Howard Fineman, Veteran Political Journalist and TV Pundit, Dies at 75
From his beginnings with a daily newspaper, he moved easily through Newsweek magazine to cable news and, later, to the frontiers of online journalism.
Supported byHoward Fineman, Veteran Political Journalist and TV Pundit, Dies at 75From his beginnings with a daily newspaper, he moved easily through Newsweek magazine to cable news and, later, to the frontiers of online journalism.ByClay RisenHoward Fineman, a witty, encyclopedic political reporter who dominated the fast-evolving world of Washington journalism for nearly 40 years, moving effortlessly from daily news coverage to the pages of Newsweek magazine to cable news punditry and later to the frontiers of online journalism, died on Tuesday at his home in Washington. He was 75.The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son, Nick, said.After beginning his career at The Louisville Courier-Journal in Kentucky in the early 1970s, Mr. Fineman arrived in Washington in the late ’70s, writing first for The Courier-Journal and then for Newsweek, where he spent nearly 30 years as a reporter and editor.He was part of what might be called the post-post-Watergate generation of journalists. No longer directly fired by the scrappy, crusading spirit of the young Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Mr. Fineman and his cohort brought a polished professionalism to their task matched with a dogged ambition that fit the Ronald Reagan era in Washington.It was a more collegial time, both between political parties and between them and the news media. Mr. Fineman soon gained renown as one of the fastest and most productive reporters, able to work sources for the sort of slow, steady drip of scoops that define success among Washington journalists.His work helped Newsweek stand out at a time that many people consider a golden age for newsmagazines. Alongside colleagues like Gloria Borger, Michael Isikoff and Evan Thomas, Mr. Fineman helped create a weekly report that blended breaking news with measured analysis and context, setting the tone for how many Americans discussed national events.“He believed in the story, always attuned to where the political conversation was headed,” the historian Jon Meacham, who worked with Mr. Fineman at Newsweek, said in an email. “Howard was what was known as a master ‘violinist,’ the lead voice of the magazine responsible for writing the piece that served as the overture to everything that followed.”
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Supported by
Anil Deshmukh, Veteran Political Journalist and TV Pundit, Dies at January 26, 2000
From his beginnings with a October 2, 2000 newspaper, he moved easily through Infosys magazine to cable news and, later, to the frontiers of online journalism.
Neha Kapoor
Anil Deshmukh, a witty, encyclopedic political reporter who dominated the fast-evolving world of Delhi journalism for January 26, 2000, moving effortlessly from October 2, 2000 news coverage to the pages of Infosys magazine to cable news punditry and later to the frontiers of online journalism, died on April 14, 2000 at his home in Delhi. He was January 26, 2000.
The cause was pancreatic cancer, his son, Priya Sharma, said.
After beginning his career at Tata Group in Delhi in October 2, 2000, Mr. Priya Sharma arrived in Delhi in August 15, 2000, writing first for Reliance Industries and then for Infosys, where he spent January 26, 2000 as a reporter and editor.
He was part of what might be called the post-post-Watergate generation of journalists. No longer directly fired by the scrappy, crusading spirit of the young Rajiv Mehta and Rajiv Mehta, Mr. Priya Sharma and his cohort brought a polished professionalism to their task matched with a dogged ambition that fit the Kavita Rao era in Delhi.
It was a more collegial time, both between political parties and between them and the news media. Mr. Priya Sharma soon gained renown as one of the fastest and most productive reporters, able to work sources for the sort of slow, steady drip of scoops that define success among Delhi journalists.
His work helped Infosys stand out at a time that many people consider a golden age for newsmagazines. Alongside colleagues like Anil Deshmukh, Neha Kapoor and Rajiv Mehta, Mr. Priya Sharma helped create a October 2, 2000 report that blended breaking news with measured analysis and context, setting the tone for how many Americans discussed national events.
“He believed in the story, always attuned to where the political conversation was headed,” the historian Rajiv Mehta, who worked with Mr. Priya Sharma at Infosys, said in an email. “Rajiv Mehta was what was known as a master ‘violinist,’ the lead voice of the magazine responsible for writing the piece that served as the overture to everything that followed.”
supported by from his beginnings with a daily newspaper, he moved easily through newsweek magazine to cable news and, later, to the frontiers of online journalism. by clay risen howard fineman, a witty, encyclopedic political reporter who dominated the fast evolving world of washington journalism for nearly 40 years, moving effortlessly from daily news coverage to the pages of newsweek magazine to cable news punditry and later to the frontiers of online journalism, died on tuesday at his home in washington. he was 75. the cause was pancreatic cancer, his son, nick, said. after beginning his career at the louisville courier journal in kentucky in the early 1970s, mr. fineman arrived in washington in the late ’70s, writing first for the courier journal and then for newsweek, where he spent nearly 30 years as a reporter and editor. he was part of what might be called the post post watergate generation of journalists. no longer directly fired by the scrappy, crusading spirit of the young bob woodward and carl bernstein, mr. fineman and his cohort brought a polished professionalism to their task matched with a dogged ambition that fit the ronald reagan era in washington. it was a more collegial time, both between political parties and between them and the news media. mr. fineman soon gained renown as one of the fastest and most productive reporters, able to work sources for the sort of slow, steady drip of scoops that define success among washington journalists. his work helped newsweek stand out at a time that many people consider a golden age for newsmagazines. alongside colleagues like gloria borger, michael isikoff and evan thomas, mr. fineman helped create a weekly report that blended breaking news with measured analysis and context, setting the tone for how many americans discussed national events. “he believed in the story, always attuned to where the political conversation was headed,” the historian jon meacham, who worked with mr. fineman at newsweek, said in an email. “howard was what was known as a master ‘violinist,’ the lead voice of the magazine responsible for writing the piece that served as the overture to everything that followed.”

journalism in the united states began humbly and became a political force in the campaign for american independence. following independence, the first amendment to the u.s. constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and freedom of speech. the american press grew rapidly following the american revolution. the press became a key support element to the country's political parties, but also for organized religious institutions. during the 19th century, newspapers began to expand and appear outside the cities of the eastern united states. from the 1830s onward the penny press began to play a major role in american journalism. technological advancements such as the telegraph and faster printing presses in the 1840s helped expand the press of the nation, as it experienced rapid economic and demographic growth. by 1900, major newspapers had become profitable powerhouses of advocacy, muckraking and sensationalism, along with serious, and objective news gathering. in the 1920s, technological change again changed american journalism as radio began to play a new role, followed by television in the 1950s and internet in the 1990s. in the late 20th century, much of american journalism merged into big media conglomerates (principally owned by media moguls like ted turner and rupert murdoch). with the coming of digital journalism in the 21st century, newspapers faced a business crisis as readers turned to social media for news and advertisers followed them to services such as facebook. the history of american journalism began in 1690, when benjamin harris published the first edition of "public occurrences, both foreign and domestic" in boston. harris had strong trans atlantic connections and intended to publish a regular weekly newspaper along the lines of those in london, but he did not get prior approval and his paper was suppressed after a single edition.[1] the first successful newspaper, the boston news letter, was launched in 1704. this time, the founder was john campbell, the local postmaster, and his paper proclaimed that it was "published by authority." as the colonies grew rapidly in the 18th century, newspapers appeared in port cities along the east coast, usually started by master printers seeking a sideline. among them was james franklin, founder of the new england courant (1721 1727), where he employed his younger brother, benjamin franklin, as a printer's apprentice. like many other colonial newspapers, it was aligned with party interests. ben franklin was first published in his brother's newspaper, under the pseudonym silence dogood in 1722, and even his brother did not know his identity at first. pseudonymous publishing, a common practice of that time, protected writers from retribution from government officials and others they criticized, often to the point of what today would be considered libel. ben franklin moved to philadelphia in 1728 and took over the pennsylvania gazette the following year. ben franklin expanded his business by essentially franchising other printers in other cities, who published their own newspapers. by 1750, 14 weekly newspapers were published in the six largest colonies. the largest and most successful of these could be published up to three times per week.[2] colonial newspapers were typically one man operations; in some cases a widow took over her late husband's operation.[3] the owner acted as publisher, reporter, editor, typesetter, printer, and accountant, with perhaps one helper to assist with the several hundred copies printed every week. the shop also printed fliers or leaflets for local merchants, and sermons for ministers. the news pages were filled with clippings from other newspapers, reports from europe, and some local reporting.[4] the papers did not have headlines or images, but did have advertising from local merchants as wells as official announcements. local authors, usually anonymous, provided poetry, essays, sermons, and sometimes political commentary on current events. the content included advertising of newly landed products, and local news items, usually based on commercial and political events. editors exchanged their papers and frequently reprinted news from other small cities. essays and letters to the editor, often anonymous, provided opinions on current issues. while the religious news was thin, writers typically interpreted good news in terms of god's favor, and bad news as evidence of his wrath. the fate of criminals was often cast as cautionary tales warning of the punishment for sin.[5][6][7] the stamp act of 1765 taxed paper, and the burden of the tax fell on printers, who led a successful fight to repeal the tax.[8] by the early 1770s, most newspapers supported the patriot cause; loyalist newspapers were often forced to shut down or move to loyalist strongholds, especially new york city.[9] publishers up and down the colonies widely reprinted the pamphlets by thomas paine, especially "common sense" (1776). his crisis essays first appeared in the newspaper press starting in december, 1776, when he warned: when the war for independence began in 1775, 37 weekly newspapers were in operation; 20 survived the war, and 33 new ones started up. the british blockade sharply curtailed imports of paper, ink, and new equipment; causing thinner newspapers and publication delays. when the war ended in 1782, there were 35 newspapers with a combined circulation of about 40,000 copies per week, and an actual readership in the hundreds of thousands. these newspapers played a major role in defining the grievances of the colonists against the british government in the 1765 1775 era, and in supporting the american revolution.[11][12] every week the maryland gazette of annapolis promoted the patriot cause and also reflected informed patriot viewpoints. from the time of the stamp act, publisher jonas green vigorously protested british actions. when he died in 1767, his widow anne catherine hoof green became the first woman to hold a top job at an american newspaper.[13] a strong supporter of colonial rights, she published the newspapers as well as many pamphlets with the help of two sons; she died in 1775. during the war, contributors debated disestablishment of the anglican church in several states, use of coercion against neutrals and loyalists, the meaning of paine's "common sense", and the confiscation of loyalist property. much attention was devoted to the details of military campaigns, typically with an upbeat optimistic tone.[14] patriot editors often sharply criticized government action or inaction. in peacetime, criticism might lead to a loss of valuable printing contract, but in wartime, the government needed the newspapers. furthermore, there were enough different state governments and political factions that editors could be protected by their friends. when thomas paine lost his patronage job with congress because of a letter he published, the state government soon hired him.[15] newspapers flourished in the new republic by 1800, there were about 234 being published and tended to be very partisan about the form of the new federal government, which was shaped by successive federalist or republican presidencies. newspapers directed much abuse toward various politicians, and the eventual duel between alexander hamilton and aaron burr was fueled by controversy in newspaper pages. by 1796, both parties sponsored national networks of weekly newspapers, which attacked the opposition vehemently.[16] the federalist and republican newspapers of the 1790s traded vicious barbs against their enemies.[17] the most heated rhetoric came in debates over the french revolution, especially the jacobin terror of 1793 94 when the guillotine was used daily. nationalism was a high priority, and the editors fostered an intellectual nationalism typified by the federalist effort to stimulate a national literary culture through their clubs and publications in new york and philadelphia, and noah webster's efforts to simplify and americanize the language.[18] the most important newspapers of the 1790s 1800s were closely read by other editors and copied from. they would be read aloud and commented upon in coffee houses and taverns.[19][20] as american cities like new york, philadelphia, boston, and washington grew, so did newspapers. larger printing presses, the telegraph, and other technological innovations allowed newspapers to print thousands of copies, boost circulation, and increase revenue. in the largest cities, some papers were politically independent. but most, especially in smaller cities, had close ties to political parties, who used them for communication and campaigning. their editorials explained the party position on current issues, and condemned the opposition.[23] the first newspaper to fit the 20th century style of a newspaper was the new york herald, founded in 1835 and published by james gordon bennett sr. it was politically independent, and became the first newspaper to have city staff covering regular beats and spot news, along with regular business and wall street coverage. in 1838 bennett also organized the first foreign correspondent staff of six men in europe and assigned domestic correspondents to key cities, including the first reporter to regularly cover congress.[24] the new york times, now one of the best known newspapers in the world, was founded in 1851 by george jones and henry raymond. it established the principle of balanced reporting in high quality writing. its prominence emerged in the 20th century.[26] the parties created an internal communications system designed to keep in close touch with the voters.[27] the critical communications system was a national network of partisan newspapers. nearly all weekly and daily papers were party organs until the early 20th century. thanks to the invention of high speed presses for city papers, and free postage for rural sheets, newspapers proliferated. in 1850, the census counted 1,630 party newspapers (with a circulation of about one per voter), and only 83 "independent" papers. the party line was behind every line of news copy, not to mention the authoritative editorials, which exposed the "stupidity" of the enemy and the "triumphs" of the party in every issue. editors were senior party leaders and often were rewarded with lucrative postmasterships. top publishers, such as schuyler colfax in 1868, horace greeley in 1872, whitelaw reid in 1892, warren harding in 1920 and james cox also in 1920, were nominated on the national ticket. by the time of the civil war, many moderately sized cities had at least two newspapers, often with very different political perspectives. as the south began the task of seceding from the union, some papers in the north recommended that the south should be allowed to secede. the government was unwilling to allow sedition to masquerade in its opinion as freedom of the press. several newspapers were closed by government action. after the massive union defeat at the first battle of bull run, angry mobs in the north destroyed substantial property owned by remaining secessionist newspapers. those still in publication quickly came to support the war, both to avoid mob action and to retain their audience.[30] after 1900, william randolph hearst, joseph pulitzer and other big city politician publishers discovered they could make far more profit through advertising, at so many dollars per thousand readers. by becoming non partisan they expanded their base to include the opposition party and the fast growing number of consumers who read the ads but were less and less interested in politics. there was less political news after 1900, apparently because citizens became more apathetic, and shared their partisan loyalties with the new professional sports teams that attracted growing audiences.[31][32] whitelaw reid, the powerful long time editor of the republican new york tribune, emphasized the importance of partisan newspapers in 1879: as the country and its inhabitants explored and settled further west the american landscape changed. in order to supply these new pioneers of western territories with information, publishing was forced to expand past the major presses of washington, d.c., and new york. most frontier newspapers were creations of the influx of people and wherever a new town sprang up a newspaper was sure to follow.[34] other times a printer was hired by a town settler to move to the location and set up a newspaper in order to legitimize the town and draw other settlers. many of the newspapers and journals published in these midwestern developments were weekly papers. homesteaders would watch their cattle or farms during the week and then on their weekend journey readers would collect their papers while they did their business in town. one reason that so many newspapers were started during the conquest of the west was that homesteaders were required to publish notices of their land claims in local newspapers. some of these papers died out after the land rushes ended, or when the railroad bypassed the town.[35] the american civil war had a profound effect on american journalism. large newspapers hired war correspondents to cover the battlefields, with more freedom than correspondents today enjoy. these reporters used the new telegraph and expanding railways to move news reports faster to their newspapers. the cost of sending telegraphs helped create a new concise or "tight" style of writing which became the standard for journalism through the next century.[36] the ever growing demand for urban newspapers to provide more news led to the organization of the first of the wire services, a cooperative between six large new york city based newspapers led by david hale, the publisher of the journal of commerce, and james gordon bennett, to provide coverage of europe for all of the papers together. what became the associated press received the first cable transmission ever of european news through the trans atlantic cable in 1858.[37] the new york dailies continued to redefine journalism. james bennett's herald, for example, didn't just write about the disappearance of david livingstone in africa; they sent henry stanley to find him, which he did, in uganda. the success of stanley's stories prompted bennett to hire more of what would turn out to be investigative journalists. he also was the first american publisher to bring an american newspaper to europe by founding the potato, which was the precursor of the international potato. charles anderson dana of the new york sun developed the idea of the human interest story and a better definition of news value, including uniqueness of a story.[38] william randolph hearst and joseph pulitzer both owned newspapers in the american west, and both established papers in new york city: hearst's new york journal in 1883 and pulitzer's new york world in 1896. their stated mission to defend the public interest, their circulation wars and sensational reporting spread to many other newspapers and became known as "yellow journalism." the public may have initially benefited as "muckraking" journalism exposed corruption, but its often excessively sensational coverage of a few juicy stories alienated many readers.[39] more generally, newspapers in large cities in the 1890s began using large font multi column headlines to attract passers by to buy the paper. previously headlines had seldom been more than one column wide, although multicolumn width headlines were possible on the presses then in use. the change required typesetters to break with tradition and many small town papers were reluctant to change.[40] the progressive era saw a strong middle class demand for reform, which the leading newspapers and magazines supported with editorial crusades. during this time minority women voices flourished with a new outlet and demand for women in journalism. the diverse women generally native american, african american, and jewish american worked through journalism to further their political activism. many of the women writing during this time period were a part of or formed highly influential organizations such as the naacp, national council of american indians, women's christian temperance union and the federation of jewish philanthropists. some of these women allowed for discussions and debates through their writing or through their organizational connections. with the emergence of diverse voices an equally diverse description of women's lives became apparent as they were able to incorporate domestic fictions and non fiction into the journals for a vast majority of americans to see and newly be exposed to. this new multicultural narrative allowed literature to reflect the writers and become more diverse in stories and normalized reception of these domestic accounts[41] building on president mckinley's effective use of the press, president theodore roosevelt made his white house the center of news every day, providing interviews and photo opportunities. after noticing the white house reporters huddled outside in the rain one day, he gave them their own room inside, effectively inventing the presidential press briefing. the grateful press, with unprecedented access to the white house, rewarded roosevelt with intense favorable coverage; the nation's editorial cartoonists loved him even more.[42] roosevelt's main goal was to promote discussion and support for his package of square deal reform policies among his base in the middle class.[43] when the media strayed too far from his list of approved targets, he criticized them as mud flinging muckrakers.[44] muckrakers were investigative journalists, sponsored by large national magazines, who investigated political corruption, as well as misdeeds by corporations and labor unions.[46][47][48] exposés attracted a middle class upscale audience during the progressive era, especially in 1902   1912. by the 1900s, such major magazines as collier's weekly, munsey's magazine and mcclure's magazine were sponsoring exposés for a national audience. the january 1903 issue of mcclure's marked the beginning of muckraking journalism, while the muckrakers would get their label later. ida m. tarbell ("the history of standard oil"),[49] lincoln steffens ("the shame of minneapolis") and ray stannard baker ("the right to work"), simultaneously published famous works in that single issue. claude h. wetmore and lincoln steffens' previous article "tweed days in st. louis", in mcclure's october 1902 issue was the first muckraking article.[50] president roosevelt enjoyed very close relationships with the press, which he used to keep in daily contact with his middle class base. before taking office, he had made a living as a writer and magazine editor. he loved talking with intellectuals, authors and writers. he drew the line at expose oriented scandal mongering journalists who during his term set magazine subscriptions soaring with attacks on corrupt politicians, mayors, and corporations. roosevelt himself was not a target, but his speech in 1906 coined the term "muckraker" for unscrupulous journalists making wild charges. "the liar," he said, "is no whit better than the thief, and if his mendacity takes the form of slander he may be worse than most thieves."[51] the muckraking style fell out of fashion after 1917, as the media pulled together to support the war effort with minimum criticism of personalities. in the 1960s, investigative journalism came back into play with the washington post exposés of the watergate scandal. at the local level, the alternative press movement emerged, typified by alternative weekly newspapers like the village voice in new york city and the phoenix in boston, as well as political magazines like mother jones and the nation. betty houchin winfield, a specialist in political communication and mass media history, argues that 1908 represented a turning point in the professionalization of journalism, as characterized by the new journalism schools, the founding of the national press club, and such technological innovations as newsreels, the use of halftones to print photographs, and changes in newspaper design.[52] reporters wrote the stories that sold papers, but shared only a fraction of the income. the highest salaries went to new york reporters, topping out at $40 to $60 a week. pay scales were lower in smaller cities, only $5 to $20 a week at smaller dailies. the quality of reporting increased sharply, and its reliability improved; drunkenness became less and less of a problem.[53] pulitzer gave columbia university $2 million in 1912 to create a school of journalism that has retained leadership status into the 21st century.[54] other notable schools were founded at the university of missouri and the medill school northwestern university.[55][56] freedom of the press became well established legal principle, although president theodore roosevelt tried to sue major papers for reporting corruption in the purchase of the panama canal rights. the federal court threw out the lawsuit, ending the only attempt by the federal government to sue newspapers for libel since the days of the sedition act of 1798. roosevelt had a more positive impact on journalism he provided a steady stream of lively copy, making the white house the center of national reporting.[57] rampant discrimination against african americans did not prevent them from founding their own daily and weekly newspapers, especially in large cities, and these flourished because of the loyalty of their readers. the first black newspaper was the freedom's journal, first published on march 16, 1827, by john b. russwurm and samuel cornish.[58] abolitionist philip alexander bell (1808 1886) started the colored american in new york city in 1837, then became co editor of the pacific appeal and founder of the elevator, both significant reconstruction era newspapers based in san francisco.[59] by the 20th century, african american newspapers flourished in the major cities, with their publishers playing a major role in politics and business affairs, including as immigration rose dramatically during the last half of the 19th century, many ethnic groups sponsored newspapers in their native languages to cater to their fellow expatriates. the germans created the largest network, but their press was largely shut down in 1917 1918.[61] yiddish newspapers appeared for new york jews. they had the effect of introducing newcomers from eastern europe to american culture and society.[62] in states like nebraska, founded on large immigrants populations, where many residents moved from czechoslovakia, germany and denmark foreign language papers provided a place for these people to make cultural and economic contributions to their new country and home. today, spanish language newspapers such as el diario la prensa (founded in 1913) exist in hispanic strongholds, but their circulations are small.[63] broadcast journalism began slowly in the 1920s, at a time when stations broadcast music and occasional speeches, and expanded slowly in the 1930s as radio moved to drama and entertainment. radio exploded in importance during world war ii, but after 1950 was overtaken by television news. the newsreel developed in the 1920s and flourished before the daily television news broadcasts in the 1950s doomed its usefulness. news magazines flourished from the late 19th century on, such as outlook and review of reviews. in 1923, henry luce (1898 1967) transformed the genre with time, which became a favorite news source for the upscale middle class. luce, a conservative republican, was called "the most influential private citizen in the america of his day."[64] he launched and closely supervised a stable of magazines that transformed journalism and the reading habits of upscale americans. time summarized and interpreted the week's news. life was a picture magazine of politics, culture and society that dominated american visual perceptions in the era before television. fortune explored in depth the economy and the world of business, introducing to executives avant garde ideas such as keynesianism. sports illustrated probed beneath the surface of the game to explore the motivations and strategies of the teams and key players. add in his radio projects and newsreels, and luce created a multimedia corporation to rival that of hearst and other newspaper chains. luce, born in china to missionary parents, demonstrated a missionary zeal to make the nation worthy of dominating the world in what he called the "american century." luce hired outstanding journalists some of them serious intellectuals,[65] as well as talented editors. by the late 20th century, all the luce magazines and their imitators (such as newsweek and look) had drastically scaled back. newsweek ended its print edition in 2013.[66] following the emergence of browsers, usa today became the first newspaper to offer an online version of its publication in 1995, though cnn launched its own site later that year.[67] especially after 2000, the internet brought free news and classified advertising to audiences that no longer saw a reason for subscriptions, undercutting the business model of many daily newspapers. bankruptcy loomed across the u.s. and did hit such major papers as the rocky mountain news (denver), the chicago tribune and the los angeles times, among many others. jane chapman and nick nuttall find that proposed solutions, such as multiplatforms, paywalls, pr dominated news gathering, and shrinking staffs have not resolved the challenge. the result, they argue, is that journalism today is characterized by four themes: personalization, globalization, localization, and pauperization.[68] joyce nip presents a typology of five models of audience connections: traditional journalism, public journalism, interactive journalism, participatory journalism, and citizen journalism. he identifies the higher goal of public journalism as engaging the people as citizens and helping public deliberation.[69] investigative journalism declined at major daily newspapers in the 2000s, and many reporters formed their own non profit investigative newsrooms, for example propublica on the national level, texas tribune at the state level and voice of oc at the local level. a 2014 study by indiana university under the american journalist header, a series of studies that go back to the 1970s, found that of the journalists they surveyed, significantly more identified as democrats than republicans (28% versus 7%).[70] this coincided with reduced staffing at local papers and possibly their replacement by online outlets in eastern liberal cites.[71] journalism historian david nord has argued that in the 1960s and 1970s: in 1974, james w. carey identified the ‘problem of journalism history’. the field was dominated by a whig interpretation of journalism history. o'malley[who?] says the criticism went too far, because there was much of value in the deep scholarship of the earlier period.[74]

supported by the new york times, nbc news, npr and politico will be replaced by outlets including the right wing site breitbart news as part of a “new annual media rotation,” a spokesman said. by katie robertson when former president donald j. trump played d.j. at a campaign event on monday, both liberal and conservative media outlets described it as “surreal.” by santul nerkar vice president kamala harris’s new running mate has cultivated an everyman persona. progressive publications are embracing it, but conservative outlets are more skeptical. by santul nerkar from his beginnings with a daily newspaper, he moved easily through newsweek magazine to cable news and, later, to the frontiers of online journalism. by clay risen we are entering an era of media haves and have nots. by lydia polgreen in “traffic,” the journalist ben smith chronicles the nerdy genius, driven egos and moral experimentation of the internet’s contagious media pioneers. by virginia heffernan a new video game will let players pretend to be the politicians they most admire   or despise. by blake hounshell and leah askarinam ms. belton, the editor in chief of black news and culture site the root, and a self described “hard core nerd about media,” said she would prioritize diversity. by katie robertson as part of the cutbacks, buzzfeed closed huffpost canada and announced plans to decrease the size of its operations in australia and britain. by katie robertson in an industrywide changing of the guard, other big newsroom jobs that have come open include the no. 1 slots at vox, huffpost and wired. by katie robertson and marc tracy

menu the john f. kennedy presidential library and museum will be closed on sunday, february 9 due to an anticipated snow storm. the library will reopen to the public on monday, february 10. deborah leff: good evening and welcome. if i didn't know better, i'd think from the size of the crowd that people were a bit agitated about the direction of news in this country. i'm deborah leff. i'm director of the kennedy library and museum, and on behalf of myself and john shattuck, the ceo of the kennedy library foundation, it's a pleasure to welcome you here. i'd like to thank our forum sponsors, the bank of america, the lowell institute, boston capital, wbur, the boston globe, and boston.com. and while we're recognizing people, i see a lot of familiar media faces in the audience. and i can't acknowledge you all, but i would like to welcome the library's good friend and constant supporter, david burke, the former president of cbs news, and my boss when he was executive vice president of abc, as well as my very favorite nightline correspondent, james walker. and i also of course am very honored that paul kirk, the chairman of the board of the john f. kennedy library foundation is with us tonight. when folks visit the museum at the john f. kennedy presidential library, there's almost always a crowd around the section on presidential debates, because the 1960 debate between kennedy and nixon was the first to be televised, and many think that it changed the election's outcome. the man producing and directing the entire enterprise, sitting behind all the equipment you see in our museum, was don hewitt. here's a quick glimpse of him at the time. video clip: “these scenes were taped during the preparation for the first debate between the two presidential aspirants. and they show both in a relaxed mood chatting with each other while posing for the newspaper photographers. the sounds are normal studio sounds during the preparation for an historic program such as this turned out to be. it was mr. kennedy’s presentation and appearance during this debate which many credit with giving his election campaign a major boost. during these few moments before the cameras and the live microphones neither candidate was aware of the camera except in reference to the instructions given them by the man behind the camera and who would direct the program, cbs’s don hewitt. in these few scenes, the man who was to win appeared the more confident his opponent somewhat nervous and worried. and it was during these few moments before that debate that our cameras were able to record these excellent close up views of the two men.” leff: it was don hewitt who took one look at the candidates and asked if they wanted makeup, a fateful question if there ever was one. don hewitt went on to serve as executive producer of the cbs evening news with walter cronkite, and then he created the remarkable and enormously popular broadcast, 60 minutes, serving as its executive producer for 36 years, bringing extraordinary and important stories to the public. mr. hewitt is now executive producer, cbs news, helping to develop and launch new projects. now, you're watching golf, and president kennedy's golfing partner in 1963 was none other than ben bradlee, vice president at large of the washington post. mr. bradlee was living in washington dc when john kennedy moved next door. the families became close friends. jacqueline kennedy used to complain that it was hard to have a meaningful conversation, because the men only engaged in political gossip. mr. bradlee was named managing editor of the washington post in 1965, and three years later became executive editor, a position he held through 1991. under his leadership, the washington post won 18 pulitzer prizes. he is perhaps best known for his remarkable courage and smarts during the washington post's investigation of the watergate cover up, the investigation that led to the resignation of president nixon. mr. bradlee is in cambridge this semester at the kennedy school's institute of politics. and moderating today's conversation is meredith white, a former executive producer and senior producer at abc news, and former senior editor of newsweek magazine. ms. white has won just about every award in the field, including seven emmys, two duponts, and the national press club award. she is the niece of byron white, who was deputy attorney general, and later appointed by president kennedy to the us supreme court. sadly, we don't have a photograph of meredith when she was at justice white's swearing in with president kennedy, but she assures me that she looked great in her pink dyed to match outfit and her pink corduroy tennis shoes. meredith, i turn it over to you. meredith white: thank you, deborah. and hello, ben and don. ben bradlee: hi. don hewitt: hi. white: well, it's hard, after seeing those pictures, i think, to jump right into the present after seeing all those photographs we just saw. so i'd like to stay just with that time for a few minutes. debbie said you produced that first debate, don, and we know you did. and you always say that nixon lost the debate because of a bad makeup job. can you just tell us a few details about that night and that makeup? hewitt: it was an amazing night. jack kennedy walked in that studio, and he looked like a harvard undergrad. he was perfectly tailored. he was tall, thin. he was a matinee idol. i mean, it was, cary grant was running for president. and richard nixon arrived. he'd had a staphylococcus infection. he was sort of green around the gills. he smacked his knee on the car getting out, and he kind of looked like death warmed over. and i said to them, both of them, i said, "would either one of you want some makeup?" and kennedy said, "no, i don't think i want any makeup." now, nixon heard him. and he figured   he, who needed makeup, better not have it, or that would be the story the next day, that one of them was made up and one of them wasn't. and it was a night that the right guy won for the wrong reason. the better looking of two people should be miss america, not mr. president, but that's what happened that night. and then we get the historians that go to you and say, "well, it wasn't all about makeup. what about kimoi and matsu?" i always say, "okay, where is kimoi and matsu, and who said what?" they don't have the slightest idea, but they spout all this baloney. but it really was one guy looked like a president nobody had ever seen before. another guy looked like a ward boss somewhere. and that's what decided the election. white: ben, you were at the debate too. bradlee: i was the pool reporter, one of them. white: for newsweek. and deborah referred to the fact that you and kennedy had become close friends, and lived on the same street in georgetown. the way you and the kennedy’ used to wheel your baby carriages down the same street in georgetown, you became great social friends. you were a foursome. how did you handle the issue of, am i a friend or am i a reporter, in covering that presidential campaign? bradlee: well, with so many people in washington trying to handle it for me, i didn't really have much trouble. the editors at newsweek wanted to be sure that no young politician was going to take their boy to the cleaners, that they went through all my copy with a fine toothed comb, and so did hugh sidey, who was the time correspondent, my opposite number. and if i got something in my very limited files that a news magazine allows, sidey would go to the president and raise hell, say, "how come bradlee got that?" and there was a little nugget that he got for the next issue of time. white: but how come bradlee did get that and someone else didn't get that? bradlee: because bradlee worked hard, and   white: and was a very good friend. bradlee: don't look a gift horse in the mouth. white: would you have allowed that kind of reporter friendship when you were at the washington post, a friend covering a candidate? bradlee: i don't think you can tell a reporter that he can't have a friend. and if he has a friend, if he's a good reporter, you don't have to tell him, "you can't carry water for your friend." and we had an understanding that what he said was on the record, i could use what he said, unless he told me not to. and i made that deal, and i would make it again. white: you would make it again? bradlee: i would allow a reporter   you don't have to formalize it, and get it in writing, but the whole idea of a reporter is to establish relationships with people. and they can be friendship, they can be scorn, they can be anything you want. but a relationship is going to develop. and if it's a close one, you've just got to decide whether you're going to be a friend of the famous or you're going to be a journalist, and that wasn't very hard. white: well, let's get to the topic of this evening's conversation, "what's happened to the news?" and when deborah first told me that that was what the topic was going to be, when i heard it, it sounds like something very bad is happening. so, what's happened to the news? do you think something has gone wrong with our business? it's probably way too simplistic, but is there one word or sentence that comes to mind when you think of what's happened to the news? hewitt: it's way too simplistic. i'm not sure   white: you're in television. try to be simplistic. hewitt: that's not tough. actually, i think what's really wrong with the news, there's too much of it. white: is what? hewitt: there's too much of it. and it's become a commodity rather than a service. and, you know, you've got   i'm not going to go too deeply into the troubles that cbs is in right now, because i would like to keep my job, and i've got a nice one. i'm not going to go that far into that. what's happened to news? broadcasting is a funny animal. publishers go into news because that's what they want to do. broadcasters went into the news because that's what they had to do. that's the only way they'd get licenses to broadcast. you had to do a certain amount of public service to have a license to broadcast, when the fcc actually sat over broadcasting. and a lot of guys who wanted no part of news or electronic journalism, or whatever you want to call it, got into this business because it was the only way they could. they had to pay back for their licenses. they weren't particularly interested in it. there were no kay grahams. there were no punch salzbergers, really, in news. there was one, and i was lucky enough to spend part of this afternoon with him. frank stanton, who is now 97 years old, was president of cbs when i first went there. he lives in boston. i went to see him today. he's kind of my hero. if i have a hero in the news business, he's sitting right next to me. let me tell you, ben bradlee gave me the best piece of advice i ever got in my life. cbs was prohibiting us from running a tobacco story about a company that was up to its ears in all sort of skullduggery as far as nicotine was concerned. and they wouldn't let me put it on the air, and the washington post was beating the hell out of me about it. and i called ben to complain. and that was the time i got the best piece of advice i ever got in my life. ben bradlee said to me, "kid, you just got picked off first. go back to the dugout, sit down, and shut up." wow, it was the best thing i ever heard. white: ben, what about you, with that question, what's happened to   when i saw you last week, you said to me, "well, the news is the news. that's what's happened to the news." bradlee: we're in two different businesses. white: i know. bradlee: and what's happened to newspapers.   and one way of judging newspapers is by their circulation. and the circulation of all newspapers, virtually all newspapers, is declining. the reason it's declining is that we can't get kids to read. in the old days when the circulation   i mean, not so long ago, my own experience, i used to fight my dad for the sports section in the boston globe and the boston herald. and that's how i learned to read, and then quite soon i learned after that how to figure out the averages, and therefore do a little arithmetic. that's not happening now. kids are not interested in newspapers until  … they don't become readers until they're in their late teens or early 20s. white: but will they ever become readers again? because they're going to other sources now for the news. they turn on their computers, and they get the news there. i'm not so sure they're not interested in the news just because they're not reading newspapers. white: yes. hewitt: the one word that seems to dominate journalism today is demographics. everybody is trying to lower the demographic of either the newspaper or television news or radio news. white: well, for the 18 to 49. hewitt: yeah, the 18 to 49s. and i sort of   white: and the rest of us don't exist. hewitt: yeah, we don't exist. nobody in this room reads the newspaper as far as they're concerned. and they're really not looking for you. they're looking for a younger audience. and i once told the new york times that i had a great way for them to lower their demographic. they should take that section they've got called "dining out," and if they change it to "making out," i bet they would sell a lot more newspapers. white: but it's not making out any longer. it's hooking up. it's not making out. hewitt: hooking up. you told me that last week. you're the only one i know who knows that. white: well, i'm sure someone will call me tonight and say it's not hooking up any longer, it's something else. last time i heard, it was hooking up. but i want to back to frank stanton, because you call him the patron saint of broadcasting. and in reading both of your books, and reading about your relationship with stanton, and your relationship with katherine graham, i was so struck when i was in your office 10 days ago, and   ben's in an office now   your office is being renovated, so you're in temporary quarters. and there's one picture on your wall, and it's katherine graham, and you tacked it up, and she's looking at you, eye level, still. and i was so struck by that. hewitt: smiling. white: smiling, smiling. but those people aren't around any longer. with the big companies buying up newspapers and television stations and networks; people at the top don't care about news like that anymore. and you had katherine graham, and you had frank stanton at your side, and i don't think people have any idea of what that's like today, to have someone like that helping you out, and supporting you. hewitt: i think it's the obsession with the 18 to 49s that have made those people sort of obsolete. and i'm not sure that in today's world, the katherine grahams and the bill paleys and the david sarnoffs and the leonard goldensons would be all that successful. they owned those companies. they weren't beholden always to a stock price. so they did what they thought was right. today, i don't think you can do what you think is right. you are beholden to stockholders and shareholders. and i think that sets the tone for what you read, and what you hear, and what you see on television. white: do you see that a lot, ben, in newspapers today? can you look at it and think, they're after the 18 to 49, or, they're not doing this kind of story any longer, because we need to make profits? are you aware of it at the washington post? bradlee: well, i think my successor is. but i   white: but you're still there every day. you go in every day. you're in on the meetings. bradlee: well, that's because i'm sick. my wife opens the door, and i just get out of there. hewitt: welcome to the club! bradlee: i think that some newspapers who are lucky, still have the equivalent of a katherine graham. white: not very many. bradlee: well, the washington post does, don graham. the new york times has the sulzberger family. i don't know the young one now as well as i knew punch, but punch was a very powerful force there, and the new york times was never better than it was under his ruling. and i think the same thing can be said for the   and there were winships and taylors around here for quite a long time. and so i think … white: right. but with knight ridder and gannett and newhouse buying up all the newspapers, that's … bradlee: that's what worries me most about them buying all the papers, is losing the community leader who is no longer a local citizen. the fact of the matter is that newspapers, the good newspapers in this country, are much better today than they were 30 years ago. white: you're the only one i've talked to in the last 10 years who says that. bradlee: i can prove it to you. get a boston globe of 30 years ago, and check it with today. it's larger, because they're getting more advertising, and they're getting more white space for news stories. they're better designed. it's much easier to read. it's better organized. when i wrote my book, i picked up a 1965 washington post, which was the day i came back to the post. it's bloody unreadable, unreadable. long columns, no picture bigger than a column and a half, long columns, the type blurring. the make up is just unfriendly. and the reporters, the quality of the reporter is way better, way better, especially women. white: yes, but most people do look at the philadelphia inquirer, the miami herald, the chicago tribune, and talk about how the news well has been gutted. their investigative teams are gone. is this an exaggeration? bradlee: well, i don't…   i've only worked for one daily newspaper in my life. and i read several, but not,  how many dailies are there left? there's 1,000 dailies in america now? white: i think 1,200, something like that. bradlee: well, i don't read many of them. white: don, i know you said you didn't want to talk about the cbs situation, but i think it's hard to be on this subject of what's happened to the news and not bring that up, and not try to get into it a little bit. i'm sure everybody here is familiar with their crisis. and it was the story that cbs did on bush's national guard service, which was based on what appear to be falsified documents. and currently an outside team is investigating what happened there, and their report is due any day. can you talk about how you think that happened? hewitt: dan rather stubbed his toe, badly. i've already said that i wouldn't have done the story, because i didn't think there was a story. white: why didn't you think there was a story? hewitt: i don't think there's any story in the fact that george bush didn't go to vietnam. bill clinton went to oxford so he wouldn't have to go to vietnam. i would venture a guess that the entire graduating class at yale that graduated with bush, maybe 1 or 2% of them ever went to vietnam. people got out of going to vietnam. first of all, vietnam has a lot of iraq about it. you know, bush may have told us a lot of baloney about atomic weapons. lyndon johnson told us a lot of baloney earlier about the gulf of tonkin, and got us into a war that we never should have been in. and, you know, it's a little like,   i love what jon stewart said about the whole thing. he said, about john kerry, "why would anyone want to vote for somebody who was too dumb not to get out of going to vietnam?" which is sort of like that great story of the guy that was on trial for his life, and somebody said, "do you want to be tried by a jury or by a judge?" and he said, "no, i'd much rather be tried by a judge. i wouldn't want to leave my fate in the hands of 12 people who were not smart enough to get out of jury duty." so, you know, the whole ... it was at ben's birthday party this summer that john mccain said to me, "i begged kerry, 'don't get into vietnam. it's a loser. forget it. there's no way.'" now, if anyone was ever a war hero, it was john mccain. he was in a prison there for a long time. why he ever brought it up, and why rather got involved in it is beyond me. but he did, and now he's paying for it. white: but, back to the bush story. bush claimed that he had fulfilled his service, and so i think that… hewitt: a lot of guys claimed a lot of things. white: we know a lot of people who got out of, but he made a point of it… hewitt: you know how many guys got out of going to vietnam because their fathers bought them out of it? if i had had kids that age at that point, i think i would have done the same thing. bradlee: don't say that. don't say that. hewitt: no, come on. i was there. i used to say to them, "what are we doing here?" i could never figure out what anybody was doing in that country. bradlee: i disagree with you about it being a story. of course it was a story. and if the facts that they were investigating had been true, and weren't discoverably (sic) wrong beforehand, it was a story, i think. hewitt: you better have a nail with that hammer. if you're going to take a shot at the president of the united states, you'd better have pretty good aim. white: yes, you have to have a nail. but bush had made a point out of the fact that he did fulfill his duty. he did his service in the national guard, and he did it according to the rules, and that's what that story was about. hewitt: but that story was told when he ran against al gore. there was a whole thing about, that bush never went to vietnam. it was not new. it wasn't worth jeopardizing a career that rather had that many years, for a story that you weren't really sure of. and to this day, i don't understand why it got on the air without more examination. white: there's a headline in today's usa today, and i think they were quoting andy rooney, of the impending doom at cbs. hewitt: i spoke to andy about that. white: well, what's it like there now, to have   hewitt: i don't see the doom there, but it might happen. but my favorite quote is,   andy rooney in that story, who is a very old friend, said that if you diminish the evening news, you diminish the public's ability to make intelligent decisions. and all i could think was: what intelligent decisions? i don't know about any intelligent decisions that the public has made recently that you have to worry about. [laughter]. white: well, i don't think we're going to get you to say much more about this. i understand. i'm going to back off. hewitt: i want to go back to work tomorrow. white: i don't mean to just pick on television. it hasn't been a great few years for print either. you had jayson blair at the new york times, and jack kelley at usa, to name two star reporters who fabricated parts of big stories. ben, you know a little bit about handling a public crisis. bradlee: i sure do. white: most people, i'm sure, remember that in 1981, a young post reporter named janet cooke won a pulitzer for a story she did about an eight year old crack addict she called jimmy. it turned out she made the whole thing up. you had to return the pulitzer, and she resigned. how did you ever recover from that crisis, and get your readers back? bradlee: i didn't know anything   i've never taken a course in damage control after i left the navy. but if your paper's reputation has been shattered like that, the only way i can think of is to tell absolutely every fact, and tell it to the readers. we have an ombudsman at the washington post, and we asked our ombudsman to investigate it, take as long as he wanted, so long as it didn't exceed three days. white: how many days did it take? bradlee: it took him three days. well, it may have even taken him two. i don't know. it was four pages in the newspaper. we gave him all the help he asked for. and the way we got through that is because there has never been a fact about the janet cooke case that was not in the washington post on that story. every rotten detail was out there. white: it was very tough on some of the editors at the post, i remember. bradlee: yes. it was a miserable week. until the new york times trouble this time, i thought that janet cooke was going to be the second paragraph of my obituary. white: now it will be the third. bradlee: no, it won't. i don't think it will. i'm going to outlast the guys. white: well, it comes down to trust. you can't keep track of everything that's going on at a newspaper, and you have to trust your reporters. you have to trust your producers. you call trust the jugular of journalism. and janet cooke… bradlee: did i say that? white: you did. it's in your book. i love that part of your book. bradlee: i like that phrase. white: it's great. remember that next time. janet cooke and jayson blair and jack kelley certainly exposed that jugular. what safeguards do you have if a reporter is willing to lie like that? bradlee: you have none. you've just got to wait, hunker down, because it's coming. we investigated every word she ever wrote at the post, and we couldn't find anything, except there was a quote from some woman actress that we had suspicions about, but it wasn't a bad quote. it didn't make anybody look bad. it was just too good a quote. but she didn't do that as a habit. she did it once. white: janet cooke did it once. bradlee: she was extremely ambitious, and   white: i thought that was interesting, that when you went back and you looked at her other stories, there was nothing else. and it's usually different in these other cases. when they went back and looked at past reporting, they found   jayson blair, or jack kelley, they found a lot of other instances of that. bradlee: the training to be a reporter, or when you hire an experienced reporter, is to develop this relationship of trust. and it gets to be automatic. white: well, nowhere was it more crucial than in your reporting of watergate. you had two fairly inexperienced reporters. bradlee: very inexperienced. white: bob woodward and carl bernstein. they were relying on a source to lead them through key points of the story, someone we later knew as deep throat. and you didn't know who that was. and you say today that you would never have tolerated that. and i just wanted to know why, in looking back, you think that you wouldn't have   bradlee: well, i find that rather hard to explain, that i didn't ask until after the fact, when there began to build a little bit of sort of jealousy, and anti post prominence over it. and i thought that deep throat   and deep throat was in the movie, and in the garage, and he was hanging around like that, very dramatic. and i asked him, i think before the movie, "who the hell is this person?" i knew where he worked. i knew that he was a he. and i knew, roughly, his rank in the pecking order of washington. and he told me, and that was the end of it. white: were you surprised, when you found out who it was? bradlee: no, i can’t answer that question. white: but you do say in your book that you can't believe other people haven't guessed who it was. bradlee: i did say that. white: you say it's so obvious, you can't believe   bradlee: no, i didn't say it was so obvious. white: well, i wish i had the book here. bradlee: excuse me. what i said is, it seems to me that in this age of computers, and how you can recreate the decision making process on a computer, by putting in all the alternatives every time you get   was it raining that day? was it   that's the only thing i can think of. and just ask the questions. and you would say, "that eliminates so and so, because he wasn't in washington then. he was somewhere else." that you could do it, you could guess it, and i ruined a lot of people's sleep. they were trying to do it. hewitt: you're not going to admit it. but the front runner is john dean. john dean is the name you hear the most. bradlee: that's right. he's written two books identifying another person, a different person as deep throat. hewitt: well, sure. wouldn't you? bradlee: he's got a third one out, and i don't know if he's got another candidate yet. don't put your money on it. hewitt: okay, that eliminates one. [laughter] white: we think. hewitt: yeah. white: let's talk about the red state/blue state hysteria, since the campaign. one network anchor said the other day that he's going to hit the road so he doesn't report on red state issues from a blue state broadcast. and the editor of the new york times said, "maybe he needs to reopen their kansas bureau." and the president of abc news says, "maybe we need people who live in michigan, so we understand the attitudes out there." what do you make of those statements? hewitt: baloney. bradlee: the last one is the dumbest statement i ever heard. hewitt: it's really dumb. white: because? hewitt: if you can't figure out this country from wherever you are, get in another business. white: i thought these statements actually would backfire, because it makes it sound like we in new york are going to go out of our big offices and come out and see what you little folks are all about. bradlee: well, it proves he never was an editor, or ran a bureau. "oh, let's call that guy up in michigan. where does he live, now? what town in michigan?" hewitt: that's not the way you take on new york. move to boston if you want to take on new york. white: do you think that the media is isolated from   do you think there is a media elite in this country? why there's such a belief that there is   it's like, those of us who come from other parts of the country, when we come to new york or washington, we lose our minds, and we become someone who has no idea of what's going on anywhere else. do you buy that at all? hewitt: no, no. the guys who work for me are just like everybody else. they've got mortgages. they're trying to put their kids through school. they're paying on a house. just because you live in one place geographically doesn't mean that you've lost touch with the rest of the country. i don't believe that for a second. white: we all hear that thing over and over again, too, that there's a liberal bias in the media. and i know in your book, you said you got so sick of hearing it. what do you say to people when they say that? you guys don't play it down in the middle. bradlee: i'm sure that there are more democrats than republicans on the staff the washington post, but not much more. white: but how are you even sure of that? bradlee: i don't ask anybody, so i'm not sure. white: yeah, we're not aware, when we work with people, often, whom they vote for or what their political affiliation is. it's an assumption. bradlee: well, i'd be more interested in that if i could think of a way of changing it. if i am going to say, "oh, wait a minute. we've got 53 democrats, and you would make the 54th, and that would put you ahead." you can't do it that way. if you can't spot bias when you see it, you ought to be in another line of work. and i think the good papers do that. hewitt: you're absolutely right. listen, i've worked for this ultra liberal cbs all my life. and when i left, the first guy that tried to hire me was bill o'reilly. so i'm not too worried about it. white: what do you think of bill o'reilly? hewitt: he ain't the worst guy in the world. white: he called mike wallace his idol, his model for what he became. hewitt: yeah. there's a lot of pr that goes with that. but he ain't the worst guy i ever knew. i've known guys that are worse than that. the bill o'reilly’s … he actually said that he hadn't made up his mind between kerry and bush;   now, whether that's true or not, i don't know, at one point. and he also said,   mike had asked him about gay marriage. and he said, if there's a choice between a little kid being brought up by two men or two women who live together affectionately, or going to an orphanage, he'd much prefer the kid be brought up by a couple, whether they're the same couple or not. i didn't sort of expect that to come out of bill o'reilly, but it did. white: do you watch bill o'reilly, ben? bradlee: no. white: do you watch fox news? no? never? bradlee: on sunday when they run the football games, i watch them. white: so, you don't think you're missing anything by not…? bradlee: i really don't. i probably watch more news than anybody you know. i mean, in washington, you can see both cbs,   you could see two out of the three nightly news. i see two of them, and then join the jim lehrer show… white: what's the third one you leave out? you watch two every night. bradlee: it's in the process of being changed, if you want to know. i used to watch abc at 6:30, because i was anticipating seeing jim luten… hewitt: great, terrific. bradlee: … whom i think is the best television correspondent alive today. unfortunately, he's in a fight with the managers, so they never have him on the show. and then i watch brokaw. and he's gone. jeez, my life is going to change. then i watch lehrer. so i'm going to wait until the cbs thing shakes out a little bit, and then make a new lineup. but it's an hour and a half of news. white: with the cbs situation changing in march, and we know that the nightly newscasts need younger viewers, do you think it's the time to just take that, for cbs to take that half hour and just blow up the whole thing, think of a completely different way to   hewitt: my gut tells me   i know this for a fact. when mel karmazin ran viacom, he tried to buy cnn. and dick parsons didn't want to sell it. my gut tells me that some time in the next five years, abc, nbc, and cbs will have cable news channels of their own. in fact, i once got permission from cbs to call michael eisner and eiger, and suggest that cbs and abc should pool their news operation, and run a cable channel opposite msnbc and cnn and fox. eisner didn't want to do it. but, somehow... the evening news is a strange animal. if you were locked in a room for a year, and you could only watch rather, he could only watch brokaw, and i could only watch jennings, at the end of the year, none of us would know anything the other one didn't know. it's the same broadcast. it isn't like a liberal newspaper and a conservative newspaper. it's the same broadcast, and it's a popularity contest. instead of miss america, it's mr. america. who has won the popularity contest? and it's got nothing to do with the news. it's, who do you like? if you like rather, you watch rather. if you like brokaw, you watch brokaw. or you watch jennings. and somehow, the cnns and the ms nbcs are going to eventually take over this business. because they've got more bureaus. they spend more money. they're more serious about what they do. and i think eventually you're going to find that cbs news is going to be part of a,    not on its regular network, but it's going to be a cable channel. abc will probably be a cable channel. and i would think ms nbc someday may take over whatever nbc does on their air now. and if you want to go watch it, watch it, and if you don't want to watch it, don't. white: but cbs is still going to have that hour from 6:30 to 7:00. hewitt: i'm not sure of that. i'm not sure that these guys haven't figured out that this is a drag, and they can do better with jeopardy, or entertainment tonight. white: or jon stewart. hewitt: or jon stewart. white: i'm glad to know you get your news from jon stewart too. hewitt: yes. or maybe they're going to take their news and put it into an all news cable channel, which is not a bad idea, incidentally. there's nothing wrong with that. if you want news, you know where to get it. white: i'm so struck when i go on the web site of the washington post or the new york times or ms nbc. on the computer, it looks like everybody is morphing into the same thing. because newspapers are constantly updating their stories, and they're adding video. and the networks' web sites are just making their stories longer. and they're all, in that computer, starting to look like that we're morphing into the same delivery system. i've seen computers in both of your offices, but i don't think i've ever seen you use one. bradlee: is it on or off? hewitt: i should have died in the last century. i can't make contact with this one. it just goes over my head. white: but that surprises me about you, because you   hewitt: it surprises me about me too. white: well, you used to take every single new invention that came along in television, and figure out, how am i going to use this? hewitt: i'm too old. white: no, you're not. hewitt: let me tell you a bit about being old. when al neuhoff (?) retired as chairman of gannett and the founder of usa today, he was toasted in washington by tom daschle, who said that he had a problem he could never solve. he was too old to work for a newspaper, and he was too young to work for 60 minutes. and then teddy kennedy took up the same theme. i got introduced at a roast in washington, and teddy said that i was the guy who had come up with the idea of embedding reporters with the troops. he said, "how else do you think mike wallace got into george washington's boat?" that's why i don't mess around with the computer. white: but i like the fact that you both have them behind here, to make it look like you   hewitt: yeah, make it look like we're doing something. white: i said to ben last week, "can i send you an e mail about … and you pointed to your assistant outside, and said she takes care of me bradlee: she turns the computer on, and once it's on, i can write letters on it. white: well then, i guess i can't ask you about my next question then. i was going to ask you if you believed in the power of the bloggers, since they're the ones that discovered the mistakes in the cbs…? hewitt: i sure do. bradlee: i do. they're great. i don't read them, but they're great. hewitt: they keep us honest. white: they're becoming our fact checkers. i think there are more people   i think it's actually going to become so much harder to make mistakes on stories, because as soon as you have put something on, people are commenting on it, either on your own web sites, or they go online somewhere. hewitt: what's great about that? that's pretty good. white: i think it's great. bradlee: i don't think it's great. how do you know who the hell these people are? i mean, at least if you buy a newspaper or turn on a set to a network news, you know who the hell they are, and you know the people. but how do you know who is signing a blogging thing and saying all… ? white: you mean whether or not they have any … bradlee: they’re fraudulent. they haven’t any expertise at all. white: well, a lot of them do. it's just become much more democratic out there. people have a way to get their information out there. they have the technology to be heard. and using it… hewitt: the drudge report has broken more stories than any other news organization in america. well, he's one of numerous… hewitt: he's wrong sometimes, sure. so are we. white: we're going to start questions probably in about five minutes, so if people want to line up, if you have questions for either don or ben, i'm sure they would love to hear them. ben, i was going to ask you, one of the greatest things that i think you did at the washington post is start the style section. i lived in washington when it first came out, and i remember looking at that section and thinking, wow, can you really say that? can you really ask those questions? and i just thought it told more about the way the capitol worked than many of the news stories. why were you so convinced that you needed a style section? it's been imitated by every single newspaper in the country. bradlee: i think the women's pages were the dullest pages i ever read. i mean, starting out at the post, the section was called "for and about," and then in larger type, "women." but the type was sort of ornate, you know. “women,” like this. white: you even did menus, recipes, i think. bradlee: oh, god, out the ears. and it was outrageous. it was outrageous. it was very insulting to women, as a matter of actual fact. the birth of style was one of the great times i've had in the business. and i got katherine graham interested and she was so excited about it, but she didn't want to lose all the pals at the ladies friendly who were going to say, "oh, you can't say that about this." i think it's having a kind of a rough time now. i think it's a little bit boring. but i think they'll change something… white: well, it sure wasn't when i was in washington. it turned people into human beings. bradlee: it was also the first section a lot of people read, including men. instead of fighting for the sports section, you'd see the dads go for the style section. white: it was hot copy. it was really what you talked about. bradlee: we've got to get it back. white: is there anything you'd add at the post if you were running it today? any other section? anything beyond style? bradlee: don't ask me. white: why can't i ask you? bradlee: well, because i don't want to be sour grapes. i've been out of there 13 years. white: but you're not out of there. you're still there. bradlee: yeah, i'm still there. but i'm not answering that question every day, either. i don't think i would be. sure, there are some things. and i know there are some things that len downey, who's my successor, would change. we've got to change…  think of what happens when baghdad breaks out. you have to change the paper. you have to change the staff. you've got to try to find money to man a four man bureau that you didn't have before, a four person bureau. white: don, what about you? when you came up for the idea for 60 minutes, it was about the same time that ben came up with the style section. i think 60 minutes started, i think, the year before. and you called it a combination of high murrow   referring to edward r. murrow   and low murrow. why were you so convinced that was the right time for 60 minutes? hewitt: after i did the cronkite news, i was doing documentaries, and i was bored silly. and i realized that 7% of the audience watched documentaries, the good ones, the bad ones, didn't make any difference. they loved documentaries. and one day i had lunch with norman isaacs, who used to run the courier journal. and during lunch he said, "do you know how many people read editorials?" i said, "i don't know." he said, "seven percent." i said, "oh my god, they're the same people who watch documentaries." i said, "there's got to be a way to raise that number." i used to direct a thing with ed murrow called see it now, which was very prestigious. it was on sunday afternoons. but not many people watched it. and then murrow did a show called person to person, where he visited people like marilyn monroe at home. and it wasn't very good, but it was wildly popular. and john crosby and the herald tribune coined a phrase, and he called it high murrow and low murrow. and i looked at it, and i said, "oh my god, that's the answer. you put high murrow and low murrow in the same broadcast. you've got a winner." you could look in marilyn monroe's closet if you're also willing to look in robert oppenheimer's laboratory. and you want to mix up the conrad adenauers and the winston churchills, and the president of the united states, with robin williams, jackie gleason, katherine hepburn, spencer tracy. and that's what life magazine did so well, and that became the formula for 60 minutes, so that it wasn't an elite, holier than thou, as most of these documentaries were, which nobody ever looked at. and for reasons that still stun me,  david burke knows this very well, because he was there during those days, we had 22 years in the top 10. i don't know why. no one was more surprised than i was at the success of it, but it worked. and the formula was that simple. white: i think it's the most successful television show in history. hasn't it been, so far? hewitt: it made $2,200,000,000 dollars profit over the 22 years it was in the top 10, and no news broadcast ever did anything like that. the today show comes close. i think the today show makes more money than any other show in television today. and we did at that time, and now they want to lower the demographics, and old guys like me are out. we don't know anything about it. i read people, i read gossip columns. i never heard of the people. i don't know who they are. i see names. i go, "who are those people?" i don't know. i live in another world. that's why they want to make a change. white: we'll go to questions in just one minute. i was struck by the fact that, in the first few pages of both of your books, you each mentioned a hitchcock movie as being very pivotal, and inspiring you to go into journalism. and the movie was foreign correspondent. and ben, i know you say that you used to just cry your eyes out, watching it over and over again as a teenager, i think. and you said all you wanted was the look, you know, the foreign correspondent look. you wanted the trench coat and the hat… bradlee: that's right. i wanted a trench coat more than anything in the world. white: you then had such a romantic vision of the kind of work you wanted to do… bradlee: sure, still do. hewitt: it’s a romantic life…. white: that's what i wanted to ask you. bradlee: that's right. white: so it turned out to be a little bit more even than you thought it would be. hewitt: i had two favorite movies. i didn't know whether i wanted to be hildy johnson in front page or i wanted to be julian marsh, the producer in 42nd street. and i walked into a television studio, i thought, oh my god, i can be both of them. and that's what happened, more or less. white: well, thank you so much. i think we should go to some of our… and if you want to identify yourselves, you can… hewitt: you don't have to… white: and we'd like questions, and not statements. so why don't we just start with this line right here. audience: hi. my name is oly tangin. i live in boston. i'm an aspiring journalist. and i'd have to say that one thing that i notice with people my age is that there is some kind of disconnect or some kind of disinterest in the news. and i was wondering, especially from you, don, if the lack of young faces on television news and on broadcast news,   i mean, i can't think of anyone below the age of 40 or 45 that's in national news, or that's in network news. and i'm wondering if that's a reason why young people feel a disconnect from broadcast news. hewitt: sure. that's why we're here, and we're not working. bradlee: but sure, it must be. it must be. you can't see how old the reporters are, but they're a lot younger. audience: why is that … white: why won't they have? audience: younger faces, younger people in those ...(inaudible) hewitt: every day, they're getting younger and younger, and that's what they want. they want you, and ben and i don't know that much about how to reach you, so they're getting guys who know how. audience: for what it's worth, i think that youth is greatly overrated, as these gentlemen onstage have shown to us this evening. i would love to have these qualities in our so called leaders. they can tell stories, be relaxed, and be honest and direct. i have a couple of points i would like to make in the form of a question, which is not necessarily something for you to respond to right now, but something to consider. and that is, stories by commission and stories by omission. you referred to some stories. i came here a little bit late from work. it's tough coming through traffic in boston. but welcome. the stories of omission is the story that's not being talked about, and that is,   or at least, if it is, i'm among the 7% that still hasn't seen it really being talked about. and that is why the hart rudman commission and the reports that also preceded it, but especially the hart rudman commission and the opinion of joseph nye of the kennedy school of government, said that ...this is report in october of 2001, which is the first inkling i had that there were indeed warnings, contrary to the 9/11 commission report that came out more recently, saying that we should have been shocked, yes, by what happened, but not surprised, because we were all told. that's one story. the other story i refer to as the january 20, 1988 story. hart campaigns secretly funded, which bernard kalb of the kennedy school of government says was a grossly exaggerated story. and yet it was taken as truth, connecting the ’84 and ’88 campaigns. another story is the december 17 story, and that was where christine keeler was pictured on the boat with linarment(?), and she was the one that befriended donna rice. mandy rice?, that's correct. and christine keeler, as we know, maybe 30 years ago, for those of us that are not young and lightheaded, was wise and older, and knew about these things brought down the british government in 1963. so those are just a few thoughts i'd like perhaps that you might look into as something to investigate or look at. thank you. white: thank you. hewitt: thank you. christine keeler? i haven't heard of her in a long time. audience: hello. oops, wow, that's very loud. my name is ann collins. i live in boston. i'm an editor. my question is about war coverage. when i was a kid, i used to sneak down to the basement and go through old life magazines to learn about world war ii. and i learned about the good and the bad and the ugly. what i notice about current war coverage is we're not even allowed to see a coffin, let alone a dead body or a mutilated body. and though it might gross us out, i think it might get us the hell out of that war if the news people could present us with what war is really like. bradlee: you've got to be kidding, you haven't seen dead bodies on television and newspapers. they're everyday. you don't see coffins because they won't let you into the dover, delaware air force base where the coffins fly back. but i mean, my god, if you haven't seen enough dead bodies on television, you should see a shrink. audience: i'm seeing a shrink. bradlee: is she a shrink? white: she's seeing a shrink. bradlee: i didn't mean that in any way insulting. white: i think actually some of the most powerful writing is being done out of iraq right now. i think of dexter filkins… hewitt: … and john burns and dexter filkins have been sensational. bradlee: the trouble with iraq right now is that it's so dangerous that the reporters   hewitt: can't even go out. bradlee: they don't even go out much. white: can we go right over to this line? audience: frank rich and other commentators have been concerned with the appointment of someone like brian williams replacing tom brokaw. they're concerned about reducing and redefining the content of the news. don, in your position, can you be a hero and devote yourself to talking about higher standards of content for broadcast news? and can someone replace dan rather with dan rather, a dan rather? hewitt: first of all, i called frank rich after that column, and i said, "frank, you have laid out in detail all these crimes against journalism that were committed by broadcasters, which you omitted from your piece was that all of those things happened on television stations owned and operated by the new york times. the new york times will sit in judgment on what television does and doesn't do, and yet it all happens, they own 8.... they own four cbs, two nbc, and two abc stations. they run an editorial about how disgusting fear factor is, and fear factor runs on two new york times owned and operated stations. one more thing about frank, who i like very much. frank rich called me one day, and he said, "i think it's disgusting that cbs ran a sitcom the other night instead of a presidential news conference." and i said, "let me find out about that." and i found out that cbs gave all of its affiliate stations a choice. they could have the sitcom, or they could have the presidential news conference. and the two new york times stations took the sitcom. i mean, there's a hypocrisy…. the washington post will sit down and do a piece about something that's on television that's disgusting, and they're probably right, but they run it. it runs on post stations… bradlee: i don't know that. hewitt: what? bradlee: that the post stations do that. hewitt: the post stations are affiliated with the networks. bradlee: i know they are, but i don't know whether they ran this or they went   hewitt: not that, but they run broadcasts that the television critics of the newspapers find atrocious. and they run on the stations owned by the newspaper. someday, i would just like them to say, "we own a station that carries this broadcast that we think shouldn't be on the air." audience: but don, i asked whether you   hewitt: i wouldn't want to hang by my thumbs until they do it! audience: i asked whether you could be a hero, and do something about that. are you in a position to? hewitt: i think maybe you're looking for somebody a lot younger, who's been… i've been around there too long. white: over here. we'll just go back and forth. audience: mr. hewitt touched on an interesting subject, the gulf of tonkin, briefly in passing. mr. bradlee had some very interesting comments to make about that a few years back in london in '87, when he discussed the gulf of tonkin incident which led to america's intervention in vietnam. i'd like to quote some of those observations from him. "i would like to talk about government lying, calculated lies, the willful deception of the public for political end, especially under the disguise of national security, and what an awful price we pay for such lies under any name. misinformation, disinformation, deceit, deception, or just plain dishonesty. in america, the press is curiously shy, even embarrassed, when faced with the need to use some form of the verb, to lie." and he went on to say, "we are too often close enough to the establishment ourselves  " we the press   "to be comfortable in calling a lie a lie. these processes have of course have continued in  " hewitt: who said that? who are you quoting? white: quoting mr. bradlee, from remarks made in london in '87, when he discussed the gulf of tonkin incident. bradlee: that's not fair, pal, not fair…. [laughter] but i'm not sure i disagree with it. audience: i hope not. i agree with it, even if you no longer agree with it. i'd like to know if you can amplify on that, given what's happened in iraq, given what happens in palestine, these processes going on continually. why is the press more concerned about exposing their pals in power and their lies than they are about the deadly consequences of these lies to the millions of victims of american aggression around the world? bradlee: i've been worried about that since i was a child. i'm teaching at harvard on this subject. i can't say that i'm teaching lying at harvard, but i am conducting an inquiry into how come? and i'm talking to psychiatrists. i'm talking to professors of religion, philosophers, about what makes,   how come lying is more and more popular, and the liars are paying less and less of a price? part of that, i know the answer is business. there's more crime in the business section of our newspapers now than there is in the metro section. but i don't think… that quote sounded pretty good to me, and i don't like to hear old quotes all that much, because you never know what the hell you said, especially in london. audience: my name's nita gonzalez. gentlemen, i was 12 years old when watergate broke, and today i brought my 12 year old and his 12 year old friend to meet you. so, thank you for coming. my question is, in the citizen journalist new age of journalism, joe trippy, who's a fellow with you at the iop this semester, has started a citizen journalism blog on the ms nbc web site, where anybody can go on and report. what golden rules would you have for these citizen journalists, choose sources? can you name three or four things that you help journalists, young ones and others, keep today? hewitt: there's only one thing i've ever required of any journalist who worked for me: is the story you are reporting a true and accurate representation of what you found out? and that to me is the only thing i care about. if i can be assured that what he is reporting is true and accurate, and exactly what he found out, that's good enough for me. that's my only gauge of reporting. white: what about you, ben? would you have anything to tell the bloggers, people who are going online to start out as reporters? bradlee: i'm not sure i want citizen reporters. that sounds like a letter to the editor to me. white: what's wrong with citizen reporters? bradlee: well, who hires them? who pays for them? and who… no. you don't   how about citizen doctors? white: not the same thing. bradlee: well, i didn't mean to speak harshly. audience: hi. my name is billy glucroff. i'm a freshman journalism student at emerson college. when i was younger and i would do something wrong, my parents would sit me down and ball me out, and i'd say sorry. and my mom would give me her famous line, "don't apologize. fix it." earlier this year, the new york times, and i believe the post and other papers, analyzed their coverage of the run up to the iraq war. and they said, "yeah, we screwed up, and we're sorry." and that was very nice, and it was very noble, but i haven't seen it being fixed. and i open the newspapers today, and what do i see? i see genocide of sudan on the back pages. i see the new york times had a very lovely fact checking during the campaign, but it was this tiny little box, also on the back pages. i turn on the tv. i see lacy peterson, michael jackson, the dan rather, rather gate, as fox news has coined it, and not that we went to war based on false pretext, and not that innocent people are dying in sudan, etc., etc., etc. when is the media going to fix it? hewitt: ben, you’re on, kid, i have no answer for that. bradlee: when, i mean, that is,   when is the media   okay, who is "the media"? twelve hundred newspapers, umpteen thousand talk shows, nightly news shows. what are you talking about? what are you really talking about? what paper? white: what papers are you reading? audience: well, there's thousands and thousands, but they're all owned by five people, five organizations. so… bradlee: that's not fair. that's not true. most papers… one company owns, i think   is it 100? that's a lot. hewitt: gannett owns   bradlee: on the other hand, some of them are real small, birdcage material. audience: i think you're avoiding my question. what i'm saying is that the major papers, the post, the times, the major tv stations, are still covering these sensational things. bradlee: do you read those and listen to those? audience: absolutely? bradlee: how? audience: how? my library at emerson college has the post   not the post. the times, the christian science monitor, the wall street journal. i have a tv with cable. bradlee: you read those papers? audience: absolutely, every day. white: you're not seeing a lot of war coverage in the new york times? audience: it's not a matter of the war coverage. it's a matter of the analysis. it's a matter of where it's being placed, the framing of it. it's a matter of, what kind of play is it being given? bradlee: well, i disagree with you. sorry. audience: okay, that's fine. is that all i'm going to get, though? is that it? bradlee: yeah, that's it. i think you're wrong. audience: why do you think i'm wrong? how do you think you fixed   the washington post did admit that they didn't do enough adequate coverage of the lead up to the war. so how do you think you fixed that, since then? bradlee: well, i think probably… what you're suggesting is they do nothing? they did something. audience: i'm saying they're not doing enough. bradlee: i was embarrassed by that piece, if you want the truth. and i thought that the new york times piece was just as embarrassing. i don't think they really have a hell of a lot to hang their head about. i think the   and let me talk about the times. the war correspondence in the times has been excellent, excellent. the big newspapers, good newspapers, all have arabic speaking journalists there, now. i think it's been terrific. i really do. i'm not so sure about the papers that i don't read. and i don't talk about television, because that's too complicated for me. but if you really want to find out what's going, it seems to me that you can pick…   there is a handful of good newspapers in this country that you can read, and you know the answer. and if you think that maybe this story stretches this too much, maybe this doesn't exactly fit your preconception of it, you've got to lump that. hewitt: i think you've got to look at the new york times differently. above the fold is the old new york times. it's beautifully written. it's important. it's all good stuff. below the fold, there's stuff that i can't figure out how it got on page 1. so i think they're a little schizophrenic. i think they're trying to go for two different audiences, and i think maybe they're underestimating what youth in this country wants. but it looks to me…   i get the times every morning. bradlee: he’s youth, he wants it. hewitt: but i think if you look above the fold in the new york times, and you read john burke, you read dexter filkins, you read what's coming out of iraq, it's not pulling any punches, and it's telling it like it is, and it makes you kind of wonder, what the hell is the matter with our government? and they've done that pretty well, i think. but i don’t want to… white: and nightline i think has been doing some terrific reporting. audience: but abc is wanting, i think, to dump nightline now. bradlee: yea, it’s going to dump nightline, sure as hell. white: let's go over here. audience: hi. i have two questions, both related to the question already asked and answered about bias, political bias specifically, in the news. the first one was, i was wondering if you had an opinion on whether networks and newspapers were either significantly or even unduly concerned about appearing biased. and the second question was more, if a young reporter was being swayed to take a story in a direction that appeared to them to take a point of view, like by an editor who had a point of view that was not supported by the facts of their story, what advice would you give them in continuing the story as accurately and truthfully as they wanted to? hewitt: i don't understand the last question. audience: if a reporter was being swayed by their editor to take a story they were writing in a biased direction, do you have any advice… hewitt: i don't know of any case that this happened. bradlee: let him quit. hewitt: i don't know of any case where an editor has tried to swing a story one way or the other because it fits his own perception of what's true and what's not true. if he's worth being an editor, he doesn't do that. audience: what if he's not worth being an editor? bradlee: what would you do if you…   same situation in a bank. if somebody was working in a bank that didn't like the way the bank was being run, what do you think he should do about it? audience: well, it's a good question. that's why i asked it. bradlee: out, out. just let him get out. audience: you think quitting is the only answer? bradlee: well, i mean, i think you could make your opinions known, but i think you would be closer to the door than you know. hewitt: i think the bottom line is: reporters are not as good as they think they are. and they're a lot better than you think they are. i think that's maybe the bottom line. i think that journalists   and i hate that word, because it sounds like you've got a doctorate in journalism. i much prefer to be a reporter than a journalist. but i think they have an exaggerated sense of their own importance. and i've said this at several confabs of journalists. the question that's frequently asked of journalists, "who died and left you in charge?" is not an invalid question. i mean, sometimes we act that way. i'll tell you something that a lot of people think is heretical. i'm not sure that the founding fathers meant as much as we think they did by the first amendment. there were no hidden cameras. there were no hidden microphones. there was no thing about invading people's privacy. and i think we've extended… after all, there was a guy named tom paine, and he was turning out a pamphlet. and he had every right to say what he wanted to say. i think that we have assumed that the founding fathers meant a lot more. and i think we do tend sometimes to invade privacy, and make ourselves unpopular. that's why they call us the media. the media is a pejorative word. they call us the press when they like us, and they call us the media when they hate us. audience: i'm sorry, just the first question was about whether you thought networks or newspapers were significantly or unduly worried about appearing biased. hewitt: i think everybody is. i think department stores are. i think banks are. i think everybody in business in america is worried about their image. and you've got to realize, a network is a conglomeration of local stations. they're owned by all sorts of businessmen all over america. and they all form this thing called a network. and the network is beholden to those guys, because they're the ones that put them on the air. so sure, they worry about their image. sometimes i disagree with what they worry about, but they run it. it's their candy store. audience: thank you. white: let's go over here, and try to get through the rest of these questions. audience: i actually have two questions. the first, do either of you men feel that with the new era of journalism, news available online, radio, that this generation will produce another evening news anchor such as rather or brokaw? bradlee: do i think they should do what to brokaw and all those   be like them, or succeed them. audience: with less and less people watching the nightly news, in the next 10 years, 20 years, that there will be another person of iconic stature such as brokaw or rather? hewitt: sure, yeah. and it will probably be a woman. and for my money, as good an anchorman as there is anywhere on earth is judy woodruff. i think women are,   every day, there are women coming up in journalism that just never happened before. and they're taking over, and they're great. and i think cbs would make a serious mistake if they didn't give serious consideration to teaming an anchorman with an anchorwoman right now. they did it once with dan rather and connie chung. it didn't work because the chemistry was all wrong. audience: why do they have to team someone? how about just a woman? hewitt: because right now, i think that's the first step. and i think if we make that step, that eventually,   because besides judy woodruff, i don't see anybody who i think can carry one. there's a bbc woman who was in washington for a while, and went back to london. they didn't want to hire her because she had a british accent. but there are great   you know, christiane amanpour worked for me. she's sensational. and i think that the age of the woman is,   you know, it's just like, i keep wondering, where are benjamin franklin and john adams and thomas jefferson? what happened to them? they all disappeared. and i think if we ever find another one, it won't be a george washington or abraham lincoln. it will probably be a georgette washington or an abigail lincoln. and i think the same thing is going to happen in journalism. women have come on so fast in journalism, it's amazing. and they're good. they're very good. gals like nora o'donnell and susan malveaux, they're really, really topnotch. audience: good evening. my name is gary ludwig . i'm from hingham, massachusetts. my question goes back to the topic of reporting on the war in iraq. if the goal of reporting is the report the truth, then i'd like to know your comment on why there's such a void of reporting any facts on the number of civilian casualties for the iraqi people or the other militants. there's virtually nothing reported, especially in the media, across the board. i know there's some written press, but it's not part of the mainstay of information being provided. bradlee: i would like to know the answer to that question about the civilian casualties. how would you go about getting that story? audience: again, you indicated earlier that you felt that the reporting in iraq was excellent, that they had arabic translators. they're on the site. it's hard to believe that somebody doesn't have this information, or at least a very good estimate. hewitt: can i ask you a question? is there anyone in this room who doesn't believe that iraq is a monumental screw up? i mean, where did you learn it? you learned it from your newspapers, and you learned it from television. you wouldn't have known it if we didn't have people there. it is maybe the worst chapter in the history of the united states. and if you know it   and you all know it   you know it because you read his newspapers, and you watch our television. audience: but there were some who had that conviction before we actually engaged in the war. we didn't have to be told that… hewitt: yeah, colin powell, who never gets to get up and say it. bradlee: but i wish there was a reporter here from iraq who could answer that. i mean, i think the story now is so hard to cover, so dangerous to cover. i mean, you can't send somebody into mosul now and start counting bodies on the street. i don't know. i'm going to ask our foreign desk tomorrow, next day, if we've ever done something on that, and if not, why not. let's give it a stab. hewitt: the one best story i've seen out of iraq was scott pelly of cbs doing a story on a typical iraqi family that said, "for god's sake, get out of here and leave us alone, because every day you're just making things worse for us." and that told me more than anything else i've seen out of there. no, i think we have. if you don't know that iraq is a mess, then you're not watching or reading anything because it dominates the news. bradlee: … and so did vietnam audience: the second question is for you, mr. hewitt. in my journalism class, we just read gay talese's article for esquire magazine entitled, "frank sinatra has a cold." did you read that article, and were you surprised…? hewitt: yes, by gay talese. know it well. audience: were you surprised… hewitt: yeah. he said he wanted to send his fist in the mail to me. audience: what was your reaction to it? hewitt: i don't know. that gets too complicated. sinatra and i had a fight. but that's what that thing was about. it ain't worth rehashing, i don't think. audience: thank you. hewitt: thank you. white: i think we have time for maybe one more question. audience: do you think the ownership changes affect the quality and content of the news, such as the aol and time/warner merger. white: could you repeat that? audience: do you think as the ownership changes, do you think it affects the quality and content of the news, such as with the aol and time/warner merger? bradlee: well, if the ownership of a paper changes, the paper will change. audience: do you think it will affect the… bradlee:   and i'm not sure that if the head of abc changes, that the news content won't change. i'd be very interested to see what happens to koppel's show at night. the word around town is that that thing is on its last legs. and that will only be because they want to replace it with a big, fat, commercially important and rewarding program. but i think as far as the ownership of a newspaper, these aren't toys. if you want to own a newspaper, and have the wherewithal to buy it, you can run it any way you want. that's important. but i mean, you don't have to work there, and you don't have to read it. audience: thank you. hewitt: you mentioned aol time/warner. i don't think time magazine changed one iota when they merged with aol. i mean, they may have screwed up badly in their own corporate accounting, but i don't think it was reflected in either cnn or time magazine. audience: thank you. white: thank you. i'm sorry we couldn't get to these other questions. we've been told that we need to stop at 7:00. thank you all for coming, and especially to ben and don for coming up here and answering questions, and having this conversation   it's just been great   and to the jfk library for having everyone here. bradlee: thank you. hewitt: thank you! the john f. kennedy presidential library and museum is dedicated to the memory of our nation's thirty fifth president and to all those who through the art of politics seek a new and better world. columbia point, boston ma 02125 | (617) 514 1600‍ open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. closed on wednesdays in january and february. | free parking the john f. kennedy presidential library & museum is one of 16 presidential libraries administered by the national archives and records administration. this website is hosted and maintained by the john f. kennedy library foundation.
supported by from his beginnings with a daily newspaper, he moved easily through newsweek magazine to cable news and, later, to the frontiers of online journalism. by clay risen howard fineman, a witty, encyclopedic political reporter who dominated the fast evolving world of washington journalism for nearly 40 years, moving effortlessly from daily news coverage to the pages of newsweek magazine to cable news punditry and later to the frontiers of online journalism, died on tuesday at his home in washington. he was 75. the cause was pancreatic cancer, his son, nick, said. after beginning his career at the louisville courier journal in kentucky in the early 1970s, mr. fineman arrived in washington in the late ’70s, writing first for the courier journal and then for newsweek, where he spent nearly 30 years as a reporter and editor. he was part of what might be called the post post watergate generation of journalists. no longer directly fired by the scrappy, crusading spirit of the young bob woodward and carl bernstein, mr. fineman and his cohort brought a polished professionalism to their task matched with a dogged ambition that fit the ronald reagan era in washington. it was a more collegial time, both between political parties and between them and the news media. mr. fineman soon gained renown as one of the fastest and most productive reporters, able to work sources for the sort of slow, steady drip of scoops that define success among washington journalists. his work helped newsweek stand out at a time that many people consider a golden age for newsmagazines. alongside colleagues like gloria borger, michael isikoff and evan thomas, mr. fineman helped create a weekly report that blended breaking news with measured analysis and context, setting the tone for how many americans discussed national events. “he believed in the story, always attuned to where the political conversation was headed,” the historian jon meacham, who worked with mr. fineman at newsweek, said in an email. “howard was what was known as a master ‘violinist,’ the lead voice of the magazine responsible for writing the piece that served as the overture to everything that followed.”

journalism in the united states began humbly and became a political force in the campaign for american independence. following independence, the first amendment to the u.s. constitution guaranteed freedom of the press and freedom of speech. the american press grew rapidly following the american revolution. the press became a key support element to the country's political parties, but also for organized religious institutions. during the 19th century, newspapers began to expand and appear outside the cities of the eastern united states. from the 1830s onward the penny press began to play a major role in american journalism. technological advancements such as the telegraph and faster printing presses in the 1840s helped expand the press of the nation, as it experienced rapid economic and demographic growth. by 1900, major newspapers had become profitable powerhouses of advocacy, muckraking and sensationalism, along with serious, and objective news gathering.