Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20240622

Go north then turn to the west, and as they get by reunion go south. Its a big circle where everything collects because its not being pushed around. Somehow this piece might have gotten spit out and washed up on to reunion, but it doesnt tell us where the wreckage is on the bottom of the ocean or where the black box is and it really doesnt help us understand better what happened to mh370 mh370. Rose and the implications of the death of taliban leader mullah omar. We are negotiating with this very opaque movement and then the leader dies. What happens next . I think its going to be very complicated. On the plus side if the Movement Starts splitting, you are able to negotiate with a more moderate elements. On the negative side, there is no one figure who can bring them altogether and say hey were going to do a deal. That person was really mullah omar unlikely that his success will have the ability to have a peace negotiation. Rose we plead with the editor of the new yorker magazine looking at people like bill cosby. It gives us a way of looking at the world. The content is not so much about new york, but everything is informed by a certain way that new yorkers think. You know what im talking about. And, you know, it has to do with a kind of sort of skeptical intelligence. I think a compassionate intelligence. We tried very hard to, you know, make it a magazine that is ultimately sympathetic. Rose possible evidence about the missing Malaysian Airline, mullah omar and new York Magazine when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by american express. Additional funding provided by. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin this evening with the discovery of debris which could be from the missing malaysian flight mh370. The boeing 777 vanished en route from kuala lumpur to beijing in march of 2014. 239 passengers and crew went missing. The object was found on the Indian Ocean Island of reunion. It appears to be a torn wing flap and will be shipped to france for further examination. Joining me now from washington is retired colonel stephen ganyard, former marine corps pilot and Deputy Assistant secretary of state hes also an abc news contributor and president of the Strategic Services firm. I am pleased to have him back on the program. Steve, thank you so much. Thank you charlie. Great to be back with you. Rose tell me what we have discovered here and what it might tell us and where it might lead us. Well, i think there is good news and bad news. The good news is that, after 16 months, an airplane that just disappeared where the whole world could not fathom how a huge aircraft with all these people on board could disappear we finally have what i think is a part from that airplane that will tell us, yes, that airplane crashed and, yes those people are gone. On the other hand we look at it and we say its probably 4 to 5,000 miles away from where it originally hit had 16 months to drift around be in what we call the independence jan ocean gire, the currents that move in the indian ocean move counterclockwise so from the impact point where we think the airplane hit off the western khost of australia, those currents go north turn west, and then as they get by reunion go south so its a big circle. Its what they call a garbage gire where everything collects because its not being pushed out. Somehow this piece got spit out and washed on reunion but it doesnt tes where the wreckage is on the bottom of the ocean, it doesnt tell us where the black box is and doesnt help us understand better what happened to flight mh370. Rose so in the end we may have this and not be able to find where the wreckage is. Right. I think what were seeing here is not going to be helpful in finding the airplane. The focus of the investigation needs to stay back on the track that the atsb, the australians have been looking at for months now and working through the winter months. This will bring, i think some closure to the families, but beyond that, its not going to tell us much thats useful to find out what happened. Rose can they tell if this debris came from the missing 777 . I think were about 99 there now. We know there is a part number not a serial number so it doesnt identify exactly the part came from this airplane. It does say it came from a 777. We know its white the malaysian plane was white only one missing in tinneddian ocean so we can say from power of deduction this is probably the piece. One of the things, when i was looking at it today if when you look at it, it appears the barnicles are all over this piece of flapperon as we call it. That suggests it was emerged some depth below the surface. You say, why didnt we see it after the aircraft went missing because sometimes when the aircraft hit the water, they either break into little pieces or some float on the surface but some get waterlogged and some will float a couple of inches to six feet below. Thats what carbon fiber does as we know with airplanes that have crashed that use that did modern sort of material. So it would suggest this was floating somewhere just below the surface and got spit out of that indian ocean gire and washed up on the beach. Rose this investigation has been ongoing. I know you had conversations with the people involved in that process. Where is the Investigation Pre the discovery of this debris . Ive talked with the investigators three times in the past six months. Its a very impressive crew. They have ive thong you could ask for, help from other countries, boeing and the french are helping. So they have everything you need to have a professional crew. I played stump the stars with them over and over again. I said off the record, let me try to stump you and i was unable to do it. Im very confident in the science theyre looking at. The last time we talked, there was an arc, you remember the pings from the satellite, and there was a last ping that they think was the ping when the aircraft lost electrical power. So its like, you know, if you have a transistor radio and it runs out of batteries and makes a noise, thats the last ping they think they heard which gives them a good idea of where the airplane, is somewhere along the arc in a 60,000 square kilometer arc. Now, they knew exactly how much gas the airplane had at the top of its climb and the general track, so they have a pretty good idea of where it would have come down. Heres the really interesting thing. Over the people ive met with the australians and ill tell you what my personal feeling is when i first met with them, they were, like, there is no way this will escape us, we are going to find this airplane. The last time i met with them, theyre a little nervous because they looked at 50,000 out of 60 kilometers and expanded to 120,000 on a geometric proportional expansion because they still havent found it. Theyve extended the time theyre going to be looking for the airplane out to october. Remember its winter in the southern indian ocean so the weather is very difficult, the seas are difficult, but theyre a little nervous they havent found it. I asked them i said, between you and me, totally off the record, were having a beer in the bar what do you think . They said, 100 , were going to find this. As they go along theyve got two scenarios. Theres two end of flight scenarios. The first they modeled was the scenario where youre at altitude, everybody is unconscious on the airplane. The airplane flies along runs out of gas. When it runs out of gas, it runs out one engine at a time so youre going to get asymmetric thrust. Supposedly you would think the auto pilot is on but its going to try to correct but you will get the motion where the airplane is rolling around till the other engine flames out then it will trim up and do various stalls like a falling leaf into the water. In that scenario i think they have a pretty good idea of where the area that that airplane might be. That is if everybody was asleep. The thing that is disturbing today that what we see on this flap run is its fully in tact. If the airplane were going to fly into the water at a very steep angle at a high rate of speed, that flap rung would you not be in tact. The only way you would see it in tact is if the airplane hit the water at a slow speed. The idea if it hit at a slow speed and you see the tip looks like it might have been shaved off by hitting the water if somebody tried to land that airplane after running out of gas, thats a really, really chilling idea to think that there was somebody alive in that cockpit, flying that airplane after it had run out of gas and was gliding into the ocean. Rose make sure where your head is, its a chilling idea but a . I think everybody believes this was a murder suicide. Nobody believes this was mechanical. A lot of people believe well, it just flew out to sea. He pointed it straight at the south poll, flew it out to sea dumped the cabin pressure everybody dies in the back of apocksy and cold and they fly off into oblivion. If they didnt and tried to land the airplane, there may have been people alive when they hit the water. Rose do the people you talked to within the met for of talking to you and rihaving a beer in a bar, what else it they believe . Nobody knows enough to believe anything. They can think a couple of scenarios, and the one that gives them the nightmares is the second scenario where somebody is conscious because, as i said, you can backtrack from where you know the airplane was when it was at the top of its cruise and leveled off and how much gas it had, so you have an idea of where it might have run out of gas, and you can sort of draw a circle around that. If somebody, when it ran out of gas, was at the controls, they could have flown that airplane in any direction. Were trying to look for consistency so we can narrow the area we want to look for the airplane. But if they were flying it and heading this direction towards the south pole and decided to go 90 degrees to the right, you just opened up a really dig search area because this airplane at that altitude is actually a pretty good glider. It can glide out to about 125 miles after it had run out of gas. So now after youve gone to all this trouble to try to narrow and focus your search area in this wild, open ocean if somebody did something right at the end that was unpredictable, you made it very difficult and if it was murdersuicide, you would think somebody would think, well, im going to make it extra hard at the end and do something unpredictable. Rose when we talk about murdersuicide, we think of one of the pilots murdering the other and then committing suicide . Yes. Rose were not talking somebody coming in and murdering both of them and then its possible. There are convoluted ideas about how that would happen but i dont think so. It points there are too many things that you remember when the airplane was flying north when they were between the vietnamese and Malaysian Air defense zones so theyre in that gap, you had to be a pilot to know you were sort of in that radar gap and to type way points and change way points and to have the airplane fly, to know where the transponder switch and the acar switch was this suggests somebody highly trained on how to fly that airplane. Rose is this approaching Amelia Earhart mystery . I think its worse. She was doing something everybody knew was dangerous she was a pioneer. Its a very sad story, a mystery. Here, this is a murder. There were 200someodd People Killed by somebody who had some sick wish to take them to his own end and, so its chilling in that there was an act of evil, there were multiple acts of evil perpetrated against the flying public, and everybody flies, and everybody understands how safe flying is, and then you get Something Like this, and boy, it chills you. Rose and your best guess is to whether they will find something or not . Well, im an optimistic guy, charlie, so im going to say 70 . I think we have between now and october. The weather will start Getting Better in the southern indian ocean, but i think that they have the technique, they have the most sophisticated kinds of technologies available and theyre doing exactly what everybody in the world thinks they will be doing. Theyve had this peer review theyve got everybody theyve got every scientist in the world, and theyve looked at it and refined it. So if we dont find it, i will be shocked but its got to happen between now and october. Rose they shipped the debris back to paris because this was a French Island . Correct. Correct. The french are actually quite good in accident investigations, so i would be a little bit worried if they shipped it to malaysia or some country that was not as capable or has demonstrated a good investigation capability. Rose neither the experience nor the equipment. Correct. Rose thank you so much a pleasure to have you back on this broadcast. My thanks to abc news as well. Well be right back. Stay with us. Rose we continue with a look at confirmed death of taliban leader mullah omar. He was forced from power by u. S. Led coalition in 2001 and long been considered the ghost leader of the group. Taliban released a Statement Today from his alleged family saying he died of illness. It apologized for any mistake mullah omar made during his rule of afghanistan. The Afghan Government announced yesterday omar died two years ago in pakistan. Reports of his death cast uncertainty over faith of current peace talks taking place between the taliban and afghanistan. Joining us from washington Matthew Rosenberg, National Security reporter for the New York Times. Also peter bergen, cnns National Security analyst. I am pleased to have them on this program. Peter, let me begin with this question, why would they keep it quiet that he died . And how long do you think, from your sources he has been dead . Well, i mean answering the second question first, i mean, i think thats still not very still pretty unclear. We do have the Afghan Government saying he died in april 2013. Like a lot of things in pakistan and afghanistan, you know, that may not be completely correct. Why did they keep it secret . Theres no one else that can really replace it. If you think about the claim charlie, he said he was commander of the faithful. This is not just saying i am head of the taliban. This is the claim i am leader of all muslims everywhere. Its a rarely invoked religious title really the Prophet Muhammad and his immediate accessers were commander of the faithful. So there is nobody in the second tier of the taliban that could really claim that title. Well see some succession struggle. Some said his son might take over. A couple of other leading contenders, but none have the stature of mullah omar. Rose lets assume it was two years or less, does this mean people have been making decisions in his name with the impermature of his reputation as and spirituality . Yeah, i think thats true. Weve already seen, you know the taliban is hardly a unified movement. There are essentially three big pardz of it, the afghan, Pakistani Taliban and and other network. These groups may go their separate ways. Others play submit off and others may be more inclined to align with i. S. I. S. Weve seen that with small taliban groups in afghanistan and pakistan. This is an opportunity for i. S. I. S. Rose matthew . I think one person seems to have been giving orders in the taliban in the last few years the mullah. There was a lot of disaffection for him so it sets out for a power struggle because he is one of the guys who wants to take over and its so much hard tore make peace if you have all these internal factions vying for power. Rose hes obviously number two and has been reaching for and he is said to be one of the likely contenders. Is the other his son. His son is one and there are a few others. Another one from Guantanamo Bay may be backing the son. The other problem with the taliban, its hard to tell exactly whats going on inside. At its core this is a group of clerics, many whove known each other for years not a whole lot of outsiders in the inner circle of powers there. Its incredibly difficult for western and even the Afghan Intelligence agencies to get inside the leadership and figure out whats going on. Rose peter ive asked a lot of people after Osama Bin Laden was discovered and killed why not mullah omar. I mean you must know where he is or some approximation. They would always say we think here but have not had clarification. I would say if you knew, would you get him . They would say, well, of course. It says quite a bit by our intelligence agencies funded to the tune of 80 billion a year which is like a trillion dollars as of 9 11plus, that it comes that omar died two years ago he had 20 million on his head and was one of the most wanted men in the american National Security arena. But as matthew said, this is a very opaque movement. Out of curiosity, i looked at when was the last time we could have had definitive proof of life of omar. Looks like the last audiotape came in 2005. Since then, written communiques once a year in the end of ramadan. So there was very little evidence he was alive even when he was alive, and the most basic facts havent been clarified. We have a recent biography saying he was born in 1960 but that wasnt clear at aller and it gets to this question are we negotiating with this very opaque movement, and then the leader dies, when happens next. And, you know, i think its going to be very complicated. On the plus side if the Movement Starts splitting, you are able to negotiate with a more moderate elements. On the negative side theres no one figure who can bring them all together and say hey were going to do a deal. That person was really mullah omar, but unlikely the will have the same success for a pales negotiation. Rose did we know he wanted to negotiate and wanted a deal or do we assume so because if he didnt they wouldnt have done it . I would be curious to see what matthew says but i cant believe they didnt start negotiating for some kind of deal out omars input. If you think about it, the negotiations between the taliban and the United States and the taliban and elements of the Afghan Government, this has been going on many, many years long preceded the Bowe Bergdahl deal. It didnt get far, he was released thankfully, but this is a process thats been going on for many, many yekrs and i cant believe that mullah omar wouldnt have sanctioned it in some way. Rose matthew . It seems he did. If you look at it, the talibans chief negotiate is someone who had once been his secretary. But that is 2010 2011, 2012 when it started and the process stalled quickly in 2012, which probably goes to assume that mullah omar was dissatisfied and thought americans were negotiating in bad faith. Mullah omar in his leadership was adamant about not negotiating with the Afghan Government. Now they are. Is that something most taliban support . We dont know. Now that hes known to be dead, will they support further negotiations with the Afghan Government . We dont know that either. There were talks planned for friday which have been postponed. I think it does raise a lot of questions, under what circumstances will they talk and to whom will they talk. Rose what is the status of their success on the ground in afghanistan today . The one thing is, you know, theyve done so well in the last year or two that perhaps this has been a blessing for them not to be glib about it, but they really have made impressive gains in northern afghanistan and parts of southeastern afghan. Theyve given the afghan an incredible amount of trouble and the Afghan Military has struggled mightily to keep up with them. Thats a frightening prospect, a movement leaderless people were going about with the leaders absence, and now that hes dead, have done well. Will it keep pressing forward . If so, that should help keep people on board which could be very problematic in the next few years. Rose peter, i found it interesting, too, it said in the mote, my understanding, and you would know better of what weve learned since then, the family said we apologize for whatever mistakes weve made to the state of afghanistan and to the taliban. Thats an interesting thing to do, although many people think of things like that, they dont really say them at the time of their death. You know, i mean, im not an expert on sort of islamic theology as it relates to but one thing is, when you die youre supposed to pay off all your debts. Youre supposed to kind of make amends to people, in a sense you know as part of the act of dying and thats their way of doing this. It is sort of a puzzling statement, as you say and certainly mullah omar made a lot of mistakes, not least that he drove afghan you know, the world bank stopped mering afghanistans Economic Indicators under the taliban because there were none. I was there under the taliban. The population of kabul today is almost unknown but estimated 3. 5 million, 4 Million People. Under the taliban, like 500,000. They came in, in a moment of honeymoon, but they really took away almost every aspect of live most people enjoy and the economy completely dematerialized, so yes, mullah omar may have had plenty of reasons to be sorry. Rose and what they did for women and culture, too two examples of where they had a lot to apologize for. They provided somewhat of a model for i. S. I. S. If you think of the story in 2001, write destroyed afghans major tourist attraction. Thats what weve seen i. S. I. S. Do in museums in mosul and other Historic Sites theyve taken in iraq and sir theyve destroyed. You mentioned the women i. S. I. S. Is even more brutal, but the taliban is the more recent model weve seen before i. S. I. S. Came along. Rose what will happen in pakistan because of his death matthew . Its hard to tell with the pakistanis. An american official today said hes not sure the pakistanis new about this till recently, also. I kind of pressed him on that saying, come on, i spend a lot of time in pakistan, they know where i am always, how are they losing mullah omar. He put it, if you make a decision early on you dont want to know where somebody, is its pretty easy to lose track of them. Their response has been to say nothing formal or official about it and seems like, lets move on, guys. Rose they said the same thing about Osama Bin Laden even after he was shot, we didnt know he was there. But the bin laden raid was an American Force coming into their country, undetected, killing and levering, which is a huge problem internally, raised questions of the pakistani military, challenged their dominance there. This doesnt challenge them, some old guy died in a hospital, its pretty easy for them to move on and say this isnt our problem. Rose one of the things i remember, and peter help me remember more because of one of the things you know about Osama Bin Laden, i think turkish president went either in person or otherwise talked to mullah omar and saying, look, you have to get Osama Bin Laden out of here. That is exactly right. The prince of turkey went shortly after the u. S. Embassy attacks in africa which is, of course, al quaidas significant attack against an american target, killed more than 200 Million People in kenya and tanzania. Turkey said youve got to expel this guy. Mullah omar, this was an early indicator of how mullah omar was going to handle the question of bin laden. Mullah omar basically told him to get lost. Prince of turkey since then said he wished he had never even attempted to do it. So mullah omar was standing by bin laden long before 9 11. When 9 11 came on, you know, again, he lost his entire country on this point of principle of not handing bin laden over to the United States. Rose i remember in fact, i think he said its against my religion not to treat a friend the way that i am treating Osama Bin Laden. Thats exactly right. He actually said, ten days after nine len it would be betraying islam to hand over bin laden. Rose are we going to hear reports from tin side as with Osama Bin Laden we might have, could have, may have done this if we had been there . I can say in 2010 2010 i spoke to senior intel officials and military officials in afghanistan and they said we think mullah omar is spending some time in the city of karachi, and thats where the afghans say he died in the hospital. Karachi is a big pakistani city, 20 Million People. That was kind of their assessment based on what, was it really based on information, a hunch, wasnt clear. No one was surprised by the fact that mullah omar was in pakistan. Rose because we always believed thats where he was hadnt we . Yeah. The Senior Leadership of the taliban has almost without exception been living in pakistan. Rose so i think ive asked this, but ill ask it again so what will this mean in terms of the talibans effort to either negotiate or take over afghanistan, and certainly not talking about kabul, but youre talking about a lot of the country. Matthew . Oh, sorry. Thought that was for peter. Its hard to say. Depend, if they Stay Together or manage to put together a little bit, they have been doing well. They have been giving the arrogance an incredibly difficult summer and last summer before. If they fall apart it probably undermines taking the rest of the country, but doesnt really pep afghanistan because you have insurgent factions. Its chaotic and dangerous for the people westerners civilians, whoever are there. I spoke to a fair amount of americans in the last few days. I was told it wasnt till tuesday or monday that they became convinced that omar was probably dead. That they werent looking very hard. He may have been one of the worlds most wanted men but when the Afghan Intelligence started looking into this about a year and a half ago they quickly found out not many people wanted to put much effort into finding him. It wasnt like bin laden and no special team hunting him down. Rose why with you that . The americans had come too see him as a spiritual leader with no operational commitment or control. They were worried about the field commanders. One American General last year compared him to el sid a legendary spanish general whose corpse was propped up on a horse after he was killed. They said, why bother looking for him whos not important enough . We dont think hes running anything anymore. Experts could debate whether he was a unifying factor. The americans had written him off. Rose peter. If i can answer, the United States made an official decision to start negotiating with the tall bap. You cant have somebody on a capturekill list that youre planning to capture or kill if youre actually in the middle of an negotiation, it doesnt work that way, so, at a certain point, you know, the Afghan Taliban is not considered, you know was not considered a terrorist organization like al quaida because we started negotiating with them. We wont negotiate with terrorists, thats our official position, and we started negotiating. So we wouldnt have targeted him in the same way but this is interesting this is all news. Based on matthews reporting, we found out earlier this week mullah omar was dead and might have been dead a long time. It raises questions about the American Intelligence Community capacity. I think even now theyre trying to piece this together. Another american official, we know hes dead. Two weeks, two years ago were not sure we think we know, but we dont know that we know. And theyre trying to figure all this out. They dont have a clear idea of what happened yet beyond the fact mullah omar is dead. Rose everything we think about in terms of these issues has to do with i. S. I. S. And their recruitment and their success and their caliphate and all of that. Am i right . Do you share that . Well, i think there is a point here. If you take what matthew said about the taliban advances in northern afghanistan, eastern afghanistan and elsewhere and you add to that mullah omars departure may be an advantage for i. S. I. S. Recruitment which i think it will be, that raises a big question about american policy in afghanistan, which now is basically were going to pull out all troops except Embassy Protection at the end of 2016. Whether hillary clinton, jeb bush, or somebody else president , when he or she assumes office in january 2017, i think he or she might well say do we really want a rerun of i. S. I. S. Taking over chinks of afghanistan or pakistan, should we relook at this policy . And i suspect i think thats a very good question to ask merely because the Obama Administration is leaving office doesnt suddenly mean i. S. I. S. May not become a factor in that region. Rose last word, matthew. I think if you look at the parallels between the taliban and i. S. I. S. , its interesting. When the taliban took over afghanistan in the 90s, it was the world premier jihadist movement, attracting people from all over the world. They have really been supplanted by i. S. I. S. The i. S. I. S. Is the same claim of leading the faithful and now they attract ive one. At the same time there is still insurgency and fighting in afghanistan, still a war there. Will this fall apart . Will islecies benefit from this . Its so hard to tell, but it is amazing it took two years to figure out the guy died, the person who loomed so large in our imagination ten to 15 years ago is gone. Rose Matthew Rosenberg National Security reporter for the New York Times and peter bergen, cnns National Security analyst, more importantly 2012 book called manhunt, the tenyear search. Thank you, peter. Thank you. Rose well be right back. Stay with us. Rose adam moss is here, editorinchief of new York Magazine. Hes held that role sinceo since 2004. Last year announced the magazine established would be published biweekly. Won 30 magazine award three last year. David karr said many would suggest mr. Moss with his adept hand and smart assignment is one of the best editors working in a hybrid ache. I would agree with that. Pleased to have adam moss back at the table. Welcome. Thank you very much. Rose so while were quoting here you said to me ten years ago, i love this magazine. The do you still love this magazine in the same way . Yes, in part in the same way. In part in a new way. Rose whats the new way . The new way is ten years ago we were just a print magazine and it was a very exciting thing to do, but it was limited in dimension and, therefore limited in audience, and in though ten years in this last decade, we have really become a publication of about five different digital magazines, one on entertainment and fashion and news rose vulture. Vulture is one of them. The cut fashion is one of them, one we started last year on human behavior, and of course the web operates with a completely different dynamic, although, at heart its still the storytelling. Rose what electronic reading different than print reading anyway. I think people read it differently. A lot of people print it, a lot of people read it on their phone, they read like, five paragraphs at the time. Rose computer on the oped and some on the smartphone. Absolutely. Theyre directed to it from social media or other places. They dont necessarily know its part of the new York Magazine universe, these are the dynamics of how we live in the media world right now, and thats all fine with us. We do, also, kind of supplement it often with other material that you could only do in a digital medium video and animation and audio and the sort of things that you do right here. Rose my favorite word in the Digital World is would you send me a link. A link. Well, links are very important. Its, you know, an incredible way that material gets distributed. Rose somebody would tell me about a great article if they send me a link. Its instantly there. Instantly there. And its recommended by somebody because they sent it to you and rose and it comes kind of clean. Yeah, its you know, there are many people in my business who are still, i think, even today, somewhat resistant about the notsonew anymore ways that people take in information. But ive just never been that way. And we as a company have never done that. Weve you know, the digital medium has allowed us to explode, you know, the amount of people who can read our content and it really allowed us to kind of change our whole by and journalistic mission. Rose it clearly reduces your expenses i assume. Its cheaper to do, sure. But theres no paper no postage, the whole manufacturing cost thing is cheaper but, you know the important thing about it really is that it eliminates the distribution obstacles that the mail presents. Suddenly we publish and are read in los angeles, london, shang high and that changes the mission of the magazine of one from the concrete jungle of new york city which has always been part of it to a kind of global, urban universe and thats been a very exciting change. Rose about what biweekly . Well, that actually relates to all this in a way. We went biweekly for three reasons, i would say. One reason was to stabilize our finances, no question about it some of the things we dued as before. Another reason was to liberate money from printing fewer print issues to buttress our digital universe of journalism. And then the third reason was really to respond to the different ways that people exist in time as part of their reading life. And the weekly weekly is when magazines were consistently weekly, you get a time and news week and the new yorker, you would get a series of magazines on a monday and they would have a certain kind of urgency because a week meant something. Well, with the explosion of digital media, a week didnt mean as much as anymore and therefore, you know we thought, as we were doing so much online, we thought that it was actually more valuable to readers if we created a biweekly that was more substantive, that was a more substantial thing that you would want to keep. Rose because you have more time to do it . Because there was more time to do it yes and because that became our mission. We would go fast and slow. The fast stuff was all the stuff online. The slow stuff was being more deliberate about making a Higher Quality mag sein which i think weve done. Rose does in any way the digital revolution put a restrictions on editing which is what you do . Well, lots of effects on editing. The stuff has to go out faster. Rose less time to edit. Less time to edit, write. Its more rose and more time to choose. Yeah, its a more impulsive medium in that sense but not to say any less intelligent a medium, but more like conversation where you dont have a chance to actually think about what youre necessarily going to say. So, you know, there is that aspect of it. Theres also what i think of i mean to me, this is very interesting change in the way i work is that when i was exclusively a Magazine Editor the most important thing was to create an environment that we controlled as editors. We controlled that you read the cover first. We controlled your mood as you went through the magazine, the order of things in the magazine was important. The famous mix w very important. Now in this world particularly with the explosion of social media, most people come at all your pieces of journalism, your pieces of content independent of the environment. So theyre just floating out there in the either the ethernet. So the thing i do to control the environment has been blown to smithereens. Rose is it scary to you . Its different. Whats challenging were still doing a print magazine we love and its very important to us. We have to do many things at once. We have to create a pure piece of what we hope is great journalism that can exist outside the environment of the magazine, and we also have paying a great deal of attention to the surrounding material and the effect, the emotional effect, which has always been one of the things ive loved about magazines is the emotional relationship that people have with the publication. Rose and the time. You were looking to a magazine with a different personality. Rose speaks to your spirit. Yeah. And you pick up this magazine to be in this mood and another to be in another mood. Rose this magazine, look at this cover. Clay started new yorking magazine so many years ago. 68. Rose and part of what you have done, he brought together wellknown and gifted writers. Youve done that here and well talk about that. But it was a combination of service features, political features, new york features and national stories. Yeah. Rose is it the same . It is, actually. Rose as you become a global magazine, is new york a less significant component, so that new york gives you simply a loch and a title . I would add one thing it gives us a sensibility. It gives us a way of looking at the world. The content itself is not necessarily about so much about new york, but the content everything is informed by a certain way new yorkers think. You know what im talking about. You know it has to do with a kind of skeptical intelligence. I think a compassionate intelligence. We tried very hard to, you know, make it a magazine that is ultimately sympathetic, and its wry, funny all those things. Rose if someone said to you, in some ways you have a european sensibility would you like that . I mean, you think of the magazines in paris that admire you and give you award. Yeah. Well, i mean, i think new york city has always been more like a paris or a london than it has been like a cincinnati. Rose or even chicago. Or even chicago. So to that extent, you know, we are a cosmopolitan magazine of a very particular kind. We have readers in paris, we have readers in london. We have readers in chicago in miami and whatever, all over these places that have a certain lens, and that lens ultimately is what were about. So, you know whether we write about bill deblasio or barack obama or hollywood or science or whatnot, we try to do all of that through a lens which is broad but has certain consistent attributes. Rose take a look at this. This cover of this young man Tanehisi Coates came at sat at this table hes an amazing intellect. I think one of the only true public intellectuals of our age. Rose one of the only true public intellectuals of our age. What does that mean, of our age. Well, there used to be a category. Rose there used to be a hundred of them. But categorically. Also he has had an amazing effect on the discourse of the last few years. Rose hes certainly somebody who writes about what he knows. What he knows personally and layering on to his own personal experience a great moral force and, of course, you know, a great intelligence. Rose where was new York Magazine going . Well, we were going to try to continue to do what we do better. You know, i think that i think that the basic formula we have which is, you know, printing this magazine that we care about a lot still very crucial to our operation but expanding our digital journalism, doing more stuff that we can publish digitally. We may end up starting more what are called verticals, but mini magazines. We did a great digital project this year called scene which is essentially a popup magazine about the art world. Those things are very exciting. Rose that one out of your head . That one wasnt. Some of them are. Its a very smart staff and entrepreneurial. Rose we dont need to worry about magazines as long as they, in part, adjust to a new digital reality. I think so. I think one of the things weve learned in the last few years that for all the vaunted famous problems with media those problems are essentially about Business Models and advertising, theyre not about the demand for the work itself. You know, we have an audience thats, you know, ten times what it was when i first got to the magazine, at least and were charging more for it and people are paying for it and, you know, theres not a reader issue. Readers want this stuff. If you do it well, if you do it in a way rose there is a curiosity in the world. Indeed. Rose you said in a commencement speech or some kind of speech like that, what a mess of a business were about to enter. What did you mean . I meant the Business Models are up for grabs. That essentially most businesses like ours have been depended solely on advertising as their source of revenue. Advertising still works. We actually still have a very strong advertising business, but its dangerous to be completely dependent on an industry which is itself understood going a great deal of change. So businesses are different, Media Companies are doing different things. Some are going to the conference business. Some of them are going into some of them essentially becoming Television Companies and going very heavily into video. Rose do you understand the impact video will have on the magazine. I do not. Rose is this simply going to be another component of how they offer their material . I think some companies will become more more Video Companies than word companies. Rose the video component, you can imagine ben wallace wells wrote a piece we did that all the time. That kind of thing we also do the best kind of stuff is actually less important than i know we did one of the things you will find in there is about the history of the hamburger that cow. Rose whose brilliant idea was that . That was a collective idea. Benjamin wallace, theyre two individuals. Rose okay. With that story, if you go to the online version, you will find three different videos that supplement the storytelling that are all really very good. But the rikers story is rose bill keller, i think. We hads idea that in all the conversation about rikers what was not properly understood but the hyphof if you thought of rikers as a city what the life of the city was about, and actually our operating idea was what due it smell like. Rose yeah. And, so, we went to bill keller and to this woman oraller editor of the New York Times who worked with criminal justice issues and we created a team, and that team went and did a series of really amazingly intimate oral accounts for what life was like for the prisoners, guard, teachers, and looked at it as if it were its own urban environment. Very intimate and harrowing, as you would imagine and with very interesting storytelling. But also online, supplemented in all kind of ways with only the kind of storytelling rose and someone like me likes the obama history project conversations with historians about where he stands. Which was in january, whats fascinating about that project, i looked at it last night. Rose some have given him high marks already. They did but its amazing how fickle history is in this way. They were responding to the that piece was in a january story, and they were very much responding to the events on the ground in january. There were any number of historians who said things like what would really change his legacy is what will never happen, a deal with iran. What would change his legacy is what will never happen, some kind of deal with cuba. All these things were unimagine nbl january, and, you know, particularly the run that obamas had over the last few weeks has had a great deal of effect on the legacy. Rose thank you. Thank you. Rose adam moss of new York Magazine. Thank you very much for joining us. See you next time. For this program and more episodes, visit us online at pbs. Org and charlierose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by rose additional funding provided by and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Rose on tomorrows pbs newshour, how much to spend on a weapon no one wants to ever use. The fight over the navys nuclear submarines. The following production was produced in high definition. And their buns are something i have yet to find anywhere else. cause im not inviting you to my house for dinner. Breaded and fried and gooey and lovely. In the words of arnold schwarzenegger, ill be back youve heard of connoisseur. Im a commonsewer they knew i had to ward off some vampires or something. Lets talk desserts, gentlemen, cause i see you