Keys come back not only as a podcast journalist but is also the author of a new book over low new co overload o book of finding the truth in todays daily whic of news. I am a little bit humbled to be given the task of interviewing such a legendary interviewer but thank you for taking the time you are a wellknown person in journalism and it is good to be with you. Host we are all trying to make sense of the overwhelming or overload effects right now. We may go ahead and start with the proverbial elephant in the room. There are strong views about the media and we have seen once again they are fairly consiste consistent. It isnt freedom of the press even if it is completely false. That was in august. Just a few days ago you made it clear that was not an accident. It is frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write. Okay. The First Amendment to allow us to write whatever we want to write. How do we make sense of having a president who doesnt seem to buy into the First Amendment . Guest i wish i would have thought of this first. When the president said its disgusting that they can write anything they want to write and we ought to look into this, jake said i do look into this and he said here is the u. S. Constitution. And that is the interesting part to me. The administration has tried to picture us as the Opposition Party and people that want to run the government or run campaigns. Thats not what we do. What we do is remember first of all that politicians deliver a message. That is what they are supposed to do. Our job is to check out the message and find out if it is true or false and what the impact will be of the governed. That is the assignment that the founders gave us and its also a crucial part of democracy. You cant have our form of government unless theres access to the independently gathered information that they can compare to the government version of events and then they decide what to do about it and if we do that then we have performed a crucial role. I am not sure you can have democracy as we know it without that. I think it is as important as the right to vote. Yet the president of the United States doesnt agree. Im going to push you on that a little bit. How much of the threat is that if they do not accept the basic protection for the freedom of the press and the constitution . Guest all of this namecalling we are going through now, ive been called every kind of name one could be called all the way back to the nixon administration. Recently during the last campaign i was referred to as a female hygiene product. I get it all. But i do not pay much attention to that part of all of this thats going on. What i do Pay Attention to and am very concerned about is when people try to destroy the credibility of the free press, they are going right at the foundations of our democracy and i dont think thats a good thing whether it is the president or anyone else in the position of power. Most president s dont like the price, and you can understand why because they are under this microscope. But this is what we are supposed to be doing. And to somehow suggest that we shouldnt i mean, do they want only a government where the only information comes from a government complex i bet even donald trump doesnt want it ift if you start to think about it. They often start out by attacking the press and you see that happening today. Rhetorically there isnt that much difference about the press and the words that we have heard from turkeys leader or vladimir putin. The difference is in the actions or the legal system to follow through. So, overload is the title of the book. How much is a threat to the democracy that you talk about if we are doing our independent reporting that it doesnt make a difference. People can no longer tell what is the fact and what is your gloss on the news . I think it does make a difference and people do understand, that we have to keep doing what we are doing and that is trying to solve the truth from the folds. It is a bigger responsibility than weve ever had because we are dealing with so much more information. We now have access to more information than any people in the history of the world. But we are running a little short on curators right now. We are getting so much information that we cant really process it. With the coming of the web and now digital, it is harder and harder to separate this stuff out. My boss had cbs said we used to hire all these people out and find this and now we have to have an equally large group of people just sorting through the information we already have to find which is true, which is not true, which is relevant. So it is just this overwhelming overload of information. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And i learned a fe argue and tak about this in the book i think in the coming of the way as great an impact on the culture it is the coming of the Printing Press as the people in europe on that day. We all talk about what a great thing the Printing Press was, and obviously it was. Literacy was increased. We saw the counterreformation. But we sometimes dont think about the results are 30 years of religious war before europe sort of weeks to the equilibrium. I dont think we are quite there yet. I think we are about in the first trimester of the revolution that we are seeing in this technology. Host it doesnt feel like equilibrium i have to say. So tell me, you started off this amazing journalistic career in the 1950s. Just how different do you believe that the media and the political atmosphere was. Obviously it is a very centralized media world as a reporter, how different was that . Guest everything is turned upside down. Nothing is as it was in the first days. I got my first job when i was 20yearsold, my sophomore year and i went to work for this little Radio Station in fort worth that had a technological breakthrough. What would happen if we had these panel trucks loaded up with Police Radios and we would listen to the Police Radios and whenever we had one with wreck, rape or robbery, we raced to the scene and these trucks and with a twoway radio, on the scene reports. We didnt even have any recording devices in those days. We were still using the wired reporter in early stages of tape, but we couldnt play back the tape from the scene. We would interview people live on the scene and then later i went to work at the telegram and the reason i went to work there is a nice time polic the ninth e reporter whose name was phil was promoted to the night city editor. He knew me and recommended me to take his place and i became the Police Reporter had the startelegram. But the orderly way that we gathered at the news in those days and the way that it was reported, most towns had three television stations in a pretty good newspaper. Whether or not you agreed with the editorial policy of that newspaper we were generally when something was on the front page of the paperwork was broadcast t on the network news, you assume it was true that theyve gone to some effort to check it out and they didnt print things that were not true. So, we base our opinions on the data we were getting from those three television stations and local newspaper. Whats changed now and whats turned everything around us now you have 700 channels on television and even more than that on the web. We are not necessarily getting all the same data or the same facts. If you listen to this war is over for usover here and someboe listens to this one over here, you bring different facts so people are basing their opinions now on different data, not the data that they used to and i think that is the number one change that has come about and only now are we coming to realize how profound that is. Host it used to be the saying you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own set of facts and i think thats been reversed. Tell us about the politics. Obviously you mentioned the negativism, richard nixon, enemies list you started reporting in the 1950s during the era of mccarthyism. Weve all seen president ial campaigns in which the media were pointed out that you were called names and everybody else, so how was this different from the point of view of the politicians and Political Press . Guest its really nothing. You hear that its more intense because there is more of it and also because of the lightning speed that the news travels now. You know, when i was in the my y days in fort worth covering the politics down there, about ten days out whatever it was for, there was always a Whisper Campaign one of the candidates have a girlfriend on the east side. Why, i dont know but host on the eastside . [laughter] guest we would check these things out and most the time they didnt amount to anything. If they did, we reported it. But with the coming of the web, there is no such thing as the Whisper Campaign in politics anymore. If somebody finds out Something Like that, they put it on a blog and suddenly its out there and taking it down, its had more of an impact on politics than on journalists because the person running for office, he or she has to decide do i ignore this and hope it goes away . Do i comment on it and give it a distribution . And even now if people deny things made out of the closet, they still hang on. There is still a percentage of people in this country who think rocco, is not an american citizen. How much Fact Checking will it take to finally knock that down . This poor man at that pizza place in washington where there was supposed to be host common pizza. Guest operated b guest operated by Hillary Clinton in the basement, totally without foundation. A person came and fired a weapon looking and was going to shoot the doorknob off so he could go down in the basement and rescue the children. The first thing he found out if that there is no basement. All of that, he was arrested, taken away and is in the court system now. But there are still a number of people who still believe that. The man who owns that pizza parlor still has to have private security because hes still getting death threats. That is what has changed the speed of this stuff happens. Someone said a lie can go around the world while the truth is still putting its pants on and that is more true today than ever before and that is what we are dealing with. Host the interesting thing you pointed out about Fact Checking and thinking back on the 2016 campaign as i sort of try to reflect on what just went on here, it wasnt that journalists get them to do i think a pretty good job of a very aggressive and a serving unprecedented amounts of Fact Checking of his public statements and the fact that we are already on the record or many of them were very alarming. And that is what was challenging as journalists. This might be a moment where we have more transparency and information about the public figures than ever before unless the accountability. Guest there was a Certain Group of people who have done studies, psychological studies about whats come to be known as fake news and the impact of the conspiracy theories and why some people believe them and why is it so difficult to take them down. One of the things that happens is you counter this like we did during the obama birth certificate thing. Heres his birth certificate and the newspaper article that appeared in the paper on the day that he was born. But theres a certain number of people that they see what they call as kind of a backfire effect and that becomes part of it. They say thats not true that is just made up. Once its there and they believe these things like america never went to the moon, it was all made up. You cant always convince people with facts, and that is the part that is hard for us. How do we do this and i think in most cases, we will never be able to completely take down some of the stories that are made up. Host the golden age of conspiracy theories. Lets file back fo ill back fo. This is a really interesting project that gave rise to the book. When you decided to step aside, face the nation, you became a podcast or which i think is a great story. By the way, i am a podcast or now, too. And like you, i wasnt listening to a million podcasts five years ago. Its a cool new medium. So, you have a podcast series and its actually now given life to the transformation in the media. Tell me how that came about. Guest i knew so little about podcasts but i thought they were called ipods. [laughter] been somebody corrected me and said thats different. Andrew schwartz, whos the chief of communications, csi s. Got the center for Strategic International studies at washington, which as you know is a washington think tank. We were having coffee one day with john henry who runs the csi s. , and we got to talking about rumors and all this stuff going on and she said you know, i think this has reached the point that its a National Security issue. He said i think National Security depends on people having a credible press that they can believe what they read and what is reported. So we sort of kicked this around and decided to start during the podcast called about the news. Then we were to talk to ben smith. Somebody said we ought to put out a study like the think tanks do and i said you know, if we are going to do that i would just assume right a book if im going to go through this trouble i want someone to read it, i dont just want it to be the version that you publish in the first chapter of a study, which is quite valuable. So it came from that and we mustve interviewed 45 or Something Like that people in journalism. And i mean places from which some i never heard of and it turns out that they are very, very influential. The good news about podcasts and office, the good news about the internet is the internet makes all these kind of things possible, and thats great news. The bad news of course is that the nuts can all find each other now. [laughter] host a social network. Guest it is. And in the old days, and i came into journalism and people used to talk about well, maybe we should license journalists. Host President Trump just did the other day. Guest exactly. We all said what, no, anybody that has aimed in a Printing Press is a publisher and nobody can tell him not to be. Well, you dont need of anger or the Printing Press anymore because everybody with their phone is now a publisher. But the thing and the point i try to make in the book is everything you see on the internet has not been vetted in the way organizations like you and i work for do. We do it the oldfashioned way and that is we dont print or broadcast anything unless we made an effort to find out if that is true. That is not the case in many of the things that show up on the web now, and especially now in the social media. Its just a different deal. People are still getting that information. Host how do you find these interviews to be different than face the nation interviews . Guest the time. We run them about we try to time been about to the time a person would work out, most people forgot about 40 minutes, so that means the most popular links that we dont have any sex like ten to nine, nine, eight, e off kind of thing. I like them because you can do like we are doing today. We can talk about a lot of Different Things in some details. A lot of the interviews with the eight minutes long and that is pretty lonis prettylong for an e news turned 30 or 40 seconds if its really important about what someone said. So, i think it is just the time that you have and they are a little more informal, which i think is good. I am kind of and advocate of how would you tell your mom about this journalism. Not using a lot of parentheticals praises elected now in the firs on the first anb second and got it backwards. So, the podcast fit into my way of interviewing and reporting. Host do you think that is going to prompt a crisis in tv journalism . We talk about the crisis in the newspapers for example, that it strikes me that podcasting and the ability to pursue your interest is a pretty direct challenge to other broadcast mediums as well. Guest im not sure that i would call it a challenge, but i think that its a great new innovation. In other words, if i dont get a chance to read a newspaper in the morning before i go to work, i read it when i get to the office. I always read it at home, but there are some days i have an early call. I read three print newspapers. The times, the post and wall street journal that are delivered to my house. That is what we have always done. Now, my daughters still read the print newspaper because that is what they were raised up in the hous house that people were interested in news. My grandfather stoned, but they do read the news apps. They read it on their phone. And i think eventually that is where most newspapers, if they are going to succeed host tct be going away . Guest i dont think tv will go away. The service that we have now come it is basically a 24 hour news channel. You get it on your phone or computer. It is a streaming service aimed at a much well, we want everybody to watch it, but it is aimed at a younger audience. I would guess the morning shows are going to be around for a long time. Event to our period is really the only time left in the day you can tell people may be something they didnt know. We assume that the evening news, by the time people get to that on television, but they already know what the news is, so it is our assignment to try to broaden that out in some way and be more analytical than we have in the past. And i think theres still something. Id want to turn on the television in the evening and see what cbs felt was the most important thing that happened that day but maybe its just me as a journalist. I think 60 minutes is going to be around forever. I think shows like sunday morning, the sunday morning shows like face the nation, meet the press and all that, i think they have a long life. We may see the evening news broadcast go the way of afternoon newspapers. But right now, they still have five to 7 Million People. Host but they forget its a lot more than the average cable show. Guest that is an enormous audience compared to what you see on cable, but they are on all day. And my boss says if we did five or 6 Million People to turn on the tv of 6 30 at night, we are going to provide a service for them. But that may change, and it may be generational. The median age for the network programs, they are older folks, they are not as old as me. [laughter] those audiences are getting older as they are getting over on cable, but i think you will see most of these move to a streaming kind of Service Program like 60 minutes and faced the nation. I think they are going to be there for a long time. Host more investigative think that adds to the news cycle rather than repeat what youve already heard. Guest and they are expensive to produce. 60 minutes spent a lot of money coming and its obvious because they investigated for months when they are doing these programs. And it takes a large workforce. But the difference in that and about cbs assignment desk in new york, we have to maintain a reporting staff, as does the times and post and the big newspapers around the world to be ready to cover the unexpected. What those programs can do economically in a much more reasonable way is they dont have to be prepared to cover the unexpected. When something happens, then they cover it or when they uncover something they can pick and choose. They dont have to be responsible for telling you every single thing that happened today. So, that is basically the economics of it. But television is going to be around for a while i think. Host so, what surprised you in this experiment in podcasting as he wen we went ard interviewed the support of titans of the new media . Guest it was really fun to start with. I found out a lot of things. They are not all young. Some of them are. The guy in the book, i call him the bridge between old journalism and new. Hes just a fascinating character, as are most reporters. I love to be around reporters. I just like to be around them. I think they are funny and interesting. David eisenhower said they are not nearly as interesting as they think they are, but they are probably as interesting as david eisenhower. Hes a nice fellow. I shouldnt say that. But that isnt that way anymore because this white house there are as many factions as there are on capitol hill when i have never seen anything like this. Even with the nixon tapes there were pretty much on the same page and there was a certain discipline it was hard to crack that bubble but this white house tell talk to reporters and they all talk about each other other, lot dont like others in the white house and it is most unusual but you are under a lot of pressure obviously. Allotted people say reagan also came to washington under different orthodoxies. He did. He was quite congenial but he put together a great team people always ask me where is the politician is the best politician . Number one was lyndon johnson. He was the best by a lot. The best politician the secondbest was nixon secretary of defense. He was on the hill and the master a master of understanding and the third one was jim baker who never Held Public Office but just had this innate ability to understand how things work he did not see the press as an enemy probably more than those in the press would like to read mitt but he knew how to work the system and part of that was communicating to the press. And with his assistant for communications that they might have a one hour mock court where they would prepare for that. But he said that in a way that people could understand with an enormous influence that trump is having so much trouble john kelly is the chief of staff the baker was a master. He got back to organized bed ed meese thought he would be the chief unstaffed the bin they picked jeff baker to be his chief of staff. But he had that thing organized and they would get together to decide but would be the story of the day and they would focus on that. So they had a very good ability to present reagan and his very best. Reagan was not done. What Ronald Reagan knew is what he stood for in general terms he was very comfortable in his own skin and knew who he was. With things were not going right he was since the act and his wife played a huge role in that. She was the best of all hollywood wives italys had his back and would keep in touch but i think baker was a terrific politician in the best sense of the word because good politicians we need good politicians. He was the best. Is trump and missing his jim baker or Something Different from the previous president . Without talking about reagans i mean trumps position on the issues to strike that familiarity. He said he would drain the swamp it is good to change those in the white house. But the interviews with the lead david singer did with trouble on the campaign undermined how really little he knew about arabamerican Foreign Policy he needed people around him that the new that process. To be that type of person and private life to bring in what they knew but but then there is nothing there. When he does Say Something then trump doesnt hesitate to cut his legs out from underneath him. And who were the chief of staff the . I dont know if that is possible. It has trumps business background. A momandpop grocers are run by family not like the Quarter Group tree but everybody did what he told him. And the presidency is a more complicated job than that. I am not sure double trouble 01 negative understood how complicated being president is. What about those journalists that are covering each week . Who has a good response to figure out the Trump Presidency with an ad overload factor . The Washington Post, the New York Times, the wall street journal is doing a great job. Politico be basically dont realize they have been there. They are not a newcomer. Into take their most private and half of the work at the New York Times this seems to come from politico. But what the post figured out because that current models simply was not working. And jeff said he wanted to make this the best newspaper in america. But they are reaching millions of people now. So last november 70 million views . We were 30 million with politico. But not too long ago they were reaching a lot more people they of the Washington Post and it has been the same for the New York Times. But now the times puts their products out on 67 platforms the rope the top end of the role of the moderator in the president ial debate should be. It shows up on there website it went down i said is that it . She said no. There is a nice place reserved in the oped the sandpaper. The sunday paper because they would put the of the web site before read the newspaper. They have paid television because we have seven excerpts so we will put together a Little Package that my a oped story that is how to make it work the most important thing the post has is what they wish everyone has is there own billionaire. If a newspaper survive we will say theyre the most responsible for that. And with this oldfashioned newspaper war. And those along with from politico for what they have done. And in those within the reminder the times used to have a couple of correspondence she says but i always say but you notice we have the internet now . And then the beat reporters go off and then a river becomes back into the Office Around 530 for a the 7 00 deadline. With five or six stories a day in the analysis and that commentary and analysis of the past two people on the staff at 6 00 in the morning. When it is his weak to be on sometimes if tweeting at 6 00 he is already writed water to stories by the time we get are sent off to go to School Sundays he may write five or six gore going on television that 11 00 at night starting at 6 00 in the morning so it is a complete merger but you are a Wire Service Reporter and a tv commentator. When you have this enormous staff without largest taffeta in journalism every one of those had a piece of the trump story. [laughter] but also they go on video working all day the post is doing exactly the same thing. I dont know who started this but they now have a number of sources. Why do they do that . It is a good question and from washington reporting to said theyre writing a story about them. And then they call them back but what you have learned so to talk about the good news. And the increase for national reporting. What keeps you up at night . Local newspapers. The real crisis in journalism is taking place. A lot a view of those have been closed over the last 12 years. Mostly middle sized and smaller communities. In 2004 with washington and in the york and los angeles. And looking at that rust belt areas. There is no news and as we move more to digital. But what they have to do that digital project past to be better. But that is doable and possible. But if you get out to most communities everybody has a foam but they dont use it. And with the New York Times or the wall street journal they are reasonable but the cost is optional. And with those cost court cutters you may not have a Television Set anymore. In just coming into contact by accident. I think 62 percent of us get some of our news on facebook for social media i think it is 67 percent now. So the enormous number are it is a wonderful thing but what you are getting with the traditional news outlets. All of us know if they go away they will have corruption in this country so 70 has to step bin to figure out. You mentioned facebook and social media not out quite one year from the 2016 election learning about the efforts of russia to infiltrate the influence and they appear to of launched a Sophisticated Campaign of targeting americans that might not be visible to fit the demographic. How does that affect your views of the social media platforms . Is that what we should be worried about when it comes to our democracy . No question this is what the russians are doing. What theyre doing all across Central Europe they dont have tanks across the border they dont have cyber and they try to use fake news to destroy that credibility and day make sweetheart deals. Before you need it no it there in total control but it is out of control right now. And to do wonderful book where she studied five countries across Central Europe. And is not radically different. And what they had been doing it is working. But he says they are trying to you disrupt and destabilize the institutions but whether or not they are colluding with russia so put that aside for a minute to get trump as a bonus that is why we have to keep up with the investigation and do know that donald trump doesnt seem to talk about this. He leaves the impression he has something to hide. This will go on for a while but it will be very significant. Are there echoes do that period is that possibility congress may have to decide what to do . Perhaps. Im not trying to dodge the question but there is no question to where that goes talking about the 25th amendment and through some sort of medical issue. But what goes beyond that and how many investigations and this will be a problem for a while. Im glad that you brought that up since that election of 2016 there still examining what went wrong but you are an optimist about reporting facts and why they matter but to be an optimist the there are so many facts out there of the record, my concern with that transparency and the sunshine. You can leave the horse to water been cannot make kim during. And people come to this conclusion sometimes they get a wrong. And hamilton says the founders did not promise us a perfect government but a selfgovernment. That is where we are right now. But we cannot be intimidated or deterred. We are playing an important role. But what makes this so interesting in the middle of this technological revolution with those most unusual president ial campaign in my lifetime. But have said this so many times on television so here we go. As far as i know no injuries came out of that but i think this has something to do with the way on our politics but our political system the way we select our candidates is worse than our bridges i talk about that in some detail. And though is asking with the campaign how did it come down . And the republicans use that reality. Into the eminently qualified to be president even in the senate and was a very good senator for the state of new york. And if you have a National Following to be a candidate for the nomination her main challenge comes from somebody not even a democrat announced he was a capitalist, how does that happen . So we have made running for office so awful that the best and brightest want nothing to do with it. You have people like Olympia Snowe with the senate in she says my time is better spent doing something else. And Nancy Collins a senator on every count the issue really want to run for reelection . Should probably will get an opponent so i tinker right now what we see and on the republican side clearly it is widespread. So i did think i ran across something last year there were fewer people that identified as democrats or republicans with a history of either party with a strong thirdparty candidate. Because what ic that Democratic Party seems to be moving more to the left. And i have no idea who the candidates would be. You were still so much of an optimist. The with that podcast who has the secrets to a mock . Does he have anything to do with that . Number one i have never interviewed the pope i am not a religious person in any particular way. I am they believe her but i am always interested in religion. But donald trump said, over here ever do that. And his new would you like to interview . And to interview trouble over the years. They could not get the i. C. E. To freeze over with the skating rink he said let me do what i will get it done and in three months people were skating and it was a great start. Private enterprise over the bumbling bureaucracy. It was a really good story. Sometimes he likes me and sometimes he doesnt. Thank you for this incredible conversation that makes me feel better about journalism. I really enjoyed it. [inaudible conversations] welcome to do this evenings event it is my honor and pleasure to introduce our guest of honor Stewart Patrick the senior fellow