Crowds are right about after muskie tanked in the polls seen a group of his journalists had just knocked down five rounds of whiskey. Because there i was out. That was one of the things that was most different about 1972 was the access. There are really no barriers there. You could go up and talk to mcgovern and things like that. I wrote i rode around with him in a car. I dont know if you want me to tell the story about the thousand but one of the reasons why i wrote to the story that prompted mcgovern to say he was a thousand behind eagleton. Eagleton had have treatment for depression including electric shock you have to to think what is the next cycle. I saw tom of the postdispatch and go into his cabin. After figure out how to get an interview. I found out somehow that he was playing tennis. I went over to the tennis court where he was and ask when he was finished if i could write up with him to his cabin and talk to him. He said sure. Most cases you dont fly on the same plane with them. I went back to the press room. We when one for the two of us. I got it for my colleague. Not telling them why i wanted it. I interviewed mcgovern. In the course of the interview i asked him what he think the public reaction to eagletons announcement will be. He said we will have to wait and see. Mcgovern is still supporting eagleton. Well had to wait and see how the public reacts. Totally innocuous. I file it. If to understand about understand about communications in those days. Half of the staff is in washington. They barely had phone communication back and forth. They dont have an internet. They have no way to see my story for hours and hours. When they see my story they go crazy live a hurry up meeting. Mcgovern says i will deny it. The press secretary said i dont think you can do that and of course i have on tape. His solution was to put up a statement saying in response to the eight piece story i am a thousand behind eagleton. The state meant was put on the wall. And the person who did it is here sitting in the third row. She have red hair then. And went on to join our racket after the election. That was her moment in history. And she did it beautifully. Here is the more serious point. In the book he got something right in the book. And we all got it wrong. In the thesis in this book the established way of covering politics was full of it it created a two dimensional reality. Easily manipulated by politicians. On the Eagleton Mcgovern thing s point was that over all we have blown the story because we failed to transmit how manipulative i loved eagleton. How manipulative he was in trying to say on the ticket and then how skillfully manipulative mcgovern was in trying to grease the skids in trying to get rid of them. But timmys point was that all of this is first and not genuine drama. And that is a larger point that he was trying to make in the book. I think that is one reason it is still studied today because there is something wrong still with two dimensional journalism. And in many respects the hero of this book not with stories about drugs and booze and is hunter thompson. Who can make a campaign more real after off to pluto and back. Our favorite in New Hampshire was that he have discovered that the reason muskie was a lousy candidate was blurry as hell. Et cetera. Somebody have smuggled up to new england this drug brazil and even have a name for it. I made you boring. And then he would go on to describe an actual appearance. The real guy was very funny very profane worried about his stature but a variant obviously an interesting man. The thing that was campaigning was just not anyway. They were more real than ours. And that is kims message. He made a wholesale decision about everyone. I dont think its true with every single reporter. In tim was trying. You have to weigh in and a second. One of the questions tim is wrestling with in this one. All the way to today is how could the whole institution had been dead wrong about an muskie. What the situation was. Practically the eve of the New Hampshire primary there was a massive structure. It dominated everybody. Alive and well today. We were just beginning to have a debate in 1972 among ourselves usually in bar rooms about whether our coverage was about candidacies and what they were about. The first time you hear that term is in 1972. In our daily stories yours as well as mine if a nominee went somewhere and said something that was a story. What they usually did was they had one new paragraph. And that gave you your lead. You could recite the siege with him but we could hear one new part they would sit there and mouth the speech. As a candidate was giving it. One of the traveling gurus in 1972 was a guy who have been central to president ial politics since 1960. Later went on to become the washington operator for the government of saudi arabia. He was marvelous at his craft. And one think he always had the candidates he was advising was personalized something about the stump speech. Everybody could have a laugh or whatever. Mcgovern would have aligns lines in his stump speech. And the line was every day the big rich businessman can deduct the price of his martini lunch. Bologna sandwich. What he would do just to lighten things up a little bit can deduct the cost of his. Butter and jelly sandwich. I realized and it gets back to access i was talking to mcgovern on the plane just before we got off. I was probably slightly in his mind. Also he was losing the election. That was fred a dutton. He have a great one for bob kennedy also. You always closed his speech with the famous quote. Some people see things as they are and ask why. Several times Robert Kennedy would say in the microphone and so as George Bernard shaw said lets all get to the press box. And the mood would lighten. Access was very different. Into the contrast was so profound. Because nixon was invisible. He was nowhere to be found. It finally became a story at the end of the campaign. I think all of us felt that no one was pressing him from that side. To come out of the bunker and meet with the press. He would engage. Just before 17 72. At the time he was representing the gazette and he would become famous. It was technically albany i think. They hadnt happened yet. They did at the column at the washington star. Jack have the idea after the 60s the people who did it politics regularly politics regularly needed to have regular access to the people that were running just to talk and get to know each other. So he organized something which one of them. It was called political writers for a democratic society. And they were maybe seven or eight of us. And we would have suffer supper at someones apartment or house it wouldnt be off the record it would be on what they would call around here the background. You couldnt attribute anything. You couldnt allude to having talked to your fellow. There were ways you could say. You can and set set directly and of course no pictures that you asked him once on camera the difference between you and me. Everybody knew was thinking of endorsing ted kennedy for president. My wife finally said off the record congressman are you can endorse kennedy. These things were incredibly useful. I felt like i knew these people. You could have a candid conversation do you think you are more irreverent when they come out to give a talk to the bus on mcgoverns new economic plans and he starts talking and he quotes usaid boy ive heard a lot of bull before but this takes the cake. We eventually threw gordon off the bus. We just gave up. There was another moment which tested all of us and was very illustrative of what was happening an early proponent of what has been called every citizen has a certain account they start out in life with. It is more common today nixon had a version of it in 1969. The sink came out it was all knew it was called liberal at the time. It wasnt clear how much it would cost. About a month in suit ensued of almost ruthless examination of this proposal. No one had ever gone into an issue like that. After the election i wish i could remember which Journalism School did it there was more ink spilled exposing the deficiencies of mcgoverns economic proposal than have been expended on watergate at that time. All of that got into tims book. It wasnt written about. You can say things off of the record. It would not be quoted. If a reporter returns to another reporter in the White House Press room. And says something. Its likely to be on the internet two minutes later. The establishment press was alive and well as it probably is today. Most all of the reporters did those for mcgovern. They probably did not vote for nixon and yet i think all of us believed so strongly that if we happen to be someone who might want to vote for that person we would bend over backwards to be critical and i thought that every reporter went overboard being critical of mcgovern just because they did not want to be accused of a soft peddling him or his message. It happened with the times coverage of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and it is happening today. You look at the times every day there is a story about something biden is doing wrong. I assume he will finish eighth in iowa. I was in a pick up on what connie was saying and ask her something. When youre out there or when you were out there with the microphone how did you know what to ask. You are not just sticking a microphone in peoples faces you are one of these people who prompted people like mcgovern to Say Something to get some fresh sound or something. It required that you be completely up to speed first thing in the morning so when you came out of a hotel to get into his car in a motorcade. If you have a newsy question you are likely to get a newsy answer. And thats what she did. Yes. Thank you for knowing that. The way it was done then everybody didnt travel on the ground in one giant scrum of 5200 people particularly in general elections after the conventions. Reporters are divided up into shifts morning afternoon and evening. And seven or eight of them will represent all of their colleagues at step where they stuff where they cant fit everybody in. And they are called pool reporters. I would maybe had that duty every other day or something but you have it 24 hours a day. We are about at a time. Tim talks about the folly of trying to cover a campaign from 30,000 feet. You said you were going to go around and see large crowds pulling was really in its infancy. We thought he was probably losing but he have these enormous crowds everywhere i got off the plane a week out to go back to ap headquarters and i was stunned to discover that no one thought he was in a carry anything. You do not have the same information as everyone has today. Everything is so poll driven. Thats another story. I had one last quick question. What was the best prank. There was some pranks on the bus. One of the things that was different about 1972 was you started to get something that was a common feature of the president ial Campaign Seen today. And that is the arrival of somebody from vanity fair or the gentlemans quarterly and some kind of magazine being a shot. Sometimes they come out now to write about the press. There was a big story in the style section this morning at the Washington Post about who is screwing him. In iowa i didnt know they did that. They were not doing that in 1972. With a cigarette holder. Lucy who is a nixon spy and was on the zoo played in later reappeared some years later as a friend of a monica lewinsky. And hope to break that story. She was there every day. We thought she was writing a book. And then you would see her standing there. She have a cigarette holder. And she talked into a tape recorder supposedly she said she was doing a book. She would mumble these ridiculously detailed things into it. It turned out this was can hold him in his office every night. And it did not come out until the hearings the next year. So what. One of the fancy magazine reporters showed up. And dress beautifully if not a designer. In the handbag that had to have cost for figures. I cannot take my eye off of it. By the time we got there we were pretty lubricated. And not particularly pleased with this bigshot arrival. She was sitting towards the front of the bus. And she put this persons spectacular thing and ill in those Days Campaign buses did not come equipped with restrooms. In one of our number have an emergency as youre driving in from the airport i wont say who. And he just couldnt wait any longer. On the back seat. He tried to move use of beer can. This was san francisco. He of have hills and all the rest of it. Do you remember the story. Im began to make its way down the aisle. And pretty soon the entire bus was chewing cheering everyone on. And then there was a huge cheer when it hits home. Theyre like a there like welcome to president ial policy. This is a very hard thing to do. We have the chance to ask some questions. Dont make a campaign speech. Yes sir. Back in the days when this book was written the three of you were sort of gatekeepers who got to decide in no way who was president. In our last couple of administrations we have an president who only had two Years Experience and then since then would either of those head been taken a serious and what they have gotten enough coverage to get elected. Not a problem. When mcgovern ran. For all of this way over the top concentration on muskie. Everybody covering the campaign have been through the earthquake when the same thing happened. Also in New Hampshire. If someone went threat the one thing i thought was unfortunate looking back is that there was not much attention paid to what really was a historical change and that was a candidacy of shirley. I dont think any of us understood what a big deal that was. Remember how big the field was in 1972. There was one debate where they had five candidates. They have to use two tables. The crazy guy who threw the rap on the table. Theres not enough being done about hunger. The big cause was Public Access to beaches. They have them stacked up like this. Muskie dominated so much there is a message behind your question. The impact of what we do is almost zero. People have their own ways of figuring out what is going on. We play a role that most of us tend to exaggerate. People dont get mentioned who should. They would feel in some way slighted. The truth is it is a fair fight. The mistake you can make is thinking that your impact is colossal. That we really dont matter at all. A new paradigm now. In print, television the way i knew it. It actually lacks relevance because of the internet. They go through the cloud. Its not accurate information. All of the stuff he did. And his people didnt care. And they still dont care. Nixon was an early believer in that. It was the first one to be structured that way. In terms of content and scheduling. They have it down pat. In contest for nominations i think the experience shows it is a freeforall and a fair fight. That word finally got it in our year. The former governor have announced a year earlier he was going all around the country. No one was paying any attention to him. There were six months and a story in the New York Times. For some reason he called me up. Maybe i have just been covering him for long enough. Its not my job to tell him what to do. The first thing that came into my head. Actually it marked another moment where 1972 is a turning point. Up until that point there had always been a lot of attention paid to the following word. Expectations. When you have a front runner there would be a game in the 60s and the 72 was the expectation. Every night in the Campaign Setting a bunch of us would write a song about some event or theme and in New Hampshire the expectations was done to the tune of rock of ages. If i remember the lyric tell me what is victory. And at the number that the muskie people fashioned on was 55 percent. The famous quote is marie courier. If they dont get 55 i will eat my hat. And mcgovern one with 36 percent. There still people that havent learned. That was the first moment to just dump all over. About the expectations next monday in iowa. Before i forget tim krause said im sorry. Trump knows where he got it from. Alas you will not find my name. I did had one small measure of advantage. I had covered mcgovern and south dakota. I soon found myself in south dakota. I kept mentioning about this young politician. A democrat and south in south dakota named George Mcgovern. He was a debate coach. He was about to run for the house. World war ii flight and he wanted to. That was a small advantage and i have said to be later sometime well had to talk about what it was like to cover mcgovern. One way met that mcgovern did campaign then. The elevators did not start running until like 8 00 and i to file the weather at seven. Every morning during the Campaign Many mornings George Mcgovern with the five floors without an elevator stopped by with a handout that he had written and typed himself. Before going off to a sales job or whatever. I have never heard of anybody who is quite so articulate were moving. It was illegal to be a democrat and south dakota when mcgovern started in the early 60s as a college guide. And he drove himself around in a and be up station wagon. Im going to test gills motor skills here by making a brief statement and have a question whether you come along to the right. We heard a lot about the reporter stain lubricated. I wonder going from a time when someone dressed they are going into journalism i can have different types of drinks at different kinds of bars. Does anybody had thoughts on the challenge for journalists today. In the campaign. They did provide liquor. Did they. It was before deregulation. Everybody wanted to keep their monopoly. They ran the two. First thing in the morning. I think it was provided. It has always been true. There was always plenty to drink. Reporters dont drink as much. During the campaign over the years when it was part of the switch. You got to the mid 80s are the early 90s and there was only two or three of the older guys still there. All of the new breed to come along were not. A line i used to use. It was expected that you always went to the table and picked up checks i was trained in expense living dont leave at check on the table. I would reach in and someone would object and say i will get that. Its only money and its not mine. Good evening. A New York Times editor said several years ago as gonzo journalism was still evolving. What you see is news. What you know is background. What you feel is opinion with increasing frequency we see reporters on cnn msnbc or fox offered opinions 247. As the husband of a distinguished journalist. Who often appears on television. I think actually it is something of a problem. There are many people some people i would say could find themselves analysis and explanation of what they see is coming. And many others who are expressing points of view i am amazed to see a reporter from the Associated Press expressing opinions on morning after morning. It seems like the news organizations like the prominence that their people have it leads to clicks on the website. It means someone is paying attention. End of the line has gotten very blurred. We talk about the opinion of the bet over backwards. This is the First Campaign after the white house used it to attack the press. You think they will influence the coverage. That is why the New York Times is going after joe biden as you said. There are a lot of promises there. What is your sense. Connie has more perspective with this. I lost you a little bit there. It is two years into the attack when we all made up out there. I dont think i have any effect. I think we are just normal people i think when youre a normal reporter we all want to be fair and if we have a personal bias in one direction or another then we try very hard to push the personal bias out of the way and be fair. So consequently if we were at that time appalled with what they said i think we tried very hard just to be objective. We are all products of our own experience. We can be help been slightly subjective. There is a reportorial fact thats worth putting on the table here. I did not know many in nixon people who really believed all of that malarkey. It was a way of doing politics that they discovered could work. There was times when it was almost a game. After the first speech. There are still arguing about who wrote it. There would be games played at night with them to come up with other phrases and they all installed in this. This is more of a game than is something serious. It strikes me as otherworldly. I think is bending over backwards to show in the times that not for the democrats against trump. And so you do it as being is be as tough as possible on the other side i think they sometimes carry it to an extreme frankly. You mentioned people dont have the direct access that they used to have. At least the political journalists it seems like now we have this intermediate layer of the curators and people are getting the news not from the people who are in direct contact but through they are their compiling the stories and become the intermediate. Whether it is bloggers or someone at the newsroom. We are not getting the stories directly from people we do online research. As a consumer. Here is what i would like. Take a 24 hour time and somehow get it all. Stream some events with a handful of these blogs. What is a thing that has a circle and the line with it. Anyway. Get it all. Give me a day in the life of the 21st Century Media and tell me what its like if you learned anything if it was all just a bunch of jibber jabber. Heres a picture of my lunch or something. It is so diffuse now i cant learn very much. I cant find the truth. And having such a hard time trying to find out what is accurate and what is true. Ive taken the streaming events or getting video so that you can watch a candidate. Just to find out what theyre saying and whats going on. The horse race which which three paragraphs in the daily story is now the story it still reads to me like 90 baloney. And doesnt have anything to do with educating me about what is going on in the country. If you get this much in iowa can you translate it to New Hampshire and then to nevada. I want to say shut up. They are mostly built on fans. South carolina and ashley would be worthless next tuesday after iowa votes. Everything that has been written about them and what was happening in the states will change. And i want to dont want to criticize them today either. I think some investigative journalists are done today. The nominal runs across the board in the New York Times and Washington Post. But also some of the broadcast networks are doing great investigative journalism. And i want to dump on the media and wholesale way. What i do have a problem with our the social media and misinformation that get disseminated very quickly with no one checking it. The old fashion way was we had editors and producers and some new layers of people making sure that what we reported was accurate i was afraid of being fired because i didnt want to get it wrong. If i didnt have it right i knew my head would be on the chopping block. But today its not because people are not dedicated or whatever but there are certain outlets that allow into mine out of mouth or on the paper and disseminated instantly. Thats where i have a problem. I cannot ferret out the truth. I have to read all kinds of things to come to my own conclusion. And probably the best is actually to watch it. Whatever is going on you watch it yourself and you come to your own conclusion. And on the democratic side i say 90 of what i know about the race comes from watching each of them. Even now in retirement. Beginning to end to just had a sense of what theyre like. That i they used to get for my buddy here. In a way too much coverage. Everything is written and breathless. And you read there. They have a terrific bunch. God knows what will happen to them after the election. There are 70 stories about some stories about some new people and i know dont know where the truth lies. After the last question. Lets just go to the last question. My name is bill. I used to used to work at a reporter. Id then worked the other side of the bus for a long shot. Carl and tom i think i dealt with you guys on that. I wasnt very successful i guess. My question is in todays world with the use of the term vacant news how do you think the media is dealing with that. And what would you advise the media to do to deal with that. I think we have to do our job frankly there are people in the journalism world can take on the forums in the seminars and on tv. We have to make sure that we dont fall into the traps and start doing things to cater to that or opposed to that. I think most the people in the room have a pretty good sense of what makes good journalism. When political candidates do with the president has done there is a piece of video that might illustrate my point. Every few weeks or however often it is i had been able to find not cutaways. Pictures of the press pen about an hour before the event. And you see our children and grandchildren arriving and you see the taunting and inyourface. Its almost physical its always extremely loud and i am struck at the quiet dignity of these people just go into the pen and do their work and leave and dont pay any attention to what is happening. Its grace under pressure. I think the accusation hurts. It hurts those of us who believe in the Fourth Estate who believe, and what we are doing that we pursued a worthy profession we were after we were trying to right the wrongs of government or society or social ills and we considered it an honorable profession even though others dont consider pursuing an honorable procession. There are plenty of reporters today who still have the mind set there is a whole section of people who dont and they engage in opinion and biased bias reporting. Honestly, my old friends and colleagues the people i knew were people who were just pursuing the truth. Shes been very wise. An eloquent but i guarantee you if anybody in 1972 have treated connie the way some of these fake news criers do today she would have flattened them. Do you have any final words. Thank you for coming. God bless you. The bar is open here there are snacks over here. Please stick around at the nixon president ial Library Charlie kirk offered his thoughts on what he called the new conservative agenda. In this portion of the program he talks about how President Trump communicates via twitter. I minute address this and one time only. Here is the best way. America was drowning in the middle of the ocean under the decline of both Political Parties over the last 20 years. From Big Government management. And finally in the middle of the night when we are just gasping for air we are able to breathe again. And the first thing you say to that person that rescues us is i dont like the tweet history. Its completely and totally irrelevant. The heart surgeon thank you for that triple bypass surgery. Hate your tweets but glad we are breathing again. I could make an argument that it sets the cadence and is a public northstar what the president is trying to accomplish and keep people accountable for it. The media wont always cover it. Now there is a realtime standard and accountability measure for everyone to think exactly what he is thinking. Consensus in washington dc. I dont care if he offends up a couple people here and there. I feel as if our politicians have not been fighting for our country for the last couple of decades. When i heard this time and time again i said okay that is the thesis of the trump presidency. First and foremost when you go into the dr. And you say give me the bad news first. They basically said we are losing our borders are wide open our trade deals are stupid. Our economy is anemic. The courts are compromised. And this was in like the first 30 seconds. It was the first honest assessment i think our country have received in a very long time. That was the first time that he have that. Im in a tell it straight to the american people. Im not get a tell you one thing when its actually another. What ideas are actually rooted in and a renewal of a nation. Search for charlie kirk or his book. Book tv is television for serious readers. All weekend every weekend. Join us again next saturday beginning at 8 00 a. M. Eastern for the best in nonfiction books. Online or listen on our free radio app and be part of the National Conversation through cspans daily Washington Journal Program or through our social media feed. Cspan, created by private industry, americas cabletelevision company, as a Public Service and brought to you today by her television provider