PBS NewsHour full episode, March 10, 2022
JUDY WOODRUFF: Good evening. I'm Judy Woodruff. On the "NewsHour" tonight: The war grinds on. Russian forces continue bombarding Ukrainian cities, slowly advancing into new territory, as humanitarian aid struggles to reach civilians most in need. Then: the disinformation campaign.
Vladimir Putin tightens his grip on Russian news media to further spread propaganda about the war in Ukraine. ANTON SHIRIKOV, University of Wisconsin: Ukraine had a couple of successful social revolutions, where pro-Russian governments were toppled. And the Kremlin has been trying to portray all those revolutions as these corrupt attempts to install a regime that doesn't have public support. JUDY WOODRUFF: And making it count.
A new report reveals that minority groups were significantly undercounted in the 2020 census. We examine what that could mean for the future of United States politics. All that and more on tonight's "PBS NewsHour."
(BREAK) JUDY WOODRUFF: It is a day of stalled diplomacy and more deadly fighting in Ukraine. Talks in Turkey between Russia and Ukraine produced no results, while outrage over the Russian bombing of a maternity hospital in southeastern Ukraine grows. Separately, Russia is proposing humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave major cities, including Kyiv. But those promises have lately been followed by air and artillery strikes. Meantime, Ukrainian officials estimate that, in just two weeks of war, $100 billion of damage has been inflicted on the nation.
On the economic front in Russia, more companies suspended operations with the country, and European Union leaders agreed to phase out purchases of Russian oil, coal, and gas, this as China, which has quietly supported Russia, said that it would abide by sanctions against Russia that prohibit sales of airplane parts. But again tonight, we begin with the human toll. Nick Schifrin reports from Ukraine. And a warning: Some of the images in this story may be disturbing. NICK SCHIFRIN: All that's left of Mariupol is the shell of a city. Nine days of bombardment have left universities, homes reduced to debris and dust.
It is a campaign designed to break people's spirit. And, today, they are terrified of how it could get even worse. There are some rescues, but others remain trapped, life in this city is now all but extinguished. ALEKSANDER IVANOV, Resident of Mariupol (through translator): I don't have a home anymore. That's why I'm moving. Why else would I be walking? NICK SCHIFRIN: The cameraman asks, where was his home? ALEKSANDER IVANOV (through translator): It doesn't exist anymore.
It was hit by a mortar. NICK SCHIFRIN: Aleksander Ivanov heads off, with nowhere to go. And there is little dignity for the dead. An old cemetery becomes a mass grave. Morgues are already full; 1,200 people have been killed in this city in nine days.
For exhausted gravediggers, the work is endless. This is a city that increasingly belongs to the dead. VOLODYMYR BYKOVSKYI, Social Services Worker (through translator): The only thing I want is for this to be finished.
I don't know who's guilty, who's right, who started this. Damn them all, those people who started this. What do I feel? I have to live on. NICK SCHIFRIN: The 400,000 people still living in Mariupol remain trapped, without food, water, electricity.
For the fifth straight day, buses arrived empty to evacuate people through a humanitarian corridor. And for the fifth straight day, they left empty, because of Russian shelling. Following the highest level diplomatic meeting since the invasion, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned, the offensive in Mariupol would continue until Ukraine surrendered, which Kyiv has no intention of doing. 0:05:43.279,1193:02:47.295 PETRO KOTIN, Acting President, Energoatom: Everybody hates them and wishes them to go to hell as soon as possible.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Petro Kotin is the acting president of the state nuclear authority, Energoatom. He says the Russian troops who took over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant last week are using it as a shield. PETRO KOTIN: Nobody will shell on them while they're on territory of nuclear power plant, so they're protected. NICK SCHIFRIN: Plant workers took photos of the aftermath of a fight and of a Russian military vehicle parked outside.
During the attack, Zaporizhzhia officials pleaded with the Russians to stop. Today, the staff is taking orders from a Russian military commander who knows nothing about nuclear power. PETRO KOTIN: They are absolutely terrorizing our staff. The occupiers say, you can leave whenever you want. But without replacement, of course, nobody will leave, because personnel understands their responsibility.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Russian troops also control the Chernobyl nuclear zone, the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster. Today, it's disconnected from the electricity grid. Kotin says it must be restored within three weeks. PETRO KOTIN: After that, the temperature will rise, because there is no coolant. And, finally, it will go to very high levels.
And, after that, the radiation, actually, release of radioactivity could happen. NICK SCHIFRIN: And so you're calling for a corridor, a humanitarian corridor, to allow workers into Chernobyl, right? PETRO KOTIN: There were cases that, when they actually agreed to give this corridor, and after personnel came there just for maintenance, they're just trying to kill this person also. NICK SCHIFRIN: A senior U.S. defense official said today, Russian troops near Kyiv, after days of not moving, are advancing toward the city.
Russia continues to control territory in the north, northeast and south, surrounds five cities, and is increasing its assault on the port city of Mykolaiv. Kyiv says the only way to stop Russia is a no-fly zone. But, in Poland, the U.S. continues to block a fighter jet transfer to Ukraine. Today, Vice President Kamala Harris and Polish President Andrzej Duda tried to show unity, and Harris joined growing calls for an investigation into Russian war crimes. KAMALA HARRIS, Vice President of the United States: We have been witnessing for weeks and certainly just in the last 24 hours atrocities of unimaginable proportion.
NICK SCHIFRIN: The bombardment has led to an exodus, especially from the capital, Kyiv, once a thriving metropolis, now a capital deserted. The mayor said today, nearly two million, half the city, has fled. Aid for the displaced has arrived from all over the world through this hub in Lviv, trucks full of donations and an army of volunteers forming assembly lines since three hours after the first missile struck. Every donation they receive, every box they transfer, they believe, contributes to victory. This used to be an arts center, and this stage is full of people who, in their time, play many parts. YURI POPIVICH, Kyiv Volunteer: Here, we have different type of food.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Like 39-year-old Yuri Popivich, who gave me a tour. YURI POPIVICH: I don't think I would be able to take a gun and shoot. So, I thought that I will find a place or some service where I can be helpful with my experience, with my skills, and things like that. For me, I decided that this is going to be my fight, because I can do this. NICK SCHIFRIN: Popivich grew up wanting to become a Greek Catholic priest.
That's him on the left in seminary in Italy. Back in Ukraine, he worked in tourism, publishing, and started a software development company. YURI POPIVICH: This is all the medicine.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Today, he works 16 hours a day here in the basement, a fully stocked pharmacy created in two weeks. YURI POPIVICH: What we do need a lot, wartime medicines. So, we get a lot of requests to supply our militaries with a different type of medicine. NICK SCHIFRIN: This looks like an auditorium? YURI POPIVICH: Yes, it is.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Upstairs, a room full of donated clothes. Who's financing all of this? YURI POPIVICH: No one. This is completely done by volunteers and with volunteers. NICK SCHIFRIN: And downstairs, food destined to besieged Ukrainians around the country.
YURI POPIVICH: These are for soldiers who are actually fighting. NICK SCHIFRIN: In each handmade pack created for front-line troops, a children's letter. YURI POPIVICH: And this one specifically represents Ukrainian army. "Go ahead, win.
Glory to Ukraine." And the sun is smiling. So, there is a hope.
NICK SCHIFRIN: Children still hopeful, but expressing sentiments of war. YURI POPIVICH: When I think about all the lives, all the scars on people's lives and people's souls, it's really breaking -- heartbreaking. We want peace in our country. We don't want our children to make war drawings. We want them to play soccer.
We want them to run around on the grass. Yes, sorry. I get really -- very upset when I speak about this, because, why? What did we do? What -- how did we deserve? NICK SCHIFRIN: Like so many Ukrainians asking, what did they do to deserve this? In Mariupol today, a resident put it this way: There is no way to get any humanitarian aid into the city, and there is no way to get any residents out of the city. Zelenskyy said today that Russian troops shelled the very building where residents in Mariupol were supposed to gather in order to evacuate.
And the fear is that those conditions could be repeated around the country soon. Judy, tonight, the mayor of Chernihiv, near the Belarus border, warned that they had so many fatalities, that city too was running out of burial space. JUDY WOODRUFF: So distressing.
So, Nick, you showed how the humanitarian corridor there in Mariupol had failed. What do you know, what is known about cease-fires in other cities around the country? NICK SCHIFRIN: Tonight, Zelenskyy said that Russians had held fire long enough in seven cities over the last couple of days, so that 100,000 people could evacuate from those cities in the last 48 hours. Now, that is much higher than it was just a couple of days ago. But just, again, to give some perspective, there are hundreds of thousands of people trapped in Mariupol alone. There are hundreds of thousands of people trapped in other cities by Russian forces. And these people are trapped in dire conditions.
They don't even have the basics in which they can live. Zelenskyy told VICE News last night that dialogue with Putin directly is the only way to end the war. But senior U.S. officials I talk to don't see an off-ramp right now to this war. French President Emmanuel Macron said today that he does not see any diplomatic solution to the war. So the fear is, Judy, that soon there will be more days like today.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Just incredibly discouraging. Nick Schifrin reporting for us from Ukraine. Thank you, Nick. And now to a detailed look at an increasingly brutal battlefield in Ukraine. Stephanie Sy has that. STEPHANIE SY: Judy, that is the way to put it.
In recent days, the Russian attack against Ukraine has intensified. It has become more indiscriminate, with scores of Ukrainian civilians killed, and vast swathes of infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, even hospitals and schools, destroyed. For a closer examination of Russia's tactics, I'm joined by Michael Kofman, senior fellow for Russian studies at the CNA, Center for Naval Analyses.
Michael Kofman, thank you for joining the "NewsHour," as always. With the bombing of that maternity hospital in Mariupol, are we seeing a concerted change in tactics by Russian forces? And what can the Ukrainians do to defend against such tactics? MICHAEL KOFMAN, Center for Naval Analyses: I'm afraid we are. And I think folks like me predicted early on that this war is going to get a lot more ugly and, unfortunately, that much of the worse is yet to come in this conflict. We have been seeing the Russian military revert to using artillery fire, multiple-launch rocket systems and a lot of indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, particularly where they get involved in urban warfare. Urban warfare is very difficult.
It consumes armies and forces. Russian military often relies on firepower, overwhelming firepower. And we have seen throughout this conflict, particularly in the last week, which is really the second week of this war, heavy shelling of civilian areas and the urban environments, with, I think, increasingly growing civilian casualties. STEPHANIE SY: As you said, Michael, some of this, you predicted, that it would get uglier, as you say. It has been two weeks, though, since the invasion. What is surprising you about what you're seeing on the battlefield? MICHAEL KOFMAN: Well, the Russian military has had a number of setbacks.
They have definitely not made the progress they had hoped they would make. And the Ukrainian military has shown immense resolve. They have fought hard. That being said, unfortunately, if you look on the overall map, you will see the Russian military slowly, but steadily, perhaps fitfully, progressing, trying to complete an encirclement of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and, where they are frustrated, intentionally switching to tactics of barraging urban areas like Kharkiv or maybe Mariupol, to try to compel the civilian population to leave, and to try a signal maybe to other cities that they should surrender or capitulate to a Russian encirclement.
On the whole, the war where we are now, unfortunately, is very indeterminate. That is, we are much closer to the beginning of it than we are towards the end. STEPHANIE SY: You mentioned some of those major cities that are encircled, including Kharkiv. Does it surprise you how long it is taking for Russians to seize and hold territory? We are hearing, for example, reports from the field that Russian troops in some cases are abandoning their vehicles, that they are using unencrypted comms on the field.
Are they disorganized? And how much is that going to affect the overall outlook of this war? MICHAEL KOFMAN: Absolutely. The initial campaign was absolutely shambolic. They had not prepared for a large-scale military operation. In cases like Kharkiv, they have not encircled the city. Ukrainians have successfully counterattacked there. They have enveloped cities like Mariupol.
They're trying to encircle cities like Mykolaiv. What's really happening on the Russian fight is that it's not been a well-organized effort. They have logistics problems. And, as they went into the war, they didn't psychologically or materially prepare their troops. In fact, in all honesty, they lied to them.
And they pushed them into Ukraine. And that's why we have seen cases of desertion. We have seen a lot of vehicles abandoned. Some of them are due logistical problems, but some of them are a clear-cut case of unit desertion on the battlefield due to low morale, whereas Ukraine, while outmatched conventionally, in terms of qualitative level of equipment, has -- those fighters of strong resolve.
They're fighting for something. STEPHANIE SY: You know, that leads me to the question of whether Russia can really achieve its ultimate political objective of controlling Ukraine, especially as we see dead soldiers, wounded Russian soldiers now in the thousands. MICHAEL KOFMAN: That's a great question. So, the truth is that, given the bad assumptions with which they went into the war, an operation which wasn't attempt at quick regime change, in which they got a bloody nose, and had to reconfigure into a large-scale military operation that you now see them making big adjustments and trying to prosecute, from my point of view, I am very skeptical that they can achieve their political objectives. And don't get me wrong.
They can extract military victories, they can achieve battlefield victories. But I think, in many respects, a lot of their assumptions simply had little bearing on reality. Now they have switched to much more brutal forms of warfare.
They are resourcing a military effort, but it's ultimately behind a failed strategy. And I have deep skepticism that they can achieve their political objectives in this war. STEPHANIE SY: So how long do you expect this war to last, Michael? MICHAEL KOFMAN: Yes, I'm afraid my answer is going to be very unsatisfactory. Wars are highly contingent.
And I know many people are watching this war, they're living it day by day, or, if you're following it like me, maybe hour by hour. But the truth is that this war could go on. It could go on for weeks. It could go on for months.
I do suspect that at the rate of sort of losses of manpower and material, Russian forces could probably be exhausted within a couple of weeks, but the war won't end. There may be an operational pause to resupply or reorganize. Cease-fires often are ways by which both sides rearm and then continue the conflict in a different phase. I think the first chapter of this war is likely to close in the coming weeks. But this war may be here to stay and it may be here with us for quite some time, much longer than we would wish it to be.
STEPHANIE SY: Michael Kofman, senior fellow for Russian studies at the Center for Naval Analyses, thank you, as always, for joining the "NewsHour." MICHAEL KOFMAN: Thanks for having me on your program. JUDY WOODRUFF: In the day's other news: Inflation at the consumer level has hit a new 40-year high.
the U.S. Labor Department reports that retail prices jumped 7.9 percent over the 12 months ending in February. Surging energy, food and housing costs were the biggest contributors, pushed by consumer spending and supply shortages. The numbers do not include a new surge in gas prices triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
But Republicans and the White House sparred today over who's more to blame, President Biden or Russia's Vladimir Putin. SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Gas at over $4 a gallon. And what does Joe Biden say? He said, it's all blamed on Russia. Energy prices have been going up dramatically from the day he took office.
JEN PSAKI, White House Press Secretary: There's also no question that, when a foreign dictator invades a foreign country, and when that foreign dictator is the head of a country that is the third largest supplier of oil in the world, that that is going to have an impact. JUDY WOODRUFF: Many economists are now saying that inflation will peak later than first expected and higher than expected. U.S. officials now say that North Korea tested a powerful new long-range missile in two recent launches.
The Pentagon warned that the missile may well be capable of reaching the United States. It alerted American forces in the Pacific to expect a possible full-range test. South Korea said that the North may try to disguise the weapon as a space vehicle.
Major League Baseball and the players union reached a tentative labor deal today. It ends a 99-day lockout, and preserves a full regular season. It also expands the playoffs to 12 teams, raises the so-called luxury tax, and boosts pay for younger players. Opening Day will have to be pushed back a week to April 7.
In Chicago, the actor Jussie Smollett faced sentencing this evening for falsely reporting a hate crime. He had been convicted of lying to police about being the victim of a racist homophobic attack. In court today, prosecutors read a letter from the city's police superintendent that said Smollett did real damage.
SAMUEL MENDENHALL, Special Prosecution Team: The overwhelming stress and fatigue that was put on the Chicago officers who were involved in the case was immense. The city is a victim of Mr. Smollett's crime, because of his false report caused CPD to expand scarce resources that could have been devoted to solving actual crime, increasing public safety. JUDY WOODRUFF: Smollett could get up to three years in prison. The Biden administration has extended a COVID mask mandate for planes, trains, and other public transportation through April 18.
It had been set to expire March 18. The extra month gives the CDC time to formulate new guidance regarding masking and travel. Also today, the U.S. Justice Department named a chief prosecutor to go after pandemic relief fraud. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that investigators have already turned up $8 billion in suspected fraud.
That is out of about $5 trillion that Congress approved. Victims of opioid abuse confronted the owners of Purdue Pharma today in federal bankruptcy court. Members of the Sackler family listened to more than two dozen virtual testimonies that their company poisoned lives with the painkiller OxyContin.
One recovering addict said -- quote -- "I hope you hear our names in your dreams." The Sacklers have denied responsibility, but they have agreed to a $6 billion settlement. And on Wall Street, oil prices fell again to $106 a barrel. But, this time, it wasn't enough to take the pressure off stocks. The Dow Jones industrial average lost 112 points to close at 33174. The Nasdaq fell 125 points.
That's 1 percent. The S&P 500 slipped 18. Still to come on the "NewsHour": the potential political consequences of undercounting minority groups in the 2020 census; why some state lawmakers are trying to ban certain books from public schools and libraries; plus much more.
CIA Director William Burns told the Senate Intelligence Committee today that he believes Russia's President Vladimir Putin is losing the so-called information war over Ukraine, and that this may chip away at his domestic support for the invasion. But what exactly are Russian citizens hearing about this war on Russian media? William Brangham explains. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: On TV screens and social media feeds around the world, it's an endless stream of the brutality and terror of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. MAN (through translator): They behave like fascists.
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: But, in Russia, the script is flipped upside-down. And, for Russian citizens, this means they're seeing a distorted reality of their nation's war. SERGEY LAVROV, Russian Foreign Minister (through translator): We didn't attack Ukraine.
As we have been explaining many times, they created the threats against the Russian Federation. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov today repeated this false accusation. It was the same one Putin used as pretense for launching the invasion. VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russian President (through translator): We will strive for the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, and will bring to justice those who committed multiple bloody crimes against civilians. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Putin said he was launching a limited military operation, one intended to save Ukrainians from a genocide. It's a familiar distortion.
It's one Putin used in a speech announcing his annexation of Crimea, a peninsula in Ukraine, back in 2014. VLADIMIR PUTIN (through translator): The initiators of that coup d'etat were nationalists, anti-Semites, radicals. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Now the Kremlin is tightening the reins on the media even more. Last week, Putin signed a law that effectively criminalizes accurate reporting about the war.
Even the word war is banned. Publishing so-called false information is now punishable with up to 15 years in prison. The government forced independent channel TV Rain to close. Its editors signed off by playing "Swan Lake," a clear jab at the government, which played the same loop on state TV in 1991 when a failed coup was under way against Mikhail Gorbachev. Russian authorities also shuttered the country's last independent radio station, Echo of Moscow.
It's banned Facebook, too, though Russians can still use apps like Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram, for now. Instead, the government is steering propaganda at even the youngest Russians, releasing this virtual lesson on -- quote -- "why the liberation mission in Ukraine is necessary." TUCKER CARLSON, FOX News: Good evening. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And Russian disinformation gets a boost from some U.S. media as well. FOX News' Tucker Carlson has repeatedly criticized U.S. involvement in Ukraine and expressed
support for Putin, and those clips have made it onto Russian news. TUCKER CARLSON: People are so ghoulish. And, of course, they're promoting war. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: In the U.S., Carlson's view is just one of many that Americans can listen to and weigh for themselves. But, as the carnage of Putin's war continues, the reality for many Russians is only as real as their government allows.
And joining me now is Anton Shirikov. He researches disinformation and propaganda inside Russia at the University of Wisconsin. Anton, very good to have you on the "NewsHour." So, we touched on a little bit of the media that the Russian people are seeing? Can you give us a better sense of what the average Russian is seeing about Ukraine on their news? ANTON SHIRIKOV, University of Wisconsin: Yes. Thank you for having me there, first of all. So, what Russians are seeing is mainly that there is some military action going on in Ukraine, but this is all very targeted, this is targeted against Nazi battalions, against military infrastructure.
It doesn't hurt any civilians. And most Ukrainians are welcoming Russians.They want to get rid of their corrupt and fascist government. But the government is resisting and government forces are resisting. And so that's why Russian forces are in Ukraine. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And these depictions of certain parts of Ukrainian society being fascist or Nazi, as you're mentioning, those, as you have written, tie into a fairly long history as far as Russian information about Ukrainians.
Can you explain that a bit more? ANTON SHIRIKOV: There is a long history, so Ukraine has been a thorn in Putin's side, in Kremlin's side for quite. Ukraine had a couple of successful social revolutions, where pro-Russian governments were toppled. And the Kremlin has been trying to portray all those revolutions and the democratic development in Ukraine since then as these corrupt attempts to install a regime that doesn't have public support, that is installed by the West. And so -- and that ties into this wider narrative that the Russian government is promoting that NATO and the West are behind most of Russia's troubles, and this is one of them.
And they are speaking to this -- to this grievance that Russia has, Russians have because of the Soviet collapse, because of the West winning this Cold War, and that this is what the government is trying to exploit. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: And can I ask you sort of a chicken-or-the-egg question? Is this -- does this media feed into people's preconceived notions or does this media create those notions? ANTON SHIRIKOV: I think it's both. So, there is definitely a lot of grievances about the West, a lot of bad feelings towards the West. But what propaganda does, it builds on those and it constantly provides information that's consistent with those beliefs. And if you repeat this, if you throw a lot of those false narratives, then people -- over time, people get used to them.
And they sort of start think -- they believe -- they feel like they have believed this already before. So, this is a feedback loop, essentially. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: We have been hearing certain reports of Ukrainians calling family members in Russia, saying, we're under attack, the bombs are going off, and that their relatives in Russia are saying, what are you talking about? That's not happening. I mean, that has got to be an incredibly jarring experience for Ukrainians, to have their basic reality being denied. ANTON SHIRIKOV: Yes, that is terrible.
That is absurd. I mean, I, myself, having relatives in Russia, have had a similar experience. When I say that, yes, Ukrainian cities are bombed by Russians, they say, no, nothing like that is happening. It's just those Nazi battalions that are making provocations. They are just pretending that there is something going on.
But, really, we are there to help. That's it. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Given that there are these other social media and messaging apps, like Instagram and Telegram and WhatsApp that are available, can people get an accurate portrayal of what's happening in Ukraine if they want it? ANTON SHIRIKOV: I think, if they want it, they still could. So, on Telegram, there are -- there are still channels that cover Ukraine truthfully, or -- more or less.
People can use a VPN. They could go to one of the independent media Web sites that are still working. They're working mostly from outside of Russia, but they're available yet. So, if you want, you can. But most people in Russia still don't seem like they want it. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: There are seemingly some signs that this facade is starting to crack.
We read some reports today about some state broadcasters mentioning that the sanctions are biting quite hard in Russia, and perhaps the president ought to consider dialing back, as they call it, this limited operation. Do you think that that is real? Do you think that facade will continue to crack? ANTON SHIRIKOV: I think that's the billion-dollar question for now. So, there are probably some people who -- some anchors, some people on TV who said something like that. But the question is, if this dissent would be eliminated quickly, I think the government will still be able to hold this impression of winning, of being on the right side for some time. But I think what's more important is that people would still start feeling the new reality soon, because of the sanctions, because of -- unfortunately, because of the bodies that are coming home from Ukraine.
So, I think that might have more -- a deeper impact on Russians' perceptions of the war. WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Right. There's a certain level that you just simply can't escape, the fact that your economy is tanking and your people are dying.
Anton Shirikov from the University of Wisconsin, thank you so much for being here. ANTON SHIRIKOV: Thank you. JUDY WOODRUFF: Today, the U.S. Census Bureau released a report looking at the accuracy of its 2020 population count and whether it missed key groups of people across the country. Lisa Desjardins has more.
LISA DESJARDINS: The census found miscounts with multiple groups. The official census number overcounted two groups, non-Hispanic whites and Asians, but it undercounted Blacks, Native Americans living on reservations and Hispanics by even more. To talk more about those miscounts and what they mean, I'm joined by NPR national correspondent Hansi Lo Wang. Hansi, let's just start with those overcounts and undercounts, especially the undercounts. Exactly how large were they? What are we talking about here? HANSI LO WANG, NPR: Well, we're talking about undercount set, for Latinos, more than three times the net undercount rate compared to 2010.
That's a dramatic increase. And for the Black people and for Native Americans living on reservations, they are numerically higher net undercount rates, but the Census Bureau says they're not statistically any different. But, still, the bottom line here is that there is this racial gap between people of color, generally speaking, and people who identify as white and not Hispanic. And what is also interesting is that you do see an overcounting of Asian Americans, which was not seen in 2010.
And just to be clear, it's also not clear exactly how well the Census Bureau did in counting Pacific Islanders. LISA DESJARDINS: I'm going to play the sounds, some of the concerns we heard from some of these groups today. Listen to some of this. MARC MORIAL, President, National Urban League: Some four million-plus, maybe as many as five million, Black people have been missed, and perhaps an equal number of people of Hispanic and Latino descent have been missed, is a tragedy and an act of near malfeasance and incompetence. ARTURO VARGAS, Executive Director, NALEO Educational Fund: Today we learned that this census was really a five-alarm fire when it comes to Latinos.
The undercount of Latinos has tripled between 2010 and 2020. And I think that has significant implications for the entire country. LISA DESJARDINS: Not just concern there. You and I were both on the call with the Census Bureau.
There seemed to be some anger from some of these groups as well. Can you help us understand, why is this happening? What do we know about why some groups in the official census number just are not counted as they really exist? HANSI LO WANG: This is a longstanding flaw with census numbers going back decades. This trend is not new. And what is new is that, in 2020, we had the pandemic, coronavirus. Just as counting was getting really started nationwide, the outbreaks were happening. And we had years of interference from former President Donald Trump's administration, beginning, most notably, with the failed push to add a citizenship question to the forms.
It did not end up on the forms, but it stirred up a lot of controversy, a lot of fear, a lot of uncertainty from a lot of households, especially those with immigrants living in them, of whether or not to participate in the census. And then, during counting, in 2020, the former -- former President Donald Trump's administration ended counting early. All of these raised -- all of these factors raised the risk of undercounting people of color, because research has shown that the way to get those groups counted is through that person-to-person interaction, in person, door-knocking, interviews, not necessarily counting on households to fill out a form and essentially participate in the census on their own. And so that's really major factors here of why we're seeing really a bad report card in many ways for the Census Bureau. LISA DESJARDINS: Racial groups are not, of course, the only demographic.
And in this census, this review also found that another group was undercounted significantly, children under the age of 5. We reached out to a children's advocate to talk about what exactly they think that means, their concern there. BILL O'HARE, Partnership For America's Children: Probably the most important reason this matters for young children and for children in general is that there's about $1.5 trillion given out by the federal government to states and localities every year. That's $15 trillion over 10 years, if the census data is used.
And that buys a lot of things, like schools and child care and playgrounds, things that kids need. LISA DESJARDINS: In both of these areas, for kids and also for different racial groups in this country, can you help us understand what's at stake? What does a miscount in the census really mean in real lives? HANSI LO WANG: When we're talking about the census, we are talking about power. We are talking about money. These are the numbers used to reallocate each state's share of congressional seats, Electoral College votes. They're being used to redraw voting maps for every level of government across the country. And these are numbers used to help guide the distribution of some $1.5 trillion a year
for health care, for transportation, for education, almost all public services. And so, when there are these racial inequities baked in, in terms of inaccuracies of these counts, you're going to have racial inequities baked into the decision-making, into how power, political power is shared, how federal funding is shared. We're not even talking about how researchers, businesses rely on this data to have just a basic general understanding of who is living in the United States of America. And based on these undercount rates and overcount rates that the census put out today, it's another point of evidence here that these numbers aren't true reflections of exactly who is living in the country. LISA DESJARDINS: Hansi, in our last 30 seconds or so, what's next? Are these numbers final? I know some groups are thinking about court action.
But are these numbers final now? HANSI LO WANG: Well, these numbers have already been used to reallocate congressional seats, Electoral College votes. They are already being used to redraw voting maps. The Census Bureau -- one of the Census Bureau officials did confirm to me today that the bureau is looking into possibly doing some more research in how to use these over and under-cutting rates and to factor them into upcoming population estimates. And those estimates help guide how that federal funding is distributed. So, that could have some potential impact here on maybe a more equitable distribution of federal funding.
But it is a real big question of just how a lot of local communities, when they look at their numbers, and they feel like they're not quite an accurate reflection of who is living there in their communities. It's a big question of what actually can be done, beyond waiting for the 2030 census. LISA DESJARDINS: Hansi Lo Wang with NPR and our census guru, thank you so much. HANSI LO WANG: You're welcome. JUDY WOODRUFF: And we will be back shortly with a look at why some books are being pulled from school curricula.
But, first, take a moment to hear from your local PBS station. It's a chance to offer your support, which helps to keep programs like ours on the air. For those stations staying with us, we explore the art form known as Sufi music, a centuries-old tradition built on poetry and mysticism coupled with specific instruments, meters and repetition. One Brooklyn-based Pakistani musician is steeped in that history, and yet is also going her own way, refusing to let others define her work.
Special correspondent Tom Casciato has our encore report. TOM CASCIATO: Arooj Aftab recently debuted work from her latest album at a concert at Brooklyn's Pioneer Works. Her compositions are personal, her performance intimate, but it was far from a solo effort. AROOJ AFTAB, Musician: The way that I like to kind of produce this music is leaving space for the band. We're all involved in telling a story from this moment the song starts until the very end.
TOM CASCIATO: Still, the band is executing a vision of which she is in command. AROOJ AFTAB: To even actually conceptualize a band like that is a creative work. Especially as a singer/composer who doesn't actively play an instrument, there is this sentiment in the industry of, like, kind of discrediting women for the work that they do. You have to kind of overstate that you're not just a singer. You are also the composer.
You're also the producer. You're also the arranger. TOM CASCIATO: She's also unwilling to let others define her. She sings mostly in Urdu, her lyrics drawn from poetry often centuries-old.
Her music draws from seemingly everywhere. For example, she will bring non-traditional instruments like synthesizer and lever harp to a traditional South Asian poetic form like the ghazal. She's even given her style its own name, neo-Sufi. AROOJ AFTAB: It's not South Asian classical music with -- like fused with jazz.
It's like it's living in its own world of, like, a marriage of many roots and heritages. So I was kind of like, I need to, like, name this right now, you know? (LAUGHTER) TOM CASCIATO: Take ahold of it. Writing of her recent album, "Vulture Prince," the music site Pitchfork said she has "as much a claim to the Western traditions of jazz and experimental electronica as to the folk and classical music of her homeland." The album is dedicated to her younger brother, Maher, who passed away in 2018.
AROOJ AFTAB: When it's a younger sibling, it's almost like you're kind of -- if they're young enough, you kind of raised them too. So it's like such a weird -- kind of weird sort of loss. TOM CASCIATO: Her loss and her art converge in a composition called "Diya Haiti," its lyrics derived from a poem by the popular 19th century Indian poet Mirza Ghalib. AROOJ AFTAB: And I loved the poem itself, but it took me a really long time to actually, like, make it mine. When I was workshopping it and trying to figure it out, like, I was in Pakistan, and I was hanging out with Maher.
And so it's the last thing that I really sang to him. And so that kind of felt important to me that I should really just, like, figure it out and put it in the record. TOM CASCIATO: There was a time as a teenager in Lahore, Pakistan, when it looked like she would never make a record. Were your parents OK with you wanting to be a musician? AROOJ AFTAB: I think they were like, that's not going to work out for you.
Like, that -- you're not going to make any money. What are you saying? You want to be famous? TOM CASCIATO: Still, she had the self-assurance to take on a poet of more recent vintage, Leonard Cohen, and his celebrated composition "Hallelujah." AROOJ AFTAB: I think no one believed in me at the time. And I really wanted to -- I wanted to -- I wanted people to believe that I'm good at music. TOM CASCIATO: She was more than good. Aftab's version of "Hallelujah" went viral in Pakistan.
It also helped fuel an ambition she revealed to her parents. AROOJ AFTAB: And I was like, well, there's this college. It's called Berklee. And I will get a bachelor's degree, and I will study audio engineering and jazz. And they were like, oh, OK.
So somebody has organized this for us. Fine. Let's do it. TOM CASCIATO: Accepted to Boston's prestigious Berklee College of Music, Aftab moved to the states in 2005. She kept at her goal of becoming a professional musician, but got her degree in music production and engineering.
AROOJ AFTAB: I felt that I needed some sort of, like, concrete industry skill. I came out of Berklee in like 2008 or '09, moved to New York, super recession times. All the music studios were kind of closing. People were making all these products that you could record at home. So it was just like, oh, great, no -- we don't -- they don't need audio engineers anymore. TOM CASCIATO: Audio engineering's loss was composing's gain.
Where else would we get a song like "Last Night," with lyrics adapted from 13th century Sufi mystic and poet Rumi put to a beat like this one? AROOJ AFTAB: I really liked the idea of juxtaposing Rumi with a reggae groove, but also kind of jazz, upright bass vibes, and then, like, adding this sort of Urdu meter in the middle. TOM CASCIATO: There's just a whole world of things you just talked about in half-a-sentence. (LAUGHTER) TOM CASCIATO: Let's just go back for a minute.
AROOJ AFTAB: I was reading a lot of Rumi. I was also listening to a lot of reggae. In a jam, like, those two things kind of came together.
TOM CASCIATO: I'm not sure they have ever come together before. (LAUGHTER) TOM CASCIATO: It's not like, you know, those Rumi reggae tunes that everyone does. (LAUGHTER) AROOJ AFTAB: Right.
TOM CASCIATO: Aftab says, for her next album, she'd like to explore the writings of a medieval Indian ruler and warrior called Chand Bibi. AROOJ AFTAB: She was one of the only and first female feminist warrior politician bad-ass who, like, released an anthology of poems. I liked the fact that her work has never been put to song. TOM CASCIATO: And do you relate to feminist badass warriors? (LAUGHTER) AROOJ AFTAB: I think so. I think that we all probably came from her. TOM CASCIATO: Maybe that's where Arooj Aftab came from, where she's taking her audience is somewhere new.
I'm Tom Casciato for the "PBS NewsHour" in Brooklyn, New York. JUDY WOODRUFF: Advocates are sounding the alarm about set of measures that they say target teaching and writing related to LGBTQ issues, race and, more broadly, freedom of speech. Around the country, efforts to ban specific books or even whole categories of books are on the rise. Jeffrey Brown has a conversation for our arts and culture series, Canvas. AMANDA MCCLANAHAN, Iowa Resident: Can you tell me, does equity and inclusion also include incestuous relationships? JEFFREY BROWN: Contentious school board meetings. AMANDA MCCLANAHAN: Child-adult sex and books that promote pedophilia.
JEFFREY BROWN: And controversial decisions to remove books from the curriculum. Political campaign ads. WOMAN: It was some of the most explicit material you can imagine.
JEFFREY BROWN: And moves in state legislatures to target subject areas and even penalize librarians who keep titles on their shelves. Books especially focused on race and LGBTQ issues are being challenged, in some cases taken off school and public library shelves. The American Library Association says it received 330 reports of book challenges in the fall of last year, more than double the amount received for all of 2020. And PEN America, a free speech advocacy group, reports that, since January 2021, 174 education-focused legislative bills were introduced in 40 states that target content in a variety of ways; 162 of those target K-12 education.
And it's spreading to public universities, with bills explicitly directed at higher education. PEN America recently announced a new Book Defense Fund, with seed money from Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle to educate the public and partner with local communities to fight book bans. There's a long history of book controversies in this country, says PEN America CEO Suzanne Nossel, but this feels different. SUZANNE NOSSEL, CEO, PEN America: It's an intensification, far more book bans sprouting up all over the country than we ever saw before, more formalized efforts.
They are not just a challenge in an individual school system or library, but legislation being introduced in statehouses that would affect the availability of books all over the state in every school and library. The ferocity of the debates and the link to larger political tensions and polarization, it's inflaming communities, and that's something we haven't seen before. JEFFREY BROWN: What books do you see most affected? What -- where's the impact? SUZANNE NOSSEL: It's overwhelmingly books by and about people of color and LGBTQ individuals. So, it can be stories about a transgender, kind of coming-of-age story, stories about slavery, about Black Americans and the Black experience and racial injustice in this country. So, those kinds of narratives that are something other than kind of a pure, very traditional what some people might think of as a standard, old-school American story. JEFFREY BROWN: And I'm sure you have thought about sort of, why now? I mean, what happens in the culture to bring something like this to the fore? SUZANNE NOSSEL: I think it's a product in part of demographic and political and cultural change that is afoot in this country.
We're becoming a much more pluralistic country, without any one single dominant racial group, and there's a backlash to that. There's a sense that something is being lost, that the way people grew up, the stories that they read, the world that they saw decades ago is changing, and maybe changing too quickly, and that can be seen as threatening. JEFFREY BROWN: Because it is true that the book publishing world, school libraries around the country are -- have in recent years introduced more books around gender issues, around race issues. SUZANNE NOSSEL: I think that's part of it.
It's also -- there's also a level at which this is politically manufactured. There is an effort to gin up support for certain parties, certain ideologies. There's a lot of frustration among parents after the last couple of years with schools being disrupted during the pandemic, debates over masking. And this is kind of a vein that they have tapped. You know, we think about a pocketbook issue that affects somebody at home. This is a backpack issue.
JEFFREY BROWN: But it is also still the case in this country, for the most part, that the education system is local. Public libraries are local. Who decides? SUZANNE NOSSEL: You know, there are very well-established patterns. Typically, it's librarians who make choices about what to purchase. It's teachers and principals who decide what's going to be on the curriculum.
Parents can be part of a school board. They can come to a PTA meeting. If they have concerns, they can raise those. You know, this is something different.
JEFFREY BROWN: We are focusing right now, for the most part, on recent challenges from conservatives. But I know your organization has also done a lot of work around universities, education system on challenges from the left. Is our country now politicized in this way, in the way we look at books? SUZANNE NOSSEL: Yes, I worry that sort of free speech is losing its grounding on both the right and the left. On the left, we see a lot of people, and particularly in a rising generation, who see free speech as kind of a smokescreen for hatred, as just a way of sheltering those who victimize and protecting bigotry, legitimizing bigotry.
They have lost a sense of why it is that free speech protections are so fundamental to the movements that they're trying to wage, whether it's for racial justice or gender justice or climate justice. You need free speech protections in order to go to battle on those issues and be able to put forward your perspective, to challenge authority. So that's happening on the left. And then, on the right, we see this kind of startling invocation of the means of government, the power of government, legislation, to dictate on the basis of viewpoint what can be in a school curriculum, what even can be taught in colleges and universities. JEFFREY BROWN: I mean, it's interesting, isn't it? Because if you think about writers and books through history have been revolutionary, they have been used as weapons, they have been used to push ideas forward.
But you're seeing books being weaponized in a different way. SUZANNE NOSSEL: Yes, I mean, I think it's an illustration of just how powerful books are. But we sort of think, in the digital age, is anybody still reading? Do these books still matter? They still matter.
And that's what we see in these battles. JEFFREY BROWN: All right, Suzanne Nossel of PEN America, thank you very much. SUZANNE NOSSEL: Thank you.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And on the "NewsHour" online: As the war in Ukraine grinds on, we know many parents are trying to figure out how to talk to their children about the conflict. So, we reached out to educators to get their advice. You can read how they suggest navigating this difficult subject. That's at PBS.org/NewsHour. And that's the "NewsHour" for tonight. I'm Judy Woodruff.
Join us online and again here tomorrow evening. For all of us at the "PBS NewsHour," thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon.
2022-03-13 08:19
