 Good evening. Good evening. Thank you all for coming to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I'm Andrew Schwartz. I'm Vice President of External Relations here at CSIS. And have the pleasure of hosting the Sheeper Series with Bob Sheeper in the Texas Christian University TCU School of Journalism. I'd like to acknowledge some of our colleagues from TCU who made it up here from Fort Worth. And we're really looking forward to this terrific panel tonight. I also have the pleasure of announcing that tonight from here on we have a great company, United Technologies has agreed to sponsor this series going forward. And you may know United Technologies, they're a diversified company that makes elevators, Otis elevators and escalators, Sikorsky aircraft, all these kinds of things. And we're just so lucky to have them on board to help this series continue to be great and to be able to host you all. And with that I'd like to throw it over to Bob and let everybody get started. All right. I would like to tell you that we do have the first team from TCU here today. And I'll just introduce them as they're seated here. John Lumpkin is the new director of the Sheeper School. Hold your applause till the end. Victor Buccini is the new, he's not new, he's been there. He is our esteemed chancellor of Texas Christian University. That's Bonnie Melhardt who is the associate provost. There's Noel Donovan who's the provost of the university. There's how often introduced is the cute little blonde, Pat Sheeper who is the trustee of TCU. She's right there. And sitting next to Pat is Daria Fadiva who is a Russian student at TCU who is doing an internship this summer at CSIS. And she's also taking Chinese at night over at Johns Hopkins. Daria, just stand up and let everybody see you. Well, I thought it wouldn't be fair and I must say I want to thank both of you all. I know you didn't have much to do this afternoon. There's not much going on and I really do appreciate you taking this time, at the busiest time of the day for those of us in television to come and talk about journalism and the Sunday shows and what's going on. Our old friend Tim Russert used to say that when he was named moderator of Meet the Press, he said he felt that he had been appointed the curator of a national treasure and I thought that was exactly right because these Sunday shows really are, not to put too fine a point on it, but they are really something special. Sunday mornings on television is a different time of the day and it's a different time period from any other time period because these broadcasts are information driven. They're not about show off anchors. They're not about gotcha questions. Even when we do. Even when we do. They are about getting information and trying to advance the story. And, you know, Meet the Press is the oldest program on television. CBS Face the Nation was started, I guess, about seven years after Meet the Press was started. For the sole reason that Frank Stanton, who was the president of CBS, said we need something to compete with Meet the Press because they had the only live interview show. While they're the oldest, ABC came along some years after that, but while these shows are the oldest continuous shows on television, of all the programming on television, I would say they have changed the leaks. Basically we do today exactly what we did in those early shows and that is get the key people involved in the top story of the week, sit them down at the table, turn on the lights and ask questions. That's what they were doing back then and we have better technology now but that's basically what we're doing today. Let's just talk a little bit about the news first. This was a pretty heavy day for all of us. The president held a news conference. We've got the situation building in Iran. George, what did you think of what the president said today? I had deepened the news conference that he had ratcheted up the rhetoric but I think he's probably a minority of one on that because he clearly did. He's got the disease that infects every single president. They're all convinced no matter what their press is like that they're getting the worst press than any president ever got and it's just objectively not true here. I don't understand why he was so intent on convincing people that he hadn't changed his position. If you go to 10 days and he hasn't changed the underlying position of engaging with Iran no matter what but Saturday for the first time he called for an end to the violence. Saturday for the first time he used the word justice when he talked about the side that the protesters were on and today for the first time he used the word outrageous and I think abominable and outrageous and that was clearly the White House is watching this. I think they've been surprised by the strength of the protest movement and they're calibrating their response. I hesitate to say anything about intelligence with Mike Hayden sitting in the second row. I noticed that too. You just see who he's got some right next to him. I'm not going to be heading to foreign armed services issues either but I think it's in part and I beg you to correct me if I'm wrong I think part of the reason they're so surprised is that we don't have that much good intelligence about what's happening on the ground in Iran. We haven't had good human intelligence. We had to leave in 79 and we don't really know how the forces are coalescing, fighting, competing inside that top council of clerics and I think that's part of the reason why they've had a hard time figuring out exactly what to say on any given day. And there's no question this is extremely sensitive. We're walking a very fine line here. I mean the United States cannot come out and say storm the Bastille here and then if they do it's not going to help. A lot of people will get killed and then you have to ask the question well what do you do after that? Well precisely what do you do after that if there's an even bloody or crackdown that we've seen. I mean I think it's interesting and you could chart this throughout the week that once the regime got more aggressive then the response got more aggressive and kind but what do you do if there's even more violence? Plus I just think it's a practical matter. I mean look this is a pragmatic, compromise driven, realist driven president who said to our guy at the White House Chuck Todd today, I'm not going to talk about what the repercussions might be because we don't know how all this is going to play out. I mean I don't think they're much in the business of regime change at this White House. They've seen that movie and it hadn't worked out so well for the previous administration. I think they want to be in the business of coming to some sort of agreement on nuclear weapons that's the game here and I think he is biding his time to see what and who and how strong a figure he's dealing with. Well one thing he did say he said what happens in the streets is going to determine how we deal with Iran in the future so if he was trying to hold a little bit of a stick up there I guess you could say that was it but I mean when you come down to options we're extremely limited in what we could do here. I mean what would we do? What would we do if we decided to bomb? I mean what kind of a message would that be to the world? We're going to bomb a country if we don't like the way the election came out? Also they'll maintain that the engagement with Iran is not going to be a reward for good behavior so certainly there hasn't been any good behavior to reward here in the past week and a half. I think the question is whether the Iranian regime is weaker, more defensive, more isolated and does that make them more or less willing to deal with the United States? Their whole strategy here and that's why this Russian meeting is important is to peel off all the patrons kind of like the healthcare debate. You peel off all the patrons away from Ahmadinejad and then maybe you know maybe he's got fewer places to turn. And that may be the question even setting aside with the Iranians we have so little control over them given what they've revealed about themselves in the last two weeks are Russia and China more likely now to go to the stage of really imposing tough sanctions on the Iranians now that they've been revealed? We don't know the answer to that yet. I think that's the other reason the President is biding his time. I thought one of the more interesting things in the news conference today just as a long time watcher of news conferences is that the second question went to the Huffington Post and the President said in the news conference he was calling on the Huffington Post correspondent because he understood that a lot of people in Iran are getting their news off the internet. Let me just add as somebody who was in the White House Prescor who was accused not personally but you know we were all in questions about whether Bush had the questions in advance for the press conferences which he never did and there was never any discussion to that effect. The President today called on Niko from Huffington Post and seemed to indicate you know exactly he knew what he was going to ask. Well he sort of gave him the question. He said I know you've got questions coming from Iran. It just struck me a lot. I thought it was beyond odd. I thought there's nothing wrong with calling on Niko Pitney. There's nothing wrong with calling on the Huffington Post. There's nothing wrong with going and reading his live blog which anybody could have done and seen him say I'm going to ask a question about Iran but the President basically told him what question to ask and that just had the feel of kind of state managed media. I think what he was trying to do is to try to underline he was trying to get through to those Iranian protesters in the street but I agree with you. I think at best it was somewhat awkward in the way he did it. Another thing to note here which I found quite interesting today is that for the first time that I can ever recall at a presidential news conference the President did not call on the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was almost like he was going over the big city media. What was that about? Well, I'm going to say a couple of things. One, clearly this White House doesn't like the New York Times. No, no, that's good. I think in this case he's out there, he's doing a lot of stuff and I think that he does want to highlight the fact that he's somebody who's more engaged with social media, more engaged with the internet and that he will pick these opportunities to hopscotch around the media landscape with a fair degree of savvy. He's not going to be boxed in by that. I mean, I do think it's striking that he would go out of his way to do that. But I would, I gather they would say, look, we're out here doing this enough that it's not like we're looking at it. Well, how does he pick the people he chooses, George? I'm not inside there, but I'm struck by how disciplined it is and how choreographed it is. There is zero spontaneity at a White House press conference right now. I mean, he goes in with a list of 18, whatever it is. And in the order. And he asks them in direct order. He knows exactly who he's calling on. Because Bush, you'd give Bush a list of who was there and then he kind of... And a seating chart. AP man. I was going to say... You know, he also does a great play. I see the camera, don't I? I'm mostly, I'm mostly, I mean, it's because we could never get Clinton to call on who he was supposed to call on. I mean, whatever happened to the old days when people, you know, raised their hands and who stopped that? I guess it was the Bush one. Didn't he thought it was just too undignified or something? I sort of liked it when people jumped up to be recognized. Listen, we didn't, I mean, in the Clinton White House, we didn't have a... We had to go to the first row. The television corresponded first in the AP. In the AP. In that, it was basically, did we want it? And you know, the other great tradition that has just sort of gone away without remark is that the AP person, the wire service person, the senior person used to always say thank you. Right now, it is a person holding the news conference that says thank you. I remember when I used to cover the White House and these unctuous aides would try to cut off a news conference and say thank you, thank you, and I'd always say excuse me, I'll say thank you. You know, another tradition along those lines when you're on Air Force One, it's traditional that if there's really big news, the wires can have the operator on Board Air Force One make a call to the wires and get the news out. And I was flying, and I'd always get an argument with AP and I'd say listen, Terry, Terry Hunt, I would say those days are over, okay? Those days of you, the wire is dominating. I said you've got organizations out here with 24-hour cable operations. If we're gonna make a call, we're all making the call. And we went back and forth, and actually it was not Terry, it was somebody else who actually let it happen. Terry said he would have never let it happen. This is a big debate about who could call from the plane. I don't think it's fair for me to grill you guys. So George, you asked the questions for a while. Wow. This is your one and only chance. This is my only chance. I'll ask you, I guess, since you have been doing this the longest and I've only come up in a world where I expect, from being on both sides, when it comes on to be perfectly prepared, know exactly what they want to say, know exactly what they don't want to say. And we saw a lot of that with the president today. I guess my question is, how different is it? Well, it is different. You know, when I came to Washington and I came in 1969, which if you want to add that up, that'd be 40 years, 40 years ago, when I came to Washington, most members of Congress didn't even have press secretaries. It was such so informal in those days. And the other part of it was there were not nearly as many reporters in those days as there are now. We're getting ready to see a lot fewer reporters. That's for sure with newspapers and the kinds of trouble that there are. But it was much more informal. You had a much better opportunity to have face-to-face, you know, contact with people. When we used to go on these White House trips, that was where you really got to develop your sources and really got to have dinner with people. And now, as you all know, sometimes you can go on a White House trip and never get within three miles of the president. It's mostly discovered, and this is because of the increased security in all of that. But I mean, I often tell this story when I was a rookie reporter and I was in order to the White House one Sunday morning. People forget this, but Richard Nixon actually held church services with the White House the first year of his presidency. And they'd have a visiting evangelist and they'd have, you know, they'd sing some hymns and then at the end everybody'd go up with a little receiving line and they'd shake hands with the president. And one time Helen Thomas, old Helen and I were always there. I was a rookie and I'd get sent over there. If there had been any news, I'd have to go back and give it to Dan Rather. It was a White House. But there never was. So I would go over there just to make sure nothing happened. And one Sunday we were actually over there and Helen said, get in the line. And I said, Helen, we're not supposed to get in the line. I said, that's really, no, get in the line. We'll ask him some questions. Well, I don't have any questions. She said, we'll ask him about those advisors. Well, there was this story going around that Nixon was going to bring in some new advisors. People didn't know if they were coming from outside the government or inside the government. So I got up there and Helen said, ask him. And I said, Mr. President, these advisors, will these be in-house advisors? Oh, no, he said, these will be outhouse advisors. And then he said, oh, no, you know what I mean. And he went on about his business. But because of that, I can honestly say I've interviewed every president since Nixon. Nobody but my mother and I think that was an interview. But my mother thought it was a great question. That's a good question. I see Senator Sasser out there for Ambassador to China. I didn't see you, Senator. How are you today? But it was just with the more people that come and with every administration, I think every administration learns from the previous one and it becomes more organized. We've become very sophisticated in this country on how we deal with information. And everybody has a line, but you stick to that line. You don't say anything except what you came there to say. I think people do a real disservice when they come on these Sunday shows and don't have something to say. Sam Nunn, who's the chairman of CSIS is still my favorite guest because you would call Sam and say you want to be on Face the Nation. He'd say, Bob, I really don't have anything to say this Sunday. I wish everybody who didn't have anything to say would follow Sam Nunn. I think it really helps. I think you really hurt yourself when you come on there. And we can clearly feel the difference. Exactly. And people know when you're not answering the questions. You look evasive and it just doesn't help you at all. My advice is if you've got something to say, know what you want to say. That's okay. But we'd be willing to answer questions about it. And if you don't have anything to say, stay home and watch. I agree. Well, then I was David. What surprised you most? Six months in. Look, I don't think it's... I don't know that I've been surprised, but I think it is magnified certainly taking over a program like this, becoming a custodian of a program like this, after Tim's death, has been difficult. It's the kind of transition that nobody's prepared to make. Organizations aren't prepared to make. And even though there's transition in TV news, you don't see it. You don't see it like this. It's a big challenge when you have a figure who looms so large. And so I still think that that's something that I am reckoning with. But I tell you, in terms of the surprise is, I guess, two things. How impactful the programs are. And it goes to your point, which is we have this incredible luxury of sitting down and doing interviews for anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes. And people are sitting down and they are watching these programs and they are listening. They are not usually engaged in some other activity like they are with some of the other programming. And so that sort of impact what you say and the kind of news you can make through this form and that's the other surprise. I remember when I would, if I would ever fill in for Tim or if I'd be on the program, I thought, wow, you've got 45 minutes or thereabouts of talk time. That is an enormous amount of time. And then you get it and you still realize you're having to throw stuff out because you're running out of time. I thought, wow, what an adjustment that you can make so quickly to do this much time. But guys, there's nothing better than a depth. And to the point that you made, Bob, earlier, which is that for however dramatic the landscape has changed, however dramatically that's happened, there is still this place where people say, yes, I'm getting information from lots of other sources, but this is still a place in time that I want to dedicate time to really hear somebody out and perhaps learn something. So you get a chance. The story today that the president dealt with was healthcare. We've all seen this play out before during the Clinton years. What's different now? I think we're just at the very... It's like we're in this big forest. And we've just taken the first two steps into the forest. And really all you can see is the forest here. I don't think at this point anybody knows how this thing is going to come out. Can you have healthcare for everyone on top of what the government is already doing with the stimulus package, with the help of the auto companies, with climate change and all of that. I don't know that this is going to get done. I don't think healthcare for everyone is going to get done. I think we already see that it's going to be almost impossible given the economic constraints. Once you say, I mean it's a lot of money, once you say it's limited to a trillion dollars, you're pretty much saying you're not going to cover everyone at least right away. And that's the one bottom line coming out of the president's press conference today was basically this was going to be I only left my phone on in case they called... Mrs. Giuliani. The only bottom line the president said was I want something that is going to control costs and that is paid for. He wants to expand access and expand the number of insured but he didn't say cover everyone in fact I thought significantly today the president gave an impassioned defense of this public health insurance option. But he didn't say I wouldn't sign a bill that didn't have it. All I'll say is that it makes sense but to answer your question directly I think there are at least three big changes from 1993 and 1994. Number one for a lot of Americans has gotten worse. Marginally increasing the number of uninsured costs have definitely gone up for most Americans. Number two and this is I think something that helps the president the Democrats in the Congress are not at the end of a 40 year ride of being in charge in the final days of their majority. They're a majority that has been tempered by being in the minority for 8 to 10 years and that has made them more open to compromise. And then third and I think this is the squishiest one it's clear that the business community feels a need to be on the side of acting like they're for being part of the solution at the front end of this process. I'm not sure they're all going to stick around to the back and I think that's where a lot of the play is over the next couple months but going in it's a big big difference to have them say they're going to be on the side of it. I just think we're so not in this enough that you can even, until we know how we're going to pay for it until we have some idea of what shape it's going to be what shape it's going to take I don't think you can say right now how this is going to come out. And I think one of the other problems is that the central argument that the president makes is that ultimately a government controlling government costs is about controlling but he's just a little far behind in making that argument. You can't have government intervention to this extent you can't have an $800 billion stimulus bill and then talk about a trillion dollar health care plan and say no but this is the thing that really saves the government money down the road. Look there's obviously substance to that argument but it seems to me Bob from the point of view of Republicans, Republicans who have virtually no strength at the moment nevertheless have something of a roadmap here not only to oppose this but to start to oppose the president on the opaqueness of his exit strategy in terms of government intervention. How do you, I mean the president argued today that yes indeed private insurance companies can compete with the government and a government health plan how do you help me with that argument George I mean I don't know, I have no idea what your thoughts on it but I mean how can something that's turn a profit or at least break even compete with a government that doesn't have to turn a profit. Well I think it depends on how much money the government is willing to put into the plan and how much money the government is willing to put behind it and subsidize it so that the premiums are lower and where does the government get the money for this? Well that gets back to your other point of the one place where this has fallen apart is every single idea so far to raise revenue to pay for this has been knocked down now they may end up coming back to some of the ideas that have been knocked down but no idea that's been to get two, three, four hundred billion dollars has survived more than two or three days of debate on Capitol Hill. Do either of you think the climate bill is going to be acted on this year? It seems to me that they it's got a little bit more momentum behind it but it seems to me that everything is now locked in behind healthcare that I can see that slipping it doesn't seem like it has the same priority that healthcare does. I think it will pass the house I think it could pass the house maybe even this week I mean they're hoping it's going to pass the house this week then the question will be how and its fate is tied to healthcare reform and I completely agree that right now healthcare reform has the priority it's not out of the question that if health starts to fade you'll actually see the chances of climate change starting to rise or that's a big tax increase because what I think what's important here is that what the president needs is a signature legislative achievement and the stimulus bill is not going to count. I mean he needs something on the domestic agenda that he actually achieves here and that's why I think healthcare is the big game for him. And that's why I think he'll be willing to compromise just about anything to have a bill he can sign talk about lessons learned from the Clinton experience I mean that was clearly a case where going in there were 22 Republican senators for universal healthcare at the beginning of that process they had all bled away by the end in part because we took too hard a line in the Clinton White House I vividly remember a day when the president was going to give a speech where he said he was suggesting that he would accept 95% coverage and first lady and a lot of other people in the White House came down hard and said that's just absolutely unacceptable that was taken off the table. You look back 15 years and say you could have gotten 95% of what you wanted you take it in a heartbeat and that's why I think this White House has internalized that lesson. I think ROM's line is that the only non-negotiable principle here is success and that's why I think part of their game will be saying that whatever they get is a victory. Let's talk about journalism and where it stands right now there's no question newspapers are really having a hard time. David do you think newspapers are going to make it? Well I hope they do I think they've got a huge challenge and I think that it's like what the broadcast networks are going through as well I think that some of the model has to change and find different ways to make money but I still think that there's a fundamental demand for not only as Ben Bradley says having a paper that really is tied into a community and can represent a community and provide the kind of information and context and perspective that you can't get anywhere else so I think they look whether it's newspapers or magazines they're all struggling to find a way to stay afloat I think it is so important to have major newspapers like the New York Times or the Washington Post who have whether they've got the resources or not certainly still have the reach to put people all over the world and to provide the kind of reporting that a lot of the networks have had to step away from What do you think Joe? News organizations are going to survive I don't know if the actual hard paper copy which I love I love nothing when getting up early in the morning rapping New York Times on my doorstep I'm not sure if it's going to survive in the same way but I think people will figure out a way to make money on the web they're going to have to it might take relaxing some antitrust laws to make it really work because there's a lot more partnership where you can go back to the days when the same people or the same company could own the newspaper and station in town that may be one way out of this and I agree with you I hope these national newspapers can survive but I also hope these smaller papers can survive because if they don't, if we don't have somebody that goes to the police station every day that goes to the courthouse every day not that it goes there when there's a story not when they think something is happening but every day we will have corruption in this country and local like we have never seen before you also can have complete detachment from your actual communities if you think about the strength because local news is also in so much trouble the auto industry is the big advertisers for local news so they're feeling it so if you don't have a newspaper or a local news organization with some reach you've got no real tie to your community at all the good news and the bad news and the government news so that's a real threat that I think is very important to keep in mind it's not so much whether it's printed on a piece of paper or you read it online it's the information there is it accurate, is it the kind of product that newspapers turn out today newspapers costs a lot of money to produce because it takes a lot of people to do it you need editors, you need reporters you have to send somebody to all these places every day even when there's not news going on there are endless debates about whether the mainstream media is liberal or conservative or whatever there has to be a place where people at least try not to put a political spin where people can agree on the facts and that is the important thing to put it, say well the Daily Bugle is going online that's fine if it's the same Daily Bugle that's printing the newspaper but if it's 10 guys on the blog that just get up in the middle of the night then that is not a newspaper and that is the thing that I think what we have to remember it's the product that they're putting out and you can only do that when you have a large staff that can do what we expect from newspapers today well let's take some questions from the audience alright, there's one right there well it was a good introduction because I'm an online publisher good, well we'd like to know who you are because we'd like to know who comes so tell us in addition to my name is Paula Gordon I have a brand new website that will be accessible by domain name on Thursday called eligibilityquestions.com and my question is one of the things that I'll focus on is why and the mainstream media including the right wing cable networks focused on eligibility questions a whole host of various eligibility questions what do you mean by that? eligibility for what? for the presidency for the presidency? for the surrounding presidency yes in other words like you can be 30 instead of 35 you mean what you have to do to be qualified to be president or what? yes, the constitutional qualifications for the natural born citizen to be president this is not being covered and the fact that the it strikes me as a real mystery why the right wing and the left wing of the mainstream media are you driving to the point that you think the current president is not eligible to be president? I'm driving at the point for instance Bobby Jandel has his parentage were not naturalized citizens at the time of his birth well there are questions whether or not an individual is eligible all right well I take your point well maybe that's something we ought to focus on more I would have to say I think we're handling that okay well that's what we have here in America there are several hundred thousand people thinking that who have petitioned who think that there are some people who think we didn't go to the moon but I mean you know that's sort of we're a country that doesn't always agree on everything here's another question thank you very much my name is Edie Wilson and I actually came to ask a question we lived through a really long political campaign and a really big financial crisis and as I watched religiously by the way the both of these shows in fact all three of them T-votes a wonderful thing I kept wanting to figure out what I thought of the balance between the economic coverage and the political coverage and I want to know what you think of it both during the election and now when I reflect on it I thought I saw a lot more political process what did what to whom and who's up and what primary and what's going on with whatever which seemed less important than taking premise and I take the premise that these aren't important programs of talking about economic issues with the world and with the American people so it's a hard thing to get right how do you feel you did well look I think political campaigns are sort of notorious for a lot of process coverage it's what a lot of people are interested in it's also really important part of the process but I wasn't I wasn't at the helm and meet the press during the campaign but nevertheless I think for all the programs there's still more depth on economic matters in the course of the campaign than you're going to get throughout most of the other landscape of political coverage and since the president has been in office this has really been unique and I think our level of coverage and detail into the financial crisis and the complexities of the financial system has been appropriately deep now let's stipulate one point that is that most people I don't really like the term mainstream media because it's used kind of pejoratively but the point is that most people in journalism do not understand how our financial system works but I got news for you there's a lot of people in the financial system evidently who didn't have a keen understanding either so we had to really step up we had to step up and do our homework and dig deep both so we could understand and explain in a way that was accessible and that we could also hold our leaders accountable and that's no small thing but in the course of that you really do recognize that A you've got people on Wall Street who don't ever have the experience of having to speak to Americans in real terms and layman's terms about what they do, about what the complexities are and you have those challenges that were faced by government officials as well including the Treasury Secretary who's had enormous difficulty speaking to the American people about these issues so I think certainly in the past six months you have seen great depth but let's also you know don't just turn this on us you know it sounds like you're quite interested in these issues and that's important but it's important for everybody and it demands all of this depth that you show up and that you watch and that you really take notice because there's a lot of people who say oh well listen why aren't you covering you know mark to market accounting and then we do it and where are you then suddenly you're not in the room watching TV so I think it's an important point all the way around and I think that certainly since this president has gotten into office you have seen enormous depth I think you see people kind of getting into this topic who have not been into it before it's been important I mean I speak for myself it's been important to kind of go and try to achieve that level of depth because the impact of it is so great I couldn't agree with David more I have made the point in several talks lately that I've been a reporter now for 52 years and in that time I have covered everything from hubcap fees to arms control negotiations and I could never remember a story where I didn't feel that I had a point of view on whether the government was doing the right thing or the wrong thing but when this financial crisis hit and we became again to see these problems unfold I felt that I simply didn't have the technical expertise to know whether what the government was doing was the right thing or the wrong thing I mean did we need a stimulus yes I think we did but did we have the right combination was this the right way to go about it these are very very complex issues and I agree with you David I think we're all learning and still trying to learn I think I mean I'd like to think I probably know more about politics than I do about covering finance because I've spent my life covering politics I would say on the coverage of the politics side of it I thought we did a very good job I think and not so much because of the press but because of the campaign I've always been one of those who believes it is the candidates who make the campaign we just show up and write about it it's the candidates in the end who make the campaign I thought we had two excellent candidates issue three excellent candidates I thought Hillary Clinton was quite a good candidate and I thought she really advanced the cause of women I mean she's the first woman who was taken seriously as a presidential candidate and the way she conducted herself in that campaign is going to make it a lot easier for my children and grandchildren for all girls if they decide that they want to run for president so I feel very indebted to her for the way she cleared the way for women and I thought Barack Obama it was historic in every way it seems to me and not just from the fact he's the first African-American I mean the fact that we again saw that words count that rhetoric counts I mean when did we somehow in this country get the idea that it was not important to be able to reach or talk to people or connect with people we also found for the first time in a long time that crowds count remember in the beginning when everybody said oh he's just a celebrity those crowds don't amount to anything well I think we now understand that they do and if you go back and look when Barack Obama started to draw big crowds then the other candidates started to draw big crowds people somehow remember it's kind of fun to go out and see a candidate in person so I thought it was a wonderful campaign I must say I mean you know it's my view and you know where I'm coming from but I thought we did a good job on it I would just add I we're all sitting there defending our turf I completely agree with both what Bob and David said I would just add one other point and I do bristle a little bit when I hear of this dichotomy between here's the politics on the one hand and the policy and the substance on the other because they are inextricably linked and every decision made in a White House or the Congress is going to try to balance out what people believe is the right thing to do what will work and what can get done what can get through the process and part of our job is to make sure people are getting both sides in balance and I'm sure there are days when we you know fall too far on one side or the other but I don't think we're doing our job unless we show how those two sides go together okay right here we need to have a guy we got to have gender equality here you I think Mr. Sheffer mentioned at the very beginning at the end of your remarks something about the need to maintain even in the small town media so that we can agree on the facts something to that effect I mean bringing back that particular point my perception I guess is a big large issue that indeed with the proliferation of new media the internet all the things that we know and the availability and the very low entry point and the bloggers etc and indeed the decline of the audience of both mainstream network television as well as the big newspapers as you alluded to in your conversation earlier on and the fact that opinion dominates that now opinion is what makes news which is sort of a contradiction in terms that we may get to a point in which with the proliferation of opinion journalism and all the talk shows etc or even the fact that on cable news you know the journal the anchor asks the person what do you think about all this as opposed to what happened and so the journalist provides their opinion about what happened that we may get to a point that we don't have a set of facts that we share and on which as you do in your talk shows you can argue and have an intelligent conversation about is this a trend? Is this actually happening? No, but it's part of how the whole idea of journalism you know the fact is that objectivity is a fairly new concept in journalism I mean what it is it probably goes back to what about World War II or between World War I and II when we began to talk about objectivity and that sort of that sort of thing up until that point I mean every publication had a point of view in Lincoln's time you had Republican newspapers, Wig newspapers and so on so that's all fairly new but what's happening here and the way the internet has changed everything the internet if you stop and think about it is the first vehicle to deliver news we've ever had that doesn't have an editor the worst newspaper the smallest radio station has somebody who knows where the stuff comes from stuff pops up on the internet you don't know if it's true you don't know if it's false you don't know if it's something in between you have very reliable websites I like to think the CBS website if you see it there you know it's been vetted by CBS news you know it's gone through the same process that we use when we put things on the CBS evening news or the morning news New York Times website those are the same products they've gone through the editing process and that's that's what has changed things here this stuff pops up it's out there it used to be the kind of thing that was just whispered in campaigns now it's on the website look when Sarah Palin was first chosen as John McCain's running there were all these rumors that were going around the mainstream media we were all taking hits why are you circulating all this stuff we weren't we were trying to check it out like you would any news tip none of that stuff was on any of the networks any of the major newspapers until the McCain campaign put out a written press release and said Sarah Palin 17 year old daughter is pregnant and so on and so forth then of course we printed that but the fact that it wasn't in any mainstream publication the fact was people still knew about it it was all over the place they were having to deal with it we were having to deal with it and that's what has really changed things here I think it puts a special responsibility for all of us on Sunday I feel like an editor most of the time and that a big part of our job in trying to pull together the week that was in the week ahead for people is sifting through all of the stuff that was out there all week long on cable on the internet and we do decide in some fashion you know what needs to be talked about in this hour it's a big part of our job in the questions and moderating the discussions is making sure that we bring facts to the table so that then people can feel like they're joining a discussion where there isn't agreed upon well that's what I mean I think the mainstream media our role now is to you know present the facts that people can agree on and I think that's our job I mean there was a thing that popped up this is absolutely true several years ago that popped up on the internet that said Jerry Rice who at that time was a wide receiver for the Oakland Raiders that showed up at Face the Nation and Bob Schieffer was really surprised because he thought Condoleezza Rice was coming well somebody had obviously written this as a joke but it popped up on the internet and I tell you if you go by the email that I get I'll guarantee you a lot of people thought it was true it went on to say that once I got over my shock that Jerry Rice had some very interesting things to say about Bob you know but that's what we're operating in I mean this communications revolution we're going through here it has a downside as well as a good side good point right here go ahead Maryam Nawabi from America Broad Media I host a show that broadcasts in Afghanistan to show you know American people issues I wanted to touch on the issue of war correspondence and war coverage especially with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan as you know there's this need to know about how many people have been off and during conflict but then the stories after to really get into the complexity of rebuilding and US engagement don't get as much coverage how do you think the media has done with respect to covering you know let's say the efforts in Afghanistan after most of the major conflict and some of it continues in the south look I think this is a similar point to one of the questions here about the economy which is there is an expectation that the news media writ large is going to stay on kind of every floor of these major stories and you know for resource questions for just sheer attention spans it's not going to happen and you know you talk about the region in Afghanistan and Pakistan it's dangerous now or more dangerous than it's ever been but getting people to really focus on that is difficult just like it was after America averted its eyes after the engagement in the late 70's so there is just a cycle here we should be paying attention to things that we're not talking about because that could be the next great threat but it's very difficult to kind of put that on the agenda for people to really pay attention to so yeah there's I think a natural lessening or just kind of a a degrading of that coverage for things like what happens after the bombs fall and the engagement I think you just get more periodic looks but you know there is more niche coverage where that kind of thing is going on where you've got some of the major papers who do have people who are covering it but in terms of really grabbing the country by the scruff of the neck and saying focus on Afghanistan I mean yeah it would have been great if there was some addressing there's this group called the Taliban and Afghanistan it's really really dangerous but there was not the political will or you know attention to really do that and I think the news media tends to reflect that and there's sometimes a desire for us to put these things on the agenda and I think that can be very difficult to do next question how about here thank you for a very enlightening discussion I've been following the Sunday news program for a long time and he is a sameness of the guests in the sameness of perspective and on some of the issues as David Gregory has mentioned because I was a great admirer of Tim Russet I don't see enough depth for example the issue of Iran there's a criticism of the president that he's probably a bit timid and he's very pragmatic but I think there's not enough perspective given because of the lack of diversity of opinion why is he being quiet on Iran because his primary focus is on Afghanistan and Iran has a card to play in Afghanistan where America wishes to stay for quite some time and also has a card to play in Iraq where America wishes to exit and also on the core issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Iran has a place at the table so that issue doesn't come out on the nuclear issue again the views are very American centric a broader picture is not given on the other nations who have nuclear programs which are not being to use your word better adequately so I wish that there is a greater desire to go into depth on the issue of Chechnya I don't see that reflected very adequately which should have been given more greater attention so that's my point that greater diversity of guests less sameness and more desire to probe into issues which can cause problem for America and for the rest of the world because technically right now we are in the same historic boat thank you for your point I wish there were tens of millions of people go ahead or go ahead you could be next my name is Rebecca Barley and I'm a journalist I'm actually reading your book this just in right now and what I get from your book it goes humbles me and empowers me because you were a dogged reporter with the Star Telegraph for 12 years before you came to Washington and so my question to you guys is I am the next generation of journalist this meeting I was at a meeting at NPR where they were talking about Facebook and Twitter and blogging being the next social media so I'm curious what is your advice I can't go work for my local hometown paper anymore so how can I get the experience in reporting to be to be you guys one day I ask this because I really don't like when media is going and it's my generation that's born to lead it I think it's a very good question Rebecca, George, talk about that it's tough you wrote the book you're humble there you know I'm probably the least likely person to talk about this because I have a very non-traditional path into journalism even though I did do journalism when I was in college and graduate school I think first of all there are jobs out there now it is true that a lot of the places that are hiring now are places that are much more focused on the web Atlantic media has really beefed up every major news organization even though they're cutting jobs out of the television side cutting jobs out of the newspaper side they're beefing up their digital side I don't think you should automatically assume that because it's digital it is necessarily an opinion blog or something that you don't want to be a part of and necessarily not the kind of journalism that you don't want to do I do think there are some opportunities out there but I also don't want to be Pollyannish about it you're in a tough job market right now the economy is in tough shape and journalism is being hit disproportionately hard so it's very very difficult and one of the things we resisted ABC been upset about this the only way to get experience is to take an unpaid internship which unless you're wealthy you can't afford to do and at least I know we've done a small part we just don't do them anymore and we have only competitive paid internships so at least everyone is on something of an equal footing but I think that that's a getting that first job right now is very difficult I would just add one thing it is a tough market and George is absolutely right but the thing to remember is there will always be a need for independently gathered information there's always going to be a need for reporters we don't know exactly where all this is going because the technology is moving so fast but there is always going to be a need for that and if you're going into a profession where there's a need for it you'll eventually find a job it may not be in the place where you want to live the rest of your life or doing exactly what you want to do for the rest of your life but I go along with George it's much the main thing to be said about a first job is it's easier to get a job if you have a job so don't be too discriminatory about that first job offer that you have you probably ought to just take it and then use that as a platform I just wanted to say I'm often bitter because I miss the go-go 80s in network news that I hear this guy and guys like Broca talk about so it's a bummer but you've got to get over it those days are over and they're not coming back and I'm going to keep working through that I think you've got to embrace the fact too that part of this digital revolution is also a great thing don't be down on it, you're in it it's your generation, embrace it better, go out there because there's lots of opportunities there are stories from 30 years ago the network used to be incredibly hierarchical places who would not cover higher young people you couldn't get in unless you were willing to go over to Vietnam so that's how a lot of people broke in well look, our guy Richard Engel took a very actually traditional path but it sounded not untraditional in this modern era he picked up, he knew Arabic and he just went to the region and he was stringing and he was writing things he was ABC and now NBC so there are so many opportunities so many walls have been knocked down we've talked about some of the downsides we'll focus on some of the upsides it's a great big world it's a lot more connected and I think there are lots of opportunities and so it's a much more dynamic changing business but to Bob's point people still have expectations of us and still demand and want to consume what we do Andrew, did you want to say a word? I want to use my prerogative as an employee here at CSIS to ask this question I know there's no competition at all between you all for guests but I wanted to know who is the most sought after guest in Washington other than the president and that you would each seek and why? well I think right now I'd love to hear from Hillary Clinton George got a little scoop on us there he had the first interview with her as Secretary of State Michelle Obama would be great Michelle Obama and even better would be that dog no I agree on Michelle Obama is great and Secretary of State no question but Michelle Obama has become this really unique figure where you think about where she was in the course of the campaign and then how she's emerged is both kind of a cultural icon but somebody with great substance as well you know a lot of balance and it's just somebody that people are really interested in but you know aside from those two or three people and there really are very few it's really all about the timing getting the right person on the right week you had the best May I've ever seen Cheney and Powell coming out and basically debating the future of the Republican Party in this show for two or three weeks in a row and just getting the person when they have something to say the president's always great but just about anyone in the cabinet if you get them on a week where there's news that they want to talk about that they can explain that they're prepared to take a stand on any one of them is fantastic if you get them on a week where they're coming out simply to fill the 20 minutes there's only so much you can do and again it's not rocket science you know it's getting the news maker it's the timing of it and you basically when I look back on it you ask the basic questions I always tell journalism students ask the obvious questions young reporters make a great mistake they say well I don't want to ask that because if I ask that he'll think I'm dumb you know or I don't need to ask that because I know what he's going to say well let me tell you something when I turned to Dick Cheney and we were at the end of that interview and I said to him now Russell M. Boss says that Colin Powell is not a Republican he ought to get out of the Republican party Colin Powell says that Russell Limbaugh to get out of the Republican party how do you come down Mr. Vice President and I thought what I would get at the end of the interview was a very artful dodge maybe a humorous way to evade that question and he said well I have to tell you as Republicans go I'd have to go with Russell Limbaugh I'm never in my wildest dreams and I've known Dick Cheney since he was Gerald Ford chief of staff in the White House when he was 32 years old and no matter what happened the rest of the day you had a good day you know I mean but that's a good example never assume you know what they're going to ask I had Secretary Gates on one of my initial weeks and there was this question of how he'd compare Bush to Obama and I'd obviously seen you know that he'd been asked that question and never taken the bait so I said no I'm just not going to ask that he won't go anywhere with it and then I decided at the last minute to do it and he sort of brushed it away and so the other advice is don't be afraid of saying nothing because I sat there and I said no really there must be some difference and I just sat quiet and watched him and he just sat there beat beat beat and he said well he said Obama's a lot more analytical than Bush and kind of went off from there then he said the next day he said the next day he told somebody I wish I hadn't answered that but that's what makes these jobs really fun absolutely and that's why we all feel very fortunate that we actually have them you had a question it's probably getting close to the closing time my name is Mark I'm actually a CSIS alum and now a reporter with a business magazine published by Crane Communications I hope you didn't address this right at the top I missed the first 10 minutes but I'd like to get each of your takes on this is tough enough on President Obama oh you talked about that let me ask the other one actually I do it's never too early to speculate it's never too early to do the horse race with the Republican Party will speaking of taking on President Obama will Mitch McConnell or John Boehner be able to effectively take on President Obama or did the Republicans have to wait until the presidential campaign starts and who do you think could be the toughest opponent for Obama on the latter point I just don't think we know right now I don't think the challenge to Obama is going to come from Washington it'll come from the ranks of governors but at this point after George Bush's election nobody really had a sense of who the head of the Democratic Party was and Barack Obama certainly wasn't on the radar screen and I think Republicans have worked to do before they get it together as to whether you know I think this is sort of sliding scale of how tough you are on presidents I mean I think that George can say I mean I think Bill Clinton had a much harder ride but maybe you know for different reasons I mean I think that there is a sort of a lot of expectation the history surrounding Obama and a lot of that popularity but I think he's getting challenged by the press core and you know look they said some of the things about the Bush White House as well I didn't really subscribe to that so I think that this sort of sliding scale of what people mean when they say being tough enough on the president I would say on the Republican Party the Republican Party right now is in the same place that it was in 1964 when Lyndon Johnson scored that huge then record landslide over Barry Goldwater and people said it's all over the Republican Party is doomed and so on four years later of course Richard Nixon was elected president it always parties always go through this after a presidential defeat and what's happening in the Republican Party right now is there is no identifiable leader it's really too soon for anybody to have broken out of the pack but certainly none of these candidates have and so that is why you see the Republican Party now sometimes getting its leaders mixed up with its cheerleaders and the cheerleaders are moving out onto the field rather than the people who are actually the leaders of the party I would have to say and this is just my opinion and it's a total wild yes I think Tim Plenty the Governor of Minnesota may wind up as the strongest Republican candidate he has a way of saying things he can sometimes say the same thing that say Rush Limbaugh says but say it in a way that people kind of nod their heads he doesn't put his fine an edge on it but he's a guy with a blue collar background he has a very good biography as it were he's been the Governor of the state he's sort of been away from some of the things that people hold against the Republican Party in general right now I think he's going to be might well turn out to be in a lot you know we're a long way from there might well turn out to be formidable he's also north of the Mason Dixon candidate I think it's pretty clear that Romney is going to try again I don't know where that goes I guess Mike Huckabee thinks he has a chance again and he may well I mean after all this the guy that won the Iowa Caucasus the last time out and there'll be some more a few governors but right now they're just going through what all parties do after they lose they're trying to you know get organized I think it's an open question whether they're actually going through what parties need to do to win though whether they're making the kind of changes that the Democrats had to make in the 80s and whether they really can come up with a candidate that is cast a much wider net than they have you haven't heard anybody say that we're going to reform the Republican Party for the future in this way well there's some people that try you have Huntsman come out and say we have to do it the president picks them off and sends them but I mean Democrats they could find a place farther away with the nomination of George McGovern they were going to reform the party and some people would say they still haven't gotten over that or at least they didn't until Clinton was elected it couldn't be more wide open right now I actually probably think a little bit more of Romney's chances than you do only for one reason the fact that he went out there and got beat what you learn in that is invaluable and especially in the Republican Party Nixon Reagan not Bush not the second Bush but the first Bush they all became president after trying and losing on your first question about the press beyond everything else beyond the fact that he was a historic president in getting elected I think the magnitude of the problems the country faces right now are the president's best friend in terms of the coverage because there are so many big things to be dealing with whether it's the trouble in the economy or unwinding a war in Iraq intensifying one in Afghanistan all of the unrest in Iran the big issues of healthcare education energy there's so many big things and he's proposing solutions whether you're just with them to deal with them you can't get caught up in a lot of trivia with the president even when he makes mistakes they get superseded by other stories pretty quickly and I think that's definitely helping you know I didn't answer that part of the question and I wasn't trying to evade it but I would just add this I think in the end yes the president's getting a lot of publicity right now and a lot of it is favorable but in the end it doesn't really matter in the end it's policy good public relations cannot trump bad policy and bad public relations will not kill good policy and just an example of that I would offer the presidency of Richard Nixon Richard Nixon was driven from office he carried on the war with the press but when you look back on it the good things that he did the opening to China the arms control work he did with the Soviet Union they're still seen as significant achievements the bad things he did are seen for what they were for what they were so you know the spotlight goes back and forth we'll all remember George Bush looked pretty good when he landed on that aircraft carrier and got out wearing that flight suit and there was a big sign that said mission accomplished but in the end it didn't make any difference it becomes just a footnote to the presidency and I think that's generally the way it always is well I want to thank all of you on behalf of TCU and the chief of school of journalism my colleagues David Gregory and George Steppenopoulos I really appreciate you coming today and thank you all for coming