Eric Newton is vice president of the journalism program at the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The following are his remarks delivered at the Federal Trade Commission’s “News Media Workshop” held on December 1 and 2, 2009:

I’d like to talk about Cicero.

When Cicero was sent to the provinces, he was quite unhappy with the commercial news packets coming from Rome.

He wrote back complaining that what he needed to know were the votes of the senate but instead he was getting weird stories about Gladiators and ostriches.