Gaveltogavel coverage of todays hearings. Here is the senior correspondent, Robert Mcneil. Good evening from washington. We are going to bring you the entire proceedings for the first day of the Senate Watergate hearings. Determine the truth of a wide range of improper activities established or merely alleged surrounding the reelection of president and. We are running it all the reelection of president nixon. We are running at all because we think you should get a chance to see the whole thing and make your own judgment. We are doing this as an experiment, temporarily out temporarily abandoning our ability to edit to give you the whole story. Of the final one scenes of one of those shakespearean histories, the forces hostile to the king are rising on all sides, messenger after messenger rushes in with bad news but the decisive battle is still some scenes away and we do not yet know if this is a tragedy we are witnessing. By telling the president there was a cancer growing on the presidency and if the cancer was not removed the president would be killed by it. What did the president know and when did he know it . Is,he fact of the matter what we are pursuing is the president s knowledge and culpability. Is the committee actually walking itself onto a plank . How are they ever going to resolve the question when you can does when you continue to have witnesses like mitchell and more where there is no way to resolve them . Were you a whale of the installation of any listening devices in the oval office were you aware of the listening of the listening devices in the oval office of the president . [laughter] yes, sir. I deeply regret that this situation has arisen. I think it is the greatest tragedy this country has ever suffered. I used to think that the civil war was our countrys greatest thatdy but i do remember there were some redeeming features of the civil war and that there was a spirit of sacrifice and heroism displayed on both sides. I see no redeeming features and watergate. Watergate. Im not a constitutional lawyer, senator. In law school we studied a famous principle of law that came from england and also well known in this country that no is andhow humble a man even the king of england cannot enter without his consent. Im afraid that has been considerably eroded. In my country we still think it is pretty legitimate. It is now after 3 00 in the. Orning for the sake of my mother and you other hearty souls who are still with us, i shall be brief. I have only one point to make. John wesley dean the third may have met his match. Openminded people who long to think in simple terms about watergate may have had it for a while. In short, we may be back where we were a few weeks ago. The crucial question of the president s knowledge and involvement in the coverup as well as that of his top aides is as murky and unclear as it ever was. Likel because everyone else who has appeared before this committee, opinions will vary on the truth of his testimony. Any reasonable person would have to conclude that he has been an extremely effective witness for his side. His friendlys, demeanor, his air of sincerity have come through. His, without commenting on truthfulness, the only prior witness to come close to him on the effectiveness and significant scales was john dean. And lest those tapes are made public or some other revelation senators, as, the well as the rest of us who are interested may have to eventually make an ultimate choice between believing john dean or bob halderman. That is the way it looks to me at 3 00 or so in the morning, feel free to disagree. [laughter] good morning, we will see you again tomorrow night. [applause] good afternoon everyone, im the chairman of the executive Advisory Council for the american archive of public broadcasting. When i arrived at w when i arrived, henry morgan thought was in his heyday. He still has the urge to create. He has just published a book of his poetry. I have a copy over there and what she did not tell you is this is a stop on his book tour today. [laughter] pleasure toat introduce this next panel and its moderator, judy woodruff. One of our very special colleagues in public media. Judy began her career at the cbs affiliate in atlanta and went on to be White House Correspondent for nbc, was the host of frontline in its early days, the host of inside politics for cnn, guest correspondent for npr, and the cofounder and chairperson of the International Womens media foundation. Along the way she has been honored by many distinguished organizations. Thank you for helping us today and we promise to get you back to prep for the news hour tonight. [applause] of they being one pillars of public media for so many years, a and the country has so much to thank you for. I am the lucky one now because i get to preside over this panel of five megastars in public media. Publictheon of news and affairs, each one of them has played an absolutely essential and in keeping public media radio at the center of American Life. None of them needs an introduction so i will be very brief. Starting with my mentor, the man you just saw in that clip, the former anchor and executive editor of the new of the news hour and before that the coanchor and executive editor of news hour. Leher singularook and the driving force behind daily journalism at pbs, all of this following a distinguished career. Jim leher. [applause] still needs a haircut. Next is my boss today. I do not feel any pressure at all. The president and ceo of weta, washington, d. C. s flagship public tv and radio stations since 1989. Served as thee chair of the board of the corporation for public broadcasting as well as a member board, sharon rockefeller. [applause] the executive director and cofounder of the National LatinoPublic Radio Network in 1976, he was the moving force of a group of latino farmworkers, artists, inivists and teachers californias san joaquin valley. Hugo more allies hugo morales. [applause] dick cavett. [applause] and finally the living legend. The woman who moderated the last background in broadcasting, political commentator for abc news and npr , advisor to the American Archives of public broadcasting, cokie roberts. [applause] charged withe doing is looking at how news and Public Affairs came into being and how it evolved in public media. Jim, im going to start with you. You were there almost at the beginning. When you came to washington and all about watergate. What happened . The watergate hearings, that was the watershed event for news and Public Affairs on Public Television. Up to that point, the distinctions in the public was generally divided over whether they needed any more news and Public Affairs on television beyond what was already there on commercial television. The Nixon Administration particularly did not think there was a need for any more Public Affairs on public broadcasting. The watergate hearings changed everything and the reason it changed was because there are several individuals who have the courage to make tough decisions. Was not was not to broadcast gaveltogavel because many of the stations were not broadcast it live because they had educational tv on during the day time. Why dont we run them at night, repeat them at night . That was a big deal and a big decision and the people who are running pbs were nervous about it so they said lets pull the stations. The stations, but we did it in a very clever way. [laughter] had a question that was phrased in such a way, do you want to be patriotic or do you want to be a jerk . We still barely one. We still barely won. [laughter] time,mcneil said at the it was summertime, and pbs did not have that much to run it night and had no original programs to run it night anyhow. They would run if they do not run the hearings would be englishspeaking people mating, andmals occasionally english people speaking mating and animals talking. [laughter] why not replace it with the watergate hearings . That is why when i said 3 00 a. M. , the hearings were not going on, that was the repeat. We would do it live all day but we only had about half of the stations watching it. , it was the old story, the big stations would not take us and then they started because the word got out and then it became a big deal. That it proveds beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was a role for news and Public Affairs on public broadcasting because of those hearings. Out of that came the news hour. When you and robin kicked out the mcneil report it begin with the worst title in the history of television, the Robert Mcneil report. [laughter] washingtone correspondent, and my mother interceded and it became the mcneil leher. That is where i want to bring in sharon rockefeller. You knew what jim and robin were trying to do. What were you up against when they tried to go to one hour . The stations, in many senses. I was familiar with the West Virginia education authority, i was not on the board at that time because my husband was not governor. At the time, i asked for one thing for my husband, can i be and noed and he said yes whatever thought twice about it. , that ismy training how i learned. The watergate hearings, ive watched every single day all day long. They had lost an election by the largest margin in the history of the state. We had four years index ill in West Virginia we had four years in exile. When the watergate hearings were in that we cannot receive the Washington Post by mail until two days after it was published. I started watching fulltime. My kids were watching sesame street. I loved history, adams chronicles, masterpiece. News and Public Affairs was my main attraction, it was what we had to offer. We was little old Public Television and it was the turnaround. Board atme on the weta the same time through another vehicle. It had one woman on the board and i was taking her place. She was the founder this was in the 70s. She said where do you live, i said West Virginia, she said where is that . Dakotas . Is it near the [laughter] she knew mrs. Campbell, and she called her immediately. She said you have to talk to this young woman. I did not know what about, but mrs. Campbell called me in a very authoritarian way and said you must come to washington right now. Which i did. Ive always taken my orders from Elizabeth Campbell and that is how i got involved with weta. Small at that time weta was not as wealthy as it is today. We had a budget of 4 million, now we are at 97 million. The watergate hearing put Public Television on the map and weta and the news hour, which came about in 1983 because we thought it should be the first, when all stations were going to go to one hour of news, they never did, we around to visit andions, speak to them, they did not want it. We divided up the 300 Public Television stations and we called station manager or theram manager because successor as president of pbs, it is a great idea to go to one hour but i do not have the power to do it, you will have to get the stations to do it. We physically call them on the. Hone we won the vote. I felt like, oh, nevermind. Democracy one. Democracy won. Cavett, while all of this was going on, what was the appeal of Public Television . I noticed something about today that among the things i thought might come up would be the question of why i moved my show from Network Television to pbs. I was fired. [laughter] it. Hat will do that is premuch what happened. That is pretty much what happened. That opened the door or pave the way or whatever cliche you prefer. It was a wonderful change with our network fellow. Were delighted to get a show, terrified and nervous. The trouble there started on the first day. I thought i had a wonderful show to present is my first show. Vidal, andi, gore Angela Lansbury did a wonderful. How full this boy that i am, i want to be can foolish boy that i seemis expression did not to be appropriate, i think it was worded, who the hell gives a damn what muhammad ali and gore vidal think about vietnam . Obviously that had come up. The second brilliant part of his reaction was we cannot really air that as the first show because of that. We are going to air it is the second show. I seem to remember saying are you going to be like this all along . Wince. Y agent they did that. They did a second show that was nice. They aired the second show first. It got mildly enthusiastic reaction. Then they aired the first show the second night and reviewers were reviewing the entire week. Almost everybody said about the showd show, the cavett really found itself on the second show. [laughter] i was sure that the man who had been making who had been waiting backstage got a copy of that. There were other kinds of troubles that i would not have gotten on and didnt on pbs. One involved that lovable old , ande, the john lennons that was big and the ratings were big and that was nice and they even came back. John, when i met him a week earlier, i said why you want to do this, there cannot be much you need at this point . He said you have the only halfway intelligent show on television and i said why would you want to be on a halfway intelligent show . [laughter] he laughed as many of you did and was on the show. But on the second show, the agreement had been that they would do one of their songs. John said lets do one of yokos songs. It had the catchy title woman s the nigger of the borland. We did this song and nothing happened. But before it was aired, i was told that it would not be red, the song, and i complained. They said all right, we will air it, but our decision is you will make a statement beforehand about the dangers of watching it. [laughter] i remember. There were 412, perhaps, protests about the song. None of them about the song though. About ne woman put it, that mealymouthed speech you delivered before it. My delivery sort of encouraged that. So getting to pbs was going into a green meadow in a way. I want to hear more about the green meadow. Koki, i want to come to you. We heard bill and others say words to the effect that they felt n. P. R. Should have had the Early Head Start and boost that pbs did. Did you feel that . Sure. It is still true to some degree. But it turned out to be a blessing, i think, in the end. Bill can probably talk about this more. It was kind of a secret at first. Because at the point when nixon did go after television, and basically the Television Network committed suicide, n. P. R. Was still there, and there was no necessity to disband it because it wasnt on the radar. So the ability to just grow and thrive was much easier in that environment. But then the growing and thriving became something quite dramatic. As of today we are listened to by more people the morning edition is listened to by more people than the three Network Morning shows combined. It is listened to by more people than anything other than rush limbaugh. I keep saying steven should get what rush gets. The difference in ratings is about 500,000 people. It is wildly successful and really the primary source of news for millions and millions of people around the world. And commercial radio has pull back dramatically over the years. That is true. Leaving a big opening. Hugo morales, you were paying attention to all this in california, but you and some of your friends decided there was something missing. What did you see . Well, first of all, there was little or no news on radio,. D that is true today in Spanish Language commercial radio there is no news. That sound shocking, but it happened. It is a shocking truth, that there is no news in Spanish Language radio except for one. When we got started back in we got started on july 4, 1980. In 19 0 in 1980 the population of latinos in the s. Was about 15 million, and 6. 5 . Now it is 80 mcgee and 17 . And 72 of latinos speak spanish at home. This is not something of the past. Some of us were young at that time, right . And that we had big dreams. But rather it is something that is very relevant today. And yet there is no news in Spanish Language commercial radio. Stunning. It is very stunning. It is a story that some of us dont want to perhaps believe, but it is true. So back in 1976 when we started when i started organizing the radio in fresno. It was a community that i came to because i was born in gua haucka, raised in sonoma ounty. In the amount of people i came negligence contact with, they saw the same thing. Mexican chicanoas and americans were there. Ll of us were bilingual. We were the first generation of latinos to open the doors to higher education. That contributed a lot to why this was founded. We saw this degree of limitation of public broadcasting. Not just public broadcasting, but english language media that we as latinos and our families could not access just because of the language. Right. But it is not just the language. I see everybody here, there is more than the language. There is the culture, the history, the nuances of language. There is the literature, poetry, art. There is all that, and that was absent. And we as young people thought wow, seems like our community of treasures, the hiddest treasures. We have so much wealth of history, so much wealth of art and so forth in our communities, and we should be able to share that and learn from one another. That is why we established in 1976 and went on the air in 1980. And it is still going. Still going. And we believe that Public Affairs news had to be a part of it. Just like in this situation, we wanted us as mexican americans and latinos to tell the story, have our own narrative. To be inclusive. If you look at, for example, the prison population today in the united states, Something Like 19 of the prison population in the u. S. Is latino. So a let of our community are in need. The highest dropout rate from high school continue to be latinos in the united states. T you see the figures of how we have a significant number, and we are projected to go larger. So we have been able to document and follow some of the stories that some of the other media have not. For example there, is a case of an indigenous woman living in the south who was denied parenting her child at birth because she could not or unicate in english spanish. She spoke a native language from my home state. So it is that kind of a case where some Community Folks there from i think it was alabama, called our station. We broke the story, and then the Mainstream Media picked it up. But that is the kind of stories we cover. Right now what is happening, it, g about the need there is a lot of fear among our families about deportations. Maybe to those of us in this room, it is just another topic. But to people who listen to us. It is very, very personal. I think about a couple of months ago we had a call from a mother from tracy, california. We opened the lines, and also of information, the opportunity to renew daca, and she was saying her son had gone into depression after the election. He knew what was about to happen. He was a daca recipient, and he had quit his college after the election then later he quit his job. So the mother was very worried about her son and what was about to happen. These are the stories we carry. You are touching stories of allamerican lives, and that is what public media was founded to do. Jim, lets talk next for a few minutes about how hard, or not, it has been to survive as news and Public Affairs in public media. A lot of competition out there. The news, the commercial news environment has changed so drastically. Why has public media remained as strong as it has, do you think . Well, first of all, mcneil and i said at the beginning, if commercial television when cable started growing particularly, if they started doing what we were doing, we would quit coming it. There is no point in doing what is available elsewhere. We will go on and do something else. We had a lot of ideas of our things that we could do. But as we sit here now, nobody is doing it. And in fact there, is more now more than ever, they would say, the kind of journalism that is practiced on the news hour is more needed now than ever before, because journalism on television has had its own growth and its own kinds of changes. Those changes have been away from the kind of separation of straight reporting, from analysis, from opinion, that sort of thing, which is still true of the news hour, but not true in some elements of commercial television, particularly cable television. To he reason for our being, just cut to the chase the reason for our being is stronger now than it has ever been. Good point. We will let that just sit there. Think it is right. [applause] sharron, you have to think about it as a manager and executive. How hard has it been to keep news and Public Affairs going . We should at, you oversee the ken burns. It is not just the newshoyer and Washington Week. It is the ben burns shows and many others. One thing that is great about the Public Television audience is it is pretty well educated. Above all, it continues to want to learn. Keeping up on a daily basis is important, but putting in con text context weekly as we do on Washington Week is very important. And history, the arts, science, kids, all of the rest, means we serve so many different people in so many ways, but our signature is the news and Public Affairs. It is the hardest to fund. And yet our membership money essentially helps subsidize. Although we raise a lot for the news hour, a good bit for Washington Week, but we never make a profit. Lets put it that way. We always reinvest in the product and could spend a lot more than we take in. I think it is our trademark and our signature. We are very proud of it. I think our audience is proud to be associated with what we do. But it has always been difficult to keep it funded. The word surplus is not even in our vocabulary. It is not. We are always either over budget or having to cut back. That has been from day one. I hate to say this, but at the very beginning when we first started, which is now 37 or 38 years ago, there was a commercial Television Guy named marvin kalb. I ran into him socially. We were on the air a year or two at that point. I doesnt know him. But he says let me give you a warning. I said yeah what, is that . Dont let them give you too much money. I said that is not a problem. Not a problem. [laughter] but just for the hell of it, tell me why. And he told a quick story. He had scads of them. But one in particular, nightly news, cbs news, czech has been invaded. He was going to do a millsap and a half thing on it, was going to be a major story. They kept cutting it back, cutting it back, and about a minute before air or two minutes before air, they got some great fire footage from downtown little rock. Nobody was hurt in the fire, but great pictures of sapphires. And they cut his report back to 20 seconds. He said if they hadnt had the money to buy that fire, i would have had my minute and a half. It clearly stuck in my mind because i just told the story again. And mcneil always said that, too. If we get too fat and sassy, you will do things that are not required. This way you are limited by money money limits you to do what you must do, rather than what you want to do. Well, in radio that is really not true. What we are doing is opening pure owes all over the place. When we are living in a world where what happens in other places affects your 401k, then you need more International Coverage than less, and more National Coverage to understand what is going on in this country. So really, the money goes to those very expensive Foreign Bureau owes bureaus, which are very difficult to do, but i would argue are essential at this time. We need all the money we can get, thank you. It is probably a story i shouldnt have told. [laughter] one thing i would say sorry to interrupt that in the early days he went to at t, et cetera, et cetera. We got huge amounts of money in retrospect. Hat has diminished drastically. It is not that we have never had a surplus, but foundations and individuals support the program now. You can give as an individual to support the pbs news hour, which was never hobble before. But we are doing that in a embership kind of way. Did the funding situation affect the kind of work you were able to do, dick . I recognized my name. Gee, i like fires. [laughter] what a story that is. I was never thoughtful or thinking about such things as funding. That is a bad habit sort of frame of mind for me. I had to be urged every now and then to make a phone call, or make an effort or Something Like that. But i was thinking of shows that i was able to do. People say oh, you are going into Public Television now. That is is for intellectuals. Intellectual is a very dangerous label to have put on you when you are in television, whether it is public or the other sort. But i remember appreciating the fact that abc would have gotten a little nervous when i would have on englands great ntertaining, performer, actor, philosopher, teacher, and would have him on five nights in a row a couple of times, and people wanted more. I can imagine trying to do that elsewhere. I really wasnt conscious of funding in ways that were probably harmful to me because i am sure i would have been able to help with it if i pitched in, in certain ways. But did you feel the freedom to do pretty much what you wanted when you were working at pbs . Interview the people you wanted and do the kind of programming you wanted to do . I did, yes. I usually just did the kind of program i wanted to, and in the main, i got away of it. I am not aware of any particular gripes i was used to on abc. Well, good. We will take that. [laughter] am i disgustingly happy . That is good. I want to come back to hugo. How do you see this question of resources . How much of an issue is it . Are you able to ignore it . How does it affect what you are able to do first of all i want to say it is very important take we that balance. How do you build, not just a station, but a network. How do you build a network when you are serving people with literally no disposable income . Part of it is the employees , sidize the service in part at least at the beginning. Subsidize how . Low salaries. For starters. And the other is to keep those employees. That is a real change for us. Are the ther is that foundations that we managed to attract. For that has grown, our share has grown for news and information from the foundation. That is competition for those dollars. So it is really difficult for us. So i would say that for news and information in spanish to us, it really would be difficult for us to maintain that. That leads to my last question for all of you. How do you see the future of news in public radio and television . I like to feel confident about it. Wherever i go i hear good things about the news hour. How do you feel . I think that one of the things that we are learning is that Congress Actually likes n. P. R. They cant always say it out loud, but the truth is that it was ack to what nick saying they are on. It is on in their districts. Federal funding is tiny percentage of n. P. R. Money. But the stations rely on it a lot, particularly the small rule stations. That is an important thing to keep in mind, that these people are desperate for this kind of information. Sometimes it is also the only emergency signal, all of that. So i think the fact of the service is so widespread and diverse so well listened to by people in all areas of American Life that i feel very confident about the future, but i do think it requires resources. I was going to say that the last two years, last year and a half, have proven more than ever the need for what we do. It is so complex, depressing to many, hopeful to those who thought they were electing someone who thought they would stand for them. But the country is changing so fast. Is political system plocketally impossible to understand. But who brings some sense, order and rationale to what happened today, this week and this year, plus nationals, but thoughtful, complex ideas about what may happen in the future. We are do that in a way nobody else is. If we just stay true to our mission, stick to the straight and narrow, i think we have a great future in news and Public Affairs. I agree 100 . [applause] every one of us sorry. Two vaudevillians completing. [laughter] the basic need for the free press was set up by the unders, and the key to our Democratic Society is an informed electorate. The only device that the founders created through the First Amendment was the free press. That is the device for peach people for for people to get information to cast informed votes at all levels of government. Not just we in public broadcasting, but we in journalism, who practice it and participate in it it at any level are part of a delmonico cratic process that is particularly critical right now with this explosion of information that is coming out, with this tsunami of electronic gadgets and this and that. This is a critical time. I agree with what sharron said. We must not lose sight of what our purpose. And it isnt about making people laugh. It isnt about making them cry. It is about keeping them informed enough to function as inform the people in this country informed citizens. Thank you. [applause] i agree with sharron on that also. You dont agree with me . [laughter] i will get to you in a minute. Oh, ok. [laughter] i always have. Yeah, ok. This as we are living in seeming time of playing, certainly there has to be the service that only public broadcasting can do so well, and continue to be this great garden of thrilling, vardy, wonderful things that are not elsewhere. Ey are still not beholding Public Television is still vital to our lives. Sounds corny, but i believe it. [applause] if you are not optimistic, you cant speak. I am optimistic. [laughter] and i agree with the distinguished panelists. Terms of Spanish Language news and information, i think the need is there for basic information along with news and information to the latino community. Think the future for Spanish Language media is to be able to communicate that. So thank you for the invitation. Of what the reality is and the need for that. It is so critical. Thank you very much. So critical. I want to thank all of the panelists, but i want to quickly read a little bit of an email we at the newshour got yesterday from our colleague jeff brown. He was interviewing inmates at san quentin prison for a story they are working on for a podcast they are producing. What i want to share with you is jeff wrote all of us to say that several dozen inmates in different parts of the prison, different places, from different parts of the country, came up so him and the crew while they were there to say hayes, pbs. We dont know what we would do without pbs. They went on to say how much the program means. While jeff is interviewing an inmate in one cell, they can hear the program in the next cell being listened to to. I want to say that we reach people in public media in every corner of this country. We are not just in intellectual capitals and the places of great wealth. We are in parts of the country where people are struggling and trying to get their lives back together. Those are the stories that we will always tell, along with all of the others. What an amazing panel. Thank you if some of those inmates were to join their local public broadcasting station, this would be a wonderful funding thing. I want to tell you one quick tory because it is so funny. At one point, mr. Sandberg was the host of all things considered. She sook a leave to write a book. A farmer wrote to her and said my cows wont give milk. [laughter] he was always zpg into the milking always going into the milking barn, and they heard sunche and gave milk. Milk. With no susan, no thank you. [applause] raising the fist in the 1968 olympics, does that relate to what we are seeing the Football Players kneeling today with the National Anthem . I think again we have a long history of you could be featured during our next live program. Join the conversation on facebook at facebook. Com cspanhistory and on twitt cspan history. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the 14th amendment addition to the u. S. Constitution. It addresses citizensship rights and equal protection of the laws. Next on American History tv. Civil war and reconstruction era historians, david blight and Thavolia Glymph explore the meaning of freedom and equality to africanamericans and white southerners in the wake of emancipation. The National Constitution center in philadelphia posted this hour and 10minute talk. Let me introduce our guest