Walter.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Join us next week for my spirited conversation with Jane Fonda, two time Oscar winner, anti war activist and environmentalist. She joined me alongside her fellow activist Mela Chiponda, who are not giving up the fight to save the environment, no matter what anyone says.

[Tom Johnson]

The fact is that now we're facing two existential crises, climate and democracy. And we can't have a stable climate.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Unless we have a stable democracy.

[Tom Johnson]

And you can't have a stable democracy.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Unless you have a stable climate. They're interrelated and they have to be solved together.

[Farah de Boiville]

The climate crisis is not a crisis that can be done by just women in Africa or women in the global majority.

[Christiana Amanpour]

This is a crisis that is global in nature.

[Farah de Boiville]

And therefore this is the time for all people who care for people and.

[Christiana Amanpour]

The planet to come together and say.

[Farah de Boiville]

We have to do something and we'll.

[Christiana Amanpour]

Have much more of that. But that's it for now. If you ever miss our show, you can find the latest episode shortly after it airs on our podcast. And remember, you can always catch us online, on our website and all over social media. So thank you for watching and goodbye from New York, Claire.

[Farah de Boiville]

I'm CNN tech reporter Claire Duffy. This week on the podcast Terms of Service, special guest Dr. Sanjay Gupta, we're going to talk about how and why medical misinformation spreads online and how people can find good information to help make important decisions about their health. 55% of adults say they are now using social media to find health information and advice. Nowadays, it seems like the currency is to clickbait. Putting out things that are demonstrably not true has become very, very normal. Listen to CNN's terms of service with me, Claire Duffy, wherever you get your podcasts.