Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion Of The Boys On The Bus 20240713

First program on my watch, as the former general manager of cbs Radio Network news and former managing editor for the broadcast division of united press international, the boys on the bus was required reading and i had the pleasure in the challenge, the legendary pie chamberlain of upi, a lot of you knew pie chamberlain. Looking forward to a terrific discussion this evening and now i have the pleasure of introducing the chair of the National Press club history and heritage team, the 80 seventh president of the National Press club, the bureau chief of the gaylord News Washington bureau for university of oklahoma and a dear friend, mister gil klein. [applause] thanks so much. The role of the National Press clubs history and heritage group, the legacy of the clubs 112 year history as well as to explore the history of journalism especially in washington. We are pleased that on april 20 seventh the new book, new history of the club called tales from the National Press club is scheduled to be published by the history press. Export events that happened at the club that had an impact on american and world history. This events tonight was proposed by our moderator who himself is part of the Great Washington journalism family. They publish National Geographic magazine founded by Alexander Graham bell, his greatgrandfather who invented the telephone. Edwin grosvenor is editor and publisher of American Heritage magazine, inspire generations of young historians. He is publisher of 13 Edwin Grosvenor is author and editor of 13 history books and the thirdgeneration club member. Edwin grosvenor will introduce our distinguished panel who not only were on the campaign chronicled by timothy cratchits book the boys on the bus but also covered president ial elections that followed. We have an hour with our panel, then we open up to questions from the floor. I will pass around the microphone for you so your question can be picked up by cspan. I ask you to ask 6 think questions and if you ramble the microphone might disappear. Immediately after the program please join us for a reception for our guests. Edwin grosvenor, thank you for joining us, the floor is yours. [applause] thank you and congratulations on your book. Dont know how you found so many good history stories. Great book. Welcome, everybody. We are pleased with this crowd. We will have a lively discussion about political campaigns, specifically the experiences of our three distinguished panel members. When the boys on the bus book came out, a reviewing kirkus said it described a gaggle of political reporters, pundits, pontificated, Network Layer boys, drunks, fornicators, fire service virtuosos, all crammed like monkeys with typewriters in the press bus frenetically dogging the candidates all looking for a piece of the story, something to take their best words on. That may the a little overthetop but the book provided a fascinating window into how we learn about political campaigns and the people who bring those stories to us like this thing wished journalists on our panel. For most of you, dont need an introduction but i will give brief ones anyway. Carl leubsdorf on my left, columnist for the Dallas Morning News, the Washington Bureau chief for three decades. On the bus he covered the men covering the Mcgovern Campaign which gave him special status with reporters looking over his shoulder to see what his lead was the next morning. Carl leubsdorf is Vice President of the gridiron club, the White House Correspondents Association where he has the distinction of being roasted by jon stewart. Carl leubsdorf recently published his memoirs entitled appropriately adventures of a boy on the bus. Tom oliphant you all know, cruise reports he was known as the kid on the bus even though he had worked for the boston globe already for four years. After the 72 campaign he helped manage the globes coverage of School Desegregation which won the pulitzer prize. Tom was later the longtime washington correspondent for the globe and reported on ten president ial campaigns, has been a frequent commentator on tbs and the networks known for his insight with enhanced bowties. He has also written five books including most recently the road to camelot with fellow boy curtis wilkie. Connie chung, last but not least, so delighted connie chung has come down from new york to join us. A true pine or, only the second female coanchor to coanchor a Network Newscast as part of cbs evening news. Also an anchor and reporter for nbc, abc, cnn and msnbc. That is in demand. Timothy crouse said that connie chung disrupted the cluby mail world of the boys on the bus by always showing up ill prepared, bright and early with microphone ready and never hung over. Never what . Never hung over. Right. A real advantage. I will tell you about that. Any way. If you could tell us briefly how you came to be on the campaign in 72. Given most of my career since that date, i joined in 1960 out of Columbia Journalism School at the tampa bureau three days after i was assigned there a spot opened up in the new Orleans Bureau. I figured new orleans has to be more interesting than tampa. I didnt know they were about to desegregate the schools there and for the next three years i covered a lot of desegregation, mostly the end of it that was legal. In june of 1963, a brief tenure in new york i got to the Washington Bureau courtesy of new Orleans Bureau chief who put on a good word for me. How long ago this was, six months before john kennedy was killed although the day kennedy was shot i was do to come in at 10 30 at night. When i heard what happened i called in and they said dont come in. I wasnt very significant in the eighteenth bureau at that point. The world war ii generation of journalists began to retire and die off, spots began to open up. In the mid 60s i cover the house of representatives for two years, then cover the senate for several years and in the 68 campaign i spent some of the campaign covering Hubert Humphreys campaign and by the time 1972 came around i was one of the main ap political writers along with walter mears who is around in North Carolina and was assigned mostly to i covered mcgovern virtually the whole year but i stayed with a be a couple years but went to the Baltimore Sun at the end of 1975. I thought i would always go to work for a newspaper and they made me an offer to cover politics in the white house and in 1981 a former editor named osborne became editor of the Dallas Morning News and hired me to be the Washington Bureau chief. In 28 years as bureau chief and retired ten years ago but still writing the column i wrote all those years. That is how i got where i got. 1972 was the second of 11 president ial campaigns. I covered bob kennedy and george wallace, 72 in New Hampshire. That was my second. We are the same age. We shared the number, that is off the record. The number it is off the record. But hed had a lot more experience than i did. I had just started on cbs news. I was in my mid20s. I had only been there a few months and was suddenly assigned to cover George Mcgoverns 72 president ial campaign. I was really surprised, but it was great. I was a cub reporter. Usually there was a first string correspondent, that was bruce morton primarily. The print journalist and not respect any television journalists, truly. We knew people who talked for a living, didnt think about what we were saying, we were glamour boys. But this was good. I think most people respected him. There was a Second String and often that was david who is very aggressive and i would be bumped to third banana so i primarily covered the radio. That was my topic. Obviously i didnt do what i was doing but i persevered. A lot of interesting details in this book, why are we still reading it today . I was just happy my name was in it. I didnt like the picture much but it was better than no picture. I think it captures the time and place that somehow got a romantic atmosphere about it and part of it was Hunter Thompson, and he carried one state, didnt do very well and there is a romance about its, even up to the point where people died. I dont think much is changed in some ways, and khristine hvam, Timothy Crouse he quotes joe kraft as saying we have to Pay Attention to what Middle America thinks. It is the same today. One of my favorite moments in the general toward the end, what came to be known in our slaying as big feet, the most Senior Network people. One of the things i learned about that part of the trade was how little those guys were. Were you for some of this who have correspondent responsibilities in those days the arrival of the bigfoot was very much to be appreciated because the good ones would do your job for a day and you could rest. It was kind of nice but i remember toward the end two of the most hawkish of the washington columnists, joe walston and joe kraft who was famous for his association with kissinger at that time at the mcgovern people were kind of tough with that sort of thing and they showed up thinking it was 1960 and show the candidates play and ushered up a drink with the nominee. It was cleveland and they told kraft, they would be writing on what we call the zoo plane. Connie can describe what the zoo plane was like. There was an elite group that could fly and they were often part of the pool but there was the rest of us and we were the scum. We were animals and not to be respected. Acted like it. Carl was bigfoot. The ap didnt have a bigfoot problem, a couple plate poor on the plane every week. The main plane had 40 journalist, all the major papers and the backups and tv crews, you were the third with an organization. The funny story shows in some ways things have not changed. One of the people who was exiled was bob novak, another conservative columnist. They put him on the zoo plane. If anything changed, i remind you the npr reporter was not allowed to travel with mike pompeo. I traveled with the row a gnu and the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun werent allowed to go with him. That part has not changed. I will never forget mcgoverns claim, the dakota claim. The first one was a world war ii plane, he flew the Bombing Missions during world war ii. The dakota queen 2 pooling away from the tarmac, waving goodbye out the window. So a lot of younger people, must be difficult to fathom what it was like to file articles when there were no computers, no internet, no email, not even fax machines. A technologically advanced person covering the nominee with the ap guy, carl had more kids most than anybody else. It shows what a different world it was. I remember coming back from south dakota after the summer when senator mcgovern and senator eagleton had a famous meeting and mcgovern told everyone he was going to dump eagleton. This is a story about technology. 18 reporters with me had written for morning papers, they were at separate forties for the wires. I said you give me your copy, i will find a cone. We had them out there with no filing centers or cell phones. You had to find a pay phone to call your story in. You go with mcgovern and i find us pay phones. The secret service regarding payphones couldnt get him. What did you do for radio on a pay phone . The receiver part, you had to be able to unscrew it and use your alligator clips to your reporter, so a little sony recorder was really hard to do. Finally, really hard. I think i recall i have sure. The film, you have to get that back to new york well before 7 so you have to send your film back in the morning. I have a notorious story. You have to tell it because it shows how aggressive and brutal you were, you know . She could be pretty aggressive. I wasnt that way, was i . So i will tell it quickly because it is true. In those days you had to fly your film to a location where it could be developed or flown back to new york so you would take these rickety planes. I cant do this. I was always accused of trying to go around the big guy whether it was the first string guy or the Second String guy. David said he was supposed to show me around, show me the ropes, i kept going around trying to sell stories directly for me to do. This time, my father had a heart attack. They said you can come home. I said great but since i am flying to the location with the film instead of having that side do the report why dont i do it . And they went now. You are outrageous went through the bureau and everybody was appalled. I wasnt supposed to you know . That still happened. Ever hear of Andrea Mitchell and chuck todd . It is cutthroat but i am sorry. The one thing that i can add. In the world of print there were portable typewriters. Did you i cant remember. I had an underwood in the late 1930s. You had these little typewriters, the tape recorder was just beginning to be miniaturized, you can hold it in your hands. In 1968 tape recorders were ridiculous because they just got in the way of taking notes or whatever. There was Something Different that is long gone because of the demise of monopolies. Once you had a nominee the candidatess plane always have a guy in this monster called at t whose job was to make sure wherever you stopped there was several rows of telephones that worked so we didnt have to fight for paid telephone space during the process, the Western Union guy and you could write your story. A couple times i wrote stories in the middle of nowhere. I did it once on toilet paper with a pen and the Western Union guy would take it and there would be operators at the next stop who would do the telex transmission and all of that is gone today but i want to ask something to Connie Chungs point about life for her because she really, one of the things about them that is perhaps a different from now is this was at the don of the let women in age. 1972 saw the arrival of three people, and ambulance fabulous correspondent with cbs who was just marvelous especially in New Hampshire and later at the convention, Michelle Crowe who we lost in a plane crash the following year. She was africanamerican. When i was hired the equal Employment Opportunity commission put great pressure to hire women and minorities, so cbs news which was in the neanderthal years and still kind of is hired four women in one fell swoop. A black woman, michelle clark, me, a chinese person, leslie stall, a nice jewish girl with blonde hair, and sylvia chase. They were like we are done the, we are done. It looked like one of those tickets in the old new York Democratic party where you had one of everything. There was one other woman. A third woman in 1972 who had been a print reporter for the Hearst Newspapers and cassidy arrived on the scene in the primaries in 1972, lit up the set at the convention with nbc. She is gone sadly. In the early 80s. But that is really all there was. Connie would go through a stonewall for a story. But then you saw the story. It was a generational thing. The younger ones, we had grown up with television. We were totally comfortable with it. Most of us in personal life or political life had been comfortable with the Womens Movement that was gathering steam. It was the poor older guys who had trouble, a, with women and be with television. But tom, tom married Susan Spencer who is a force to be reckoned with on her own, she is a Television News correspondent, long time at cbs news. For a girl trying to think of a career and wonder if theres some way to have a meaningful professional life to see these three that long ago, early in 1972 it was the breakthrough and it only got it remained, sadly, very male in a lot of respect. It took longer on the print side, 76, a few women covering the campaign. By 80 there were quite a few women covering the campaign and things changed. On your bus there was Elizabeth Drew from new york, mccrory from the posts. Elizabeth rarely came out. At that point mary was there. The great mary mcgrory was there. I read her when she wrote for the star and later for the posts and i used to watch her because i always thought she was an incredible writer. Im sure everybody did. I was such a poor writer i would be sitting in the middle of the night in the press room. The two of us would be the only ones there and i was trying to come up with something mundane so that i could convey whatever happened and she was toiling away in the middle of the night, writing and rewriting and i watched her out of the corner of my eye trying to give it to me. Give me a vibe. She had already achieved that status but she was a character too. I remember the night of one of the primaries and i will take a wild guess and think it was wisconsin. We were in a press room and since mary is not here to jump down my throat, she might have had a couple at dinner and she was a boston tough talking gal but she was very fast eddie us about her appearance and her hair was always done. At any rate there we were in the newsroom as the returns started to come in that night at mary as i said was a little off but she had a cigarette and she was on the phone just to chelating and a bunch of us were watching this cigarette getting closer and closer to her hair. And all of the sudden it lit up. Mary liked young men to carry her bags and on this occasion young men sprayed forward and poured water. Can i say being the only woman, there was a lot of gameplaying but i was used to that because it was an everyday affair, every day. You see the me too movement today. Back then. The daily occurrence, all of you know what im talking about. You just deal with it. Youre going to make me tell the story or you are going to tell . You tell yours first. Remember there were all these things these pioneers did that helped establish the idea of women doing this and one of the things was they really were one of the boys, especially this one and i remember one night during the general election, we were somewhere and sometimes after we were all filed we would go have a couple before we turned in and connie chung was pretty good at hanging out with us a little bit. I realized that was how you are getting your stories. I was always in bed in my room, you now . Now. He never said who he was in bed with. Now. He said when i realized carl was breaking stories right and left, you were breaking stories right and left, how did this happen . I realized if you go down to the bar, get wherever you can on the campaign, a little snow covered they might tell you something. So there we are, 3 or 4 of us including connie. How many times have you seen this happen . Some ball bearing salesman started to hone in, obviously and awkwardly making passes in Connie Chungs direction. I was struck first of all by how calm and cool she was about it as if she didnt pay notice to the guy and he didnt understand and kept circling and coming back the way these barfly do sometimes and finally he would come back and i was just starting to get up out of my chair to shoot him away when connie gave him one of the most withering stairs i have ever seen in my life and set a line that has stayed with me forever, said look, you dont want to go to bed with me. You would just be horny 20 minutes later. [laughter] we were emailing that. From that moment on, connie was one of us. We were emailing back and forth, he said he had a story, i have no memory anymore. I forgot it. I had to develop a little repertoire because there were so many of these things coming up every day. One time i have to tell you, roger mud reminded me, when he was writing his book he said jim not in noton of the New York Times. Another one, Jules Whitaker who was at that time working for la times before he came to the post and i was i think it was the Biltmore Hotel in philadelphia on the phone on a pay phone, the oldfashioned pay phone with the accordion glass and big black payphone and a seat. I was talking to somebody i had been dating and they came up and pressed their noses against me, harassing me. I thought they were sexually harassing me. They pushed their way in. Since i was sitting here, i can see their belt buckles at that height. To get rid of them i pulled their flies down. [laughter] roger said to me did you do that . I went i think so. On that note. That is a hard one to follow. Did you feel you had a lot of access to mcgovern . When all the journalists, when they were covering our campaign, they would get close to the candidate, enough that they felt almost possessive. Timothy crouse writes about after muskie tanked in the polls, seeing a group of his journalists had just knocked down 5 rounds of whiskey. There guy was out. That was one of the things that was most different about 1972, the access. On the same plane with the candidate with the staff. There were no barriers. You could talk to mcgovern and do things like that. I remember being in New Hampshire in early january of 1972 and wanted to do a story about mcgovern. I rode with him in a car and the only person in the car was the driver. Dont know if you want me to tell the story about the thousands . You must. I wrote the story that prompted mcgovern to say he was 1000 behind eagleton. They had a press conference where they announced eagleton had treatment for depression including electric shock treatment. After that story, what is the next cycle . What is the followup and the postdispatch, going into mcgoverns cabinet, he got an interview with mcgovern. I have to figure out how to get an interview. I found out he was playing tennis, had an hour tennis lesson so i went over to the tennis court where he wasnt asked if when he was finished i could ride up with him to his cabin to talk to him and he said sure. You couldnt get within 10 miles of the candidate today. In most cases you dont fly on the same plane with them. I went back to the press room. The ap couldnt afford it, we had one for the two of us. I got it from my colleague, not telling why i wanted it because i didnt want to tell anyone what i had. I interviewed mcgovern. In the course of the interview i asked what do you think the public reaction is . He had been supportive of eagleton. He said we have to wait and see. Mcgovern is still supporting eagleton but says we have to wait and see how it reacts. It is totally in a risk. You have to understand communication in those days. Half of mcgoverns staff is in south dakota, half is in washington. They barely have phone communication back and forth. They dont have a wire, they dont have an internet, they have no way to see my story for hours and hours and hours and when they see my story they go crazy. He is pulling back from eagleton. We have to do something. They have a hernia meeting and mcgovern says i will deny it was the press secretary says i dont think you can do that and i have it on tape. His solution was to put up a statement in response to the ap story, i am 1000 behind eagleton. The statement was put on the wall at the press room. At the best western. The person who did it, in the third row. He had red hair. Some of it is joining our racket after the election and that is a great life and that is her moment in history and she pulled it off beautifully. But the more serious point. Jimmy in the book that he get something wrong . He got something right and we all got it wrong. Timmys thesis in this book is the established way of covering politics was full of it. With what . Fool of it. It created a two dimensional linear unreality, easily manipulated by politicians. On the Eagleton Mcgovern thing his point was overall we had blown the story because we failed to transmit how manipulative, i love eagleton but how manipulative he was in trying to stay on the ticket and how skillfully manipulative mcgovern was in trying to grease the skids for getting rid of him without having a Dramatic Press Conference on getting rid of the guy. We had this confusion, timmys point that all of this was farce and not genuine drama and that is the larger point he was trying to make in the book. That is one reason it is still studied today. There is something wrong still with 2dimensional journalism. In many respects our hero of this book, not with stories about drugs and booze and sex though there are a few of those is Hunter Thompson who could make a campaign more real by going off to pluto and back. Our favorite one in New Hampshire that he had discovered, the reason muskie was allowed a candidate, was boring as hell, stiff as a board, somebody had smuggled to new england this drug from brazil and even had a name for it and it made you boring and he would go on to describe an actual appearance by muskie which could be like this. The real guy was very funny, very profane, worried about his stature but obviously an interesting man. This thing that was campaigning was just not any way hunters descriptions of muskie were more real than ours. That is tims message. Wholesale decision about everyone, i dont think it is true with every single reporter. If you look at david broder, otto. You have to weigh in in a second but one of the question is tim is wrestling with in this one and it would come up repeatedly in campaigns all the way to today, how could the whole institution have been dead wrong about it muskie, not whether he was a good guy or bad guy what the situation was. Practically the eve of the New Hampshire primary there was this massive structure known as the muskie campaign. Everybody was wrong about hillary too. That is my point. Alive and well today. We were just beginning to have a debate among ourselves in 1972 usually in bar rooms about whether our coverage was about candidacies and what they was about. What a horse race. Hurricane. First time you hear that term was in 1972. In our daily stories, yours as well is mine, if a nominee went somewhere and said something that was the story. What they usually did was they had one new paragraph in the standard speech. You could recite the speech with him but we could hear one new part. He would mouth the speech as the candidate was giving it. One of mcgoverns traveling gurus in 1972 was a guy who had been central to president ial politics since 1960, fred dutton was his name. Later went on to become, believe it or not, washington operator to saudi arabia. Boy did he get rich . But he was marvelous at his craft. One thing he said was the candidates, personalized something about the stump speech so everybody could have a laugh. There was one example that involves you and me. Mcgovern would have lines in his stump speech, classic liberal that he was, the need for taxed, the line was every day the big rich businessman can deduct the price of his three martinis and the line in the speech would be the poor working guy cant deduct the praise of his bologna sandwich. What he would do to lighten things up a little bit, a poor working stiff like Carl Leubsdorf or tom oliphant cant deduct the cost of his Peanut Butter and jelly sandwich. In pennsylvania, why did he do this . Back to access, i was talking to mcgovern on the plane just before we got off. That is fred dutton. Also he was losing the election and trying to have a little fun because this is not going to end well. That was fred dutton. He had a great one for bob kennedy who always closed his speech with a famous quote from George Bernard shaw, some people see things as they are and ask why, i dream things that never were and ask why not. Several times kennedy would say into the microphone and so, as George Bernard shaw said, lets all get to the press bus and the mood would lighten. Access was very different. The contrast was so profound because nixon was invisible, absolutely invisible. He was nowhere to be found. He finally became a story at the end of the campaign. I think all of us felt no one was pressing him from that side and meet with the press. Just before 72. One of the boys of the bus who was representing the jeanette newspaper chain and would later be more famous deservedly for that was your mind. We needed, people who did politics regularly had needed to have regular access to the people who are running just to talk and get to know each other. And so he organized something which one of us, i cant anyway, it was called political writers for democratic society. [laughing] were maybe seven or eight of us and we would have supper at somebodys apartment or house, and the candidate and one aid only would come. It wouldnt be off the record here it would be on what they call around here deep background, meaning you couldnt attribute anything, you couldnt even allude to your having talked to the fellow. You couldnt use a a quote. You could say, there are ways you could say it but you couldnt say it directly and, of course, no pictures. And no broadcast and no wire wires. Well, you famously, didnt you ask gingrich once on camera between you and me. [laughing] my by wife had some dumb congressman up in upstate new york who everybody knew was thinking of endorsing ted kennedy for president , and this guy was adding the tennis ball back and forth with a bunch of us one day, and my wife finally said, the cameras are running come off the record, congressman. Are you going to endorse candidate . Oh, yeah. [laughing] the lights are on, the cameras are rolling and have a microphone. But these things were incredibly useful. I was very young then. Im very old now, but it felt like i knew these people. In a pinch you could have a candid conversation do you think you guys were more irreverent then . He quotes you wendy gordon comes out to give a talk to the bus on the governance new economic plans that he has just released and he starts talking and he quotes you as saying boy, ive heard a lot of all shit before but this takes the case. It kept going. We eventually ended back through gordon off the bus, gave up. There was another moment which tested all of us and was very illustrative of what was happening then and you can compare it to now, mcgovern was an early proponent of whats been called in economics the democrat. Every system is a certain account they start out with life with. 1000 a person . How is that different from its more common today. Yang doesnt know. Nixon had a version of it in 1969, believe it or not. This thing came out, and it was all new. It was called liberal at the time. It wasnt clear how much it would cost. Anyway, about a month ensued of almost roundtheclock ruthless examination of this proposal. They did know how much it would cost. Nobody had ever got into an issue like this with a candidate that deeply. And after the election, i wish i could remember which Journalism School did it, there was more ink spilled exposing the deficiencies of the governance economic proposal and had been expended on watergate to that time mcgovern. Office interchanges with the press, got into tims book, but it wasnt an internet. You could say things off the record and talk to candidates off the record and it wouldnt be quoted. If the reported today terms to another reporter in the White House Press room, assuming they have press room still, and says something, its likely to be on the internet two minutes later and he will have to explain it to his editor. The eastern liberals have process alive and well as a probably is today. I would guess 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 happened to be as an individual citizen, someone who might want to vote for the person, we would bend over backwards to be critical. I thought every reporter went overboard being critical of mcgovern, just because they did not want to be accused of soft peddling him or his message. It happen with the times coverage of Hillary Clinton in 2016 and its happening with the times of coverage of biden today. You look at the times every day theres a story about something biden is doing wrong. I assume hes going to finish eighth in iowa from what ive read in the times. I was going to pick up on what connie was saying and asked her something, and that is, when you were out there with the microphone, how did you know what to ask . You were not just sticking the microphone in peoples faces. You were one of these people who prompted people like mcgovern to Say Something to get some russian sound or something. But it required that you be completely up to speed first thing in the morning so when he came out of a hotel to get in his car in the motorcade, if you had a newsy question youre likely to get a newsy answer. And thats what you did, right . Yes. Thank you for knowing that. The way it was done then is that everybody didnt travel,r on the ground especially, in one giant scrum of 50100 people. Particularly in general elections. Reporters are divided up into chefs, morning, afternoon and evening usually, and seven or eight of them will represent all their colleagues at stuff where they cant fit everyone in and they are called pool reporters. And so i i would maybe have tht duty every other day or something, but you had it 24 hours a day. And so did you. Were about appetite. I want to ask you, carl. Tim talks about the folly of trying to cover a campaign from 30,000 feet. And still a lot of reporters got it wrong about the Mcgovern Campaign because you said you told your going around and sing large crowds and enthusiastic crowds. There were no polls. Holding was really in its infancy. At one point mcgovern was up 20 points up in the field poll. We thought he was probably losing but he had these enormous crowds everywhere, and i got off the plane about a week out to go back to ap headquarters to do main story and i was stunned to discover that no thought he is going to carry anything. So you did not really have the same information that everyone has today. I would say today, everything is so poll driven, thats another story. One last quick question. Did you think is going to get blown out . What was the best prank . There were some pranks on the bus. Well, yes. God maybe you cant tell. One of the things that was different about 1972 ways you started to get something that was a common feature of the president ial campaigns seen today and that is the arrival of somebody from vanity fair or gentleness quarterly or esquire, you know, some kind of magazine bigshot come sometimes they, not to write about the press. I noticed there was a big story in the style section this morning of the Washington Post about who is screwing whom out in iowa. I did know they did that. [laughing] there were not doing that in 1972. Tonnage as quickly quickly ask you, wasnt there this woman who was a nixon spy . Lucy with the cigarette holder. Yes. Lucy goldberg was a nixon spy and was on the viewpoint and later reappeared some years later as a friend of, confident of Monica Lewinsky and helped break that story. Still a columnist i believe. She was there every day. We thought she was writing a book, and eventually see her standing. She had a cigarette holder and a drink more often than not, she talked into a tape recorder, supposedly she said she was doing a book and she would mumble these ridiculously detailed things into it, 500 people here, mcgovern looks tired. Ridiculous things. It turned out this is going to haul the mens office every night. And it didnt come out until the hearings the next year. Anyway, one of these speedy go ahead. Go ahead. I i told the what of you already. So what. One of these fancy magazine reporters showed up and dressed beautifully. Sachs at least if not a designer. And the handbag that had to of cost for figures. I just could not take my off this. And the campaign was going to San Francisco that day. And by the time we got there we were pretty well, pretty lubricated, and not particularly please with this bigshot arrival. And she was sitting toward the front of the bus. The hardcore tended to sit in the back. She put this, i dont know, whatever it was, spectacular thing in the aisle. Well, in those days, campaign buses, press buses did not come equipped with restrooms. And one of our number had an emergency, as we were driving in from the airport. I wont say who come and he just couldnt wait any longer. And on the backseat. He tried to use a beer can, and mostly failed. [laughing] and this little reboulet this is San Francisco, right . So you got hills and all the rest of this. Do you remember this, carol . This rivulet begin to make its way down the aisle of the bus toward the purse. And pretty soon the entire bus is cheering every molecule of this, then there was this huge cheer when it hit home. [laughing] like welcome to president ial politics. [laughing] ms. Take shot. [applause] bigshot. This is a very, very hard thing to break into. I want to give the audience a chance to ask some questions. Remember, ask the question, keep it succinct. Dont make a campaign speech. Yes, sir. Craig sherman formally with upi of the the ethical algorithm the science of socially aware algorithm design bureau. Back in the days when this book was written, the three of you colleagues like walter, david, johnny, or sort of gatekeeper to i think sort of got to decide in a way who ran for president if you thought they were a serious contender or not. In our last couple of administrations we had a president who only had two Years Experience as senator kirk since then we might have a president who is at no political experience whatsoever. In the days of the boys on the bus would either of those have been taken seriously and within got indepth coverage to to get elected . Obama and trump. Not a problem. Remember that when mcgovern, when 1972 started to happen, for all of this way over the top concentration on muskie. Everybody covering that campaign had been through the earthquake of 1968, when the same thing that happened also in New Hampshire gene mccarthy. And as someone who went through it, there was never the one thing that i thought was unfortunate looking back is that there was not much attention paid to what really was a historical change, and that was the candidacy of shirley chisholm. I dont think any of us understood what a big deal that was. But remember how big this, the field was in 1972. There was one debate in New Hampshire where they had i i candidates. No, no, no. They had to use two tables. They had been the stacked up on top of each other somehow at some dinner. This crazy guy who threw the rock on the table to said theres not enough being done about hunger. Some guy named ed cole, i i remember. Still alive. His big cause was Public Access to beaches but anyway hes running for president. Wilbur mills was running. Anyway, they had them stacked up like this, and New Hampshire, but muskie dominated so much. Before i shut up theres a message behind your question though that im not sure i accd one thing i learned from 1972 is the impact of what we do is almost zero. People have their own ways of figure out what the hell is going on. We play a role that i think most of us tend to exaggerate it. Its true, people dont get mentioned who should. Im sure everybody whos dropped out of the democratic race so far with you in some way slighted. But the truth is its a fair fight, but the mistake you can make is in thinking that your impact is colossal. We really dont matter at all. Theres a big change, a new paradigm now in print, television, when i knew it, Television Network news. Its actually lacks relevance in any way today because of the internet. Information sips through the cloud zips. Accurate information. About trump, a lot of things written, stories and all the carpeting said than on all the staff did that and his people didnt care and they still dont care. And it didnt matter that everyone wrote about it and it did matter it was all true. Nixon was an early believer in that, and his operation was the first one, this one to be structured that way. They learned some of it with the television in 68 but in terms of content of scheduling, they had it down pat that reagan did it in 84. And but in contest for nominations, i think the expense shows its a freeforall, its a fair fight, front runner does mean anything. That word finally got its comeuppance in our when muskie was a front runner, before mcgovern announced a year earlier whos going all around the country, no one was paying any attention to him. Finally about six month into a store in the New York Times and mcgovern has been a candidate for six months and is not going anywhere. For some reason he called the of. I dont know why, maybe because ive been covering it. What should he do about this . Im a straight reporter, its that my job to tell you what to do and i said a first nick image in my head, i said its several, center, all you have to do is win the New Hampshire primary. He didnt win the New Hampshire primary but he did well enough and press said he won. Fish showing actually marked another moment when 1972 is a turning point. Up until that point there had always been a lot of attention paid to the following word, expectations. And when you had a front runner, that would be a game in the 60s and into 72, how much does he have to win by . Whats the expectation wax and every night in the campaign setting, i credit jules with coming up, a bunch of us would write a a song, a mocking song about some event or theme in the campaign. And in New Hampshire, the expectations was done to the two of rock of ages. And if i remember the later, its david broder right for me tell me what is victory and the number that the muskie people fastened on was 85 . Fifty. Fiftyfive. The famous quote is marie currier, and if he doesnt get 55, she said, ill eat my hat. What was it, 40 seven. And mcgovern one with 36 . So there are still people who havent learned that that was the first moment to just dump all over him. That there is a story, stories being written today about expectations next monday in iowa. Before i forget, tim krause said of nixon, no president has ever worked so lovingly for painstakingly to emasculate reporters. Oh, im sorry. You know . Trump knows where he got it from. He does. My goodness. Lets see if we get a word in edgewise here. How are you . Alas, you will not find my name in the boys on the bus but i did have one small measure of advantage, and that was ive covered mcgovern in south dakota, fresh out of iowa i assume i myself in south dakota and sioux falls. They kept mentioning about this young, rising undemocratic politician, a democrat from south dakota named George Mcgovern. Ive never heard of George Mcgovern. He was a debate coach as you know and he was about to run for the house against joe, the world war ii flying ace and he won, also. That was the small advantage that i had. Tim crouse said to me later, sometime well have to talk what is like to cover mcgovern in the early days. Well, we never had that talk, alas. One way that mcgovern did campaign then, the u. P. Bureau in sioux falls, fifth floor of a rundown office building, syndicate building, the elevators didnt start running until Something Like 8 00 and i did file the weather at seven. Every morning during the campaign, meaning mornings during the campaign George Mcgovern mount those five floors without an elevator and stop by with a handout that he probably had written in typed himself before going off to a sales event or whatever. But the man struck me because ive never heard of anybody who is white so articulate or moving. You know, the modern it was illegal to be a democrat in south dakota when mcgovern started in the early 50s as a college guide, and he drove himself around in a beatup Station Wagon and built that party all by himself. Im going to test your motor skill for making every statement and having my question be whether you come along for the or if im barking up the wrong tree. We heard a lot about the importance of staying lubricated as a reporter. It strikes me is been interesting history to look to look at the amount of money journalists are willing and able to pay for what they drink and kind of establishment they drink in. So i wonder, going from a time when somebody dressing in very expensive attire on the bus would be looked down upon to it i know a lot of people taking out amidst debt in graduate school to go into journalism and i think having different kinds of drinks at different kinds of bars. I wonder if anybody has thoughts on the challenge for journalists today to connect with readers and viewers when maybe theres a bigger gap between the way they are living their lives than it was in the 70s . Actually the Mcgovern Campaign did provide liquor, didnt they. With airline. There were charters. It was before the regulation so everybody wanted to keep their monopoly. And. Net and American Airlines ran speeded Western Union, the phone company and my god, first thing in the morning. So it was, i think it was provided. No . Im sure its on the plane. It was true on white house charters. Theres always plenty to drink but the difference is today, reporters dont drink as much. Its a simple as that. And you notice that during the campaign over the years when it switched from bloody marys in the morning to mineral water. You got to the mid80s, early 90s 90s and the only two or three, the older guys were still drinking and all the new breed to come along were not. You have to work harder, to. Online i used to use, it was expected you always go for the table and up checks. I was trained and expense living, dont leave a check on the table, get up. So i would reach in and somebody would object and say no, ill get it. I would say no, its all right, its only money and its not mine. [laughing] good evening. Im a a member of the press cl. Lester, a New York Times editor said several years ago what you see is news. What you know is background. What you feel is opinion. With increasing frequency we see reporters on cnn, msnbc and fox offering opinions 24 7. Is this moving journalism forward . As the husband of a distinguished journalist susan page often appears on television, i think actually its something of a problem. There are many people, there are some people i would say, and susan is one of them, who confine themselves to analysis and expedition of what they see as coming and are many others were expressing points of view. Im amazed to see a reporter from the Associated Press where i once worked expressing opinions on morning joe, morning after morning. But it seems like the news organizations like the prominence that their people have, raman its on tv, it les to clicks on the website and clicks on the website means someone is paying attention. And the line has gotten very, very blurred and i think its not good. Jonathan, past president of the press club and carol is a brotherinlaw. Lucky you. To talk about the opinion of you think that of a backwards not favor mcgovern. This was a First Campaign at the white house could use this platform to attack the press. Do you think that influenced your coverage and he think even today knowing the organizations out there going after the press, is why the nuke times is going after joe biden as you said or Hillary Clinton next you think that is influencing Coverage Even now . Boy, theres a lot of premises of there. The question is, connie has more perspective i think than either of us. Whats it like like a . What is your sense . I lost you a little bit there. Did we bend over backwards . Its two years into the attack when we all speeded i dont think it had any effect him frankly. Honestly, i think we are just normal people. And i think when you are a normal reporter, you want to be we all want to be fair. And if we have a personal bias in one direction or another direction, i think we try very hard to push our personal bias out of the way and be fair. So consequently if we were at that time appalled with what spiro agnew said, i think we tried very hard just to be objective. We are all products of our own experience, and we cant help being slightly subjective, but we try not to be. Plus, you know, theres a reportorial fact that is worth putting on the table here. I didnt know mitty nixon or agnew people who really believed all that malarkey. It was a way of doing politics that they discovered could work, and there were times when it was almost again. After that first speech, what, bill safire and buchanan are still built from the grave and that still arguing about who wrote it, but there would be games played at night with them to come up with other alliterative phrases, some of them not printable and they all end olds in this edit transmitted to be a feeling that this is more of a game and it is something serious. Even today it just strikes be as otherworldly. What i was talking up with the times is i think that is bending over backwards to show, and the times case, they are not for the democrats and against trump. So you do it by being as tough as possible on the other side. I think they sometimes carry it to an extreme, frankly. You mentioned that people dont have direct access that the use to have. They cant just go to a tennis club and have direct conversations, at least political journalists are on the campaign trail with the candidates, and it seems like now weve got this intermediary layer of the curators and people are getting the new stuff from the people who are in direct contact with the candidates but through, whether its a blog or an article or something that they are compiling the stories and become that intermediary. Does that seem who are the intermediaries . Whether its blockers, whether its someone at the newsroom who is pulling information from people were out on the front lines. Not getting the stories directly from the people are on the front lines following the campaign. Do you study all this . We do online ill tell you, as a consumer, heres what i would like. Take a 24 hour period and somehow get it all. Stream some events. If one of these a handful of these blogs, once the thing that has the circle with the line in it and then you can only write 150 words or something . Twitter. [laughing] do people read that stuff . Well anyway yes. Really. But did it all. Give me a a date in the life of 21st Century Media and tommy what its like. And if you learned anything, if it was all just a bunch of jibber jabber and and in his a picture of my lunch or something, because its so diffuse now i cant learn very much. Can you . I cant find the truth. Im having such a hard time trying to find out what is accurate, what is true. Ive taken to streaming events or getting video so you can watch i candidates event is to find out what theyre saying and whats going on. The horse race which was what, three paragraphs and a daily story, in 72, is now the story. Believe me, it still reads to me like 90 baloney, and doesnt have anything to do with educating me about anything going on in the country or whatever. Its just if you get this much in iowa, can you translate it to New Hampshire and then to nevada . Shut up. This all builds around poles which are mostly built on sand. Every poll that youve seen from New Hampshire, nevada, South Carolina and nationally will be worthless next tuesday after iowa votes. Everything that is written about them and what was happening in the states will change. I do want a wholesale criticize journalism today either because i think such incredible investigative journalists is being done today. Phenomenal. And i think it runs across the board in print, in the New York Times and the Washington Post, but also some of the broadcast networks are doing great investigative journalism. So i dont want to dump on the media in a in a wholesale way e i think a lot of people do. But i do have a problem with our the social media and misinformation that gets this amended very quickly with nobody checking it. The old fashion way, we had editors, producers and so many layers of people breathing down our throats making sure that what we reported was accurate. I mean, i was deathly afraid of being fired because i didnt want it was really a question of whether or not i got this right. And if i didnt have it right, i knew my head would be on the chopping block. Today its not because people are not dedicator or whatever, but there are certain outlets that allow into mind out of mouth or into mind on the paper and the submitted instantly. And thats where i have a problem. I cannot ferret out the truth. So i have to read all kinds of things to sort of come to my own conclusion as to what might be the truth, and probably the best is actually to watch it, whatever it is, whatever is going on, you watch it yourself and you come to your own conclusion. On the democratic side i was a 90 of what i know about the race comes from watching each of them. I tried to do, even now in retirement, a couple of events a day beginning to end to just have a sense of what they are like, that i used to get fromy buddy here. There is in a way too much coverage. Everything is written and everything is breathless, and no one stepping back and saying this is important, this is an important. The post has done a a wonderful job in some ways. They have a terrific bunch of theyve hired every reporter practically in the western world who doesnt work for the times. God knows what will happen to them after the election but darn so many stories about so many people about i dont know where the truth lies. I was going to say we would have some up after the last question but that was a beautiful sum up the lets just go to the last question. Wow, the last question. I guess its coming from someone who has worked both sides of the bus and my name is bill outlaw. I used to work as reporter dennis South Carolina. I was on the bus for the Jimmy Carter Campaign traveling around then come later work for the Associated Press and washington times. I didnt worked the other side of the bus for a longshot candidate for governor in delaware. I think i dealt with you guys someone that. Was a very successful i guess but anyway, my question is, in todays world with the focus and the use of the term fake news, and first, how do you think the media are 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, and there are people in the journalism world who can take on the forums and the the seminars and on tv, the concept. But weve got to make sure we dont fall into the traps and start doing things to cater to that or to oppose that. I think most people in this room have pretty good sense of what makes good journalism. And when political candidates for the own purposes do what the president has done, you can really not counter it except by do your job the right way, i think. Theres a piece of video that might illustrate my point i think. Every few weeks or however often it is that the president goes off to one of the shows. I have been able to find they are not cutaways. Anyway, pictures out of the press pen about an hour before the event. And you see our children and grandchildren arriving there and you see the taunting and the inyourface. At times its almost physical. Its always extremely loud. And i am struck out the quiet dignity of these people who just go into the pan and do their work and leave and dont pay any attention to whats happening. Its a nice example of what is grace under pressure. I think the accusation of fake news hurts. It hurts those of us who believe in the fourth estate, who believe that, in what we were doing, that we pursued a worthy profession. We were after, we were trying to right the wrongs of the government or society or social ills. And we consider it an honorable profession. Even though others dont consider us pursuing an honorable profession, i think there are plenty of reporters today who still have that mindset. Granted, theres a whole section of people who dont, and they engage in opinion and they engage in biased reporting. But honestly, my old friends, my old colleagues, the people that i knew were honest people who were just pursuing the truth. But just a one thing. She is being very erudite and wise and eloquent. But i guarantee you, if anybody in 1972 had treated connie the way some of these fake news criers do today, she would have flattened them on the spot. [laughing] [applause] and with that [laughing] do you have any final words . I cant top that. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming. [applause] tom, god bless you. The bar is open here and there are cheeses and things to eat over here, so please stick around and may be have a couple oneonone. [inaudible conversations] you are watching a special edition of booktv airing now during the week while members of congress are working if their districts because of the coronavirus pandemic. Tonight a look at crime. Enjoy booktv now and over the weekend on cspan2. The coronavirus pandemic is having an impact on the congressional schedule. House majority leader steny hoyer announced members will not be back for legislative business until monday may 4 Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has announced the same. That is two weeks after the chamber was originally scheduled to return. For the more members have been advise they would a sufficient notice about returning to capitol hill if legislative related to the coronavirus was to be considered before may 4. Watch live coverage of house on cspan and see the senate on cspan2. Welcome. Welcome to the Keystone Strategy transformative ideas lecture series. We are very lucky day to be hosted with cspan. A couple housekeeping notes. When we get to q a there are microphones so raise your hand and the mic will come to you and they will, the questions will be captured. Today we are extremely lucky to have Michael Kearns and aaron roth both from university of pennsylvania here to talk about their book the ethical algorithm. I think a day does not