five people are dead from injuries related to a suspected tornado in woodward, oklahoma. and the kansas governor has declared a state of emergency. let's go to susan candiotti in wichita. i'm wondering whether the early warnings in the region that you are in right now might have helped the situation. >> reporter: i can't imagine that they didn't, howie. they had to have played a huge role in that. after all, this is the first time i think since 2006 that they were able to give people who live in this region at least two days warning to be prepared for the storm. now, certainly it may have helped in many instances, but tornadoes, you know, can hit at random, but you can't help but think that it did help some people to be better prepared for the storm. >> weather system -- the weather forecasters doing their job. this is not over, and so at this point what's our information on where the greatest threats may lie in terms of other communities that might be struck by these twisters? >> reporter: well, i think that meteorologists have said that the most severe risk, the highest risk, was what we just experienced. now, on sunday they're talking about a more moderate risk, but the most dangerous conditions are predicted to be in wisconsin, minnesota, and iowa. we'll be keeping an eye on that as the day goes on. >> all right. susan trying to take in the damage across the region there. thanks very much for joining us. cnn will have continuing coverage of other developments on this extreme weather story. turning now to the trayvon martin case. now that george zimmerman is facing second degree murder charges, liberal and conservative commentators yet again choosing sides. take fox's sean handty who seemed to pick apart the case. >> your eyewitness was adamant in saying that he saw trayvon martin on top of george zimmerman beating mr. zimmerman. it seems like there might be some over charging here. >> as for msnbc's al sharpton, well, he outdid himself shortly after the announcement was made of the second degree murder charge. reverend al held a news conference with trayvon's parents. >> let me say 45 days ago trayvon martin was murdered. no arrest was made. >> an hour later sharpton put his media hat back on, interviewing the parents, for msnbc. >> i am sitting here at the washington convention center with the parents of trayvon martin, and we just finished the press conference with attorney ben krunk after they spoke with the special prosecutor. >> in new york lola, also commentator and former "new york times" reporter, and here in washington jane hall, associate professor of journalism american university and a former fox news commentator. jane hall, we finally have criminal charges in this case after six weeks of media finger-pointing. actual evidence of law enforcement, it seems to me the comment altors have gone back to their same old arguments. >> i think the commentators have, and sean hanniy has replayed many times this new black video for the bounty out for zimmerman, and now they're trying to talk about a rush to judgment. you know, reverend al, you can talk about the ethics of that, but to my mind endlessly replay this question, the whoet press on this case. >> because the black -- new black panther party is a minor fringe. sthoo they're a minor fringe group. what they did was despicable. the way it's being replayed on fox is to display peaceful protest and people who were calling for an arrest and a trial in this case. >> do you see the media here playing an inflammatory role as this has become kind of an obsession after the media, of course, spent the first two weeks being totally out to lunch on the importance of this fatal shooting of an unarmed teenager? >> i don't think they're playing an inflammatory role. i think thief been responsible for the most part. what you are seeing is that the viewers want more and more news about this very subject, and we are in the position right now in the news where it's about law of supply and demand, and the viewers are demanding more and more coverage. if we look at how the network msnbc has had 49% of their coverage dedicated to this, cnn has had about 40% of their coverage dedicated to this trayvon martin story, and fox has only had about 15% of their coverage dedicated to this story, so if anything, what you are seeing is maybe fox needs to play a little catch-up because viewers are not turned off by this story at all. in fact, what you are seeing is that they want more. >> but that would suggest that just because viewers want more of a particular story that it's fine for cable news network to air as much -- tee dee vote as much as half of its news time to one story about one tragedy in florida? >> well, we can't go into what's right and wrong about these things, howie. ultimately this is a business. it's a capitalist institution, and it's about the law of supply and demand. if your viewers are saying that they want more trayvon martin or they want more about michael jackson, then you got to be mindful of that. that's just the reality of the news world that we live in today. if you pretend -- to pretend to ignore that is not being realistic, actually. they're in the business of making money. >> i don't actually agree with that. i think that the coverage will die down. i think that the figures -- i believe the figures lola is talking about were for that last week in march. there was a national outrage over the six weeks that passed between the time that this happened and questions and zimmerman not being arrested and there not being a trial. i think it will die down. i don't mean any disrespect about that, but to my mind, this is different from giving people michael jackson coverage, which i think got pretty darn excessive. >> after he died. >> i'm not equating the two at all. just saying that right now what we're seeing is that the viewer is more in control of what they want to see on television in a way that they weren't before. the viewer has a lot more power in determining what they want to see on television than they did before. that's all i was arguing. >> in this past week there was this bizarre skeptical of the two former attorneys, george zimmerman, announcing at a news conference that they were leaving the case -- that their client wouldn't talk to them, but that he would talk to one person they found out about. a fox news talk show host. let's roll the tape of sean hannity. >> we have been pursuing an interview with mr. zimmerman to give his chance to tell his side of the story. now, yesterday i was contacted by an individual that we, in fact, belief was george zimmer marman. he reached out to me. we spoke on the phone about his case. i agreed not to report on the contents of that conversation. >> do you have any problem with sean hannity having an off the record conversation with george zimmerman, a potential defendant. >> everybody in the world was trying to get george zimmerman. as a journalist taking that call and the booking -- as lola was saying. everybody would be after that story. again, i separate that from the fact that i think fox was slow to cover this story and now they're very concerned about mr. zimmerman's rights. >> i don't have any problem at all with what sean hannity did. it's not uncommon for hosts to talk to guests. in fact, in this very story i talked to a reporter off the record trying to persuade her to come on this program. she was reluctant to step into the crossfire and decided not to. let me turn to the msnbc side because i do, as i flip back and forth between the channels, get the impression that some on fox are acting as zimmerman's defense lawyer, and many on msnbc taking trayvon's martin side and the side of his family. what do you think about al sharpton moving back and forth? he is at a news conference with the parents. he is interviewing the rally. he is heading a rally. >> the journalistic in me has a bit of a problem with that because that's just not how i was raised as a jrnlist. there was this understanding that there had to be pure objectivity. you were not the story. you reported on the story. but i understand -- in the short time that i have been in the business and well over the decade it's changed completely, and so the businesswoman in me looks as it and says, well, it's a win-win. al sharpton is not only part of the story, he is helping to create the story, and then he gets to report on the story. if these are the new rules of journalism, then i dare any other journalist out there to say to themselves, wow, if i had this opportunity to not only create the story but report on the story and essentially generate ratings for myself, i'm not sure they would walk away from that and say i wouldn't do that. >> jane hall, aep sharpton is entitled to do whatever he wants, but it's essentially allowing him to cover himself, to be a participant, an active participant, an out front participant in this same story that he is covering night after night for that channel. >> i agree. you know, i agree with lola. the lines have moved. the separation between church and state has changed. >> are there any lines at all anymore? >> you know, i don't know. >> there are not. there are not any lines. >> i think it's changed. >> there are no lines. >> there are no lines. >> out of the story. they got al sharpton. i think it's cable news that's pretty bifork ated with the exception of cnn. it's pretty much, you know -- you are looking for a different point of view on the two sides. >> let me roll some tape -- >> jane, that's the perfect word. point of view. pov is what rules on cable television right now. the stronger the pov, the more close to the story you are in terms of pov, the better it serves you. whether you are team sfwlimerman or team trayvon martin, pov reigns. >> in looking at those teams, one team -- trayvon martin's parents, have been on a lot of television shows. they've been on all the major morning shows. now, they can do whatever they want. everybody in the world, including me, has great sympathy for them, but since zimmerman chose not to speak out and, of course, his lawyers i'm sure didn't want him to, does that give their side an advantage because, you know, you've got these grieving parents working the circuit? >> well, you know, it's so hard not to be cynical about people, but everything that i have read and a reporter that i saw that i saw interviewed on "the daily beast" from "newsweek" says his mother is as she comes across. trying to hold it together. they went public with this to try to get a trial and an arrest, so it's hard to argue with that. >> they have every right to do that, where lola, brief comment from you. >> they did everything that a parent would do. if they felt like they weren't getting justice, it's by any means necessary. if you have to go to the media and appear on the media every day to insure that there's justice being sought for your child, i think any grieving mother, any grieving father, any responsible parent would do that. i don't fault them. in fact, i think they've handled themselves with the utmost dignity and grace. sfli wasn't faulting them. i'm saying perhaps it gave their side an advantage. we will follow this story as it heads to trial and more with cameras in the courtroom, that could be a spectacle. lola, jane, thanks for joining us. when we come back, joe, better known as the fox news mole, speaks to us exclusively about why he became a leaker and blew up his career. later, steve croft and bob silon of "60 minutes." [ camera clicks ] ♪ it's hard to resist the craveable nature of a nature valley sweet & salty nut bar. has been because of the teachers and the education that i had. they're just part of who i am. she convinced me that there was no limit to what we could learn. i don't think i'd be here today had i not had a wonderful science teacher. a teacher can make a huge difference in a child's life. he would never give up on any of us. thank you dr. newfield. you had a big impact on me. this is my grandson. and if it wasn't for a screening i got, i might have missed being here to meet him. the health care law lets those of us on medicare now get most preventive care for free like annual wellness visits, immunizations, and some cancer screenings. and that's when they caught something serious on mine. but we could treat it before it was too late. i'll be around to meet number two! get the screenings you need. learn more at healthcare.gov. you don't want to miss any of this! >> he was known as the fox mole, but his secret identity didn't last long. joe, associate producer for bill o'reilly making $60,000 a year, taunted his employer with a series of postings on the gossip site gawker, but fox tracked him down and fired him in just a couple of days. i spoke to him earlier from new york. joe, welcome. >> thanks for having me, howard. >> after you -- i am a weasle, a traitor, a sell-out and every bad word you can throw at me, so you admit to betraying the news organization that was paying you? >> i -- i believe everyone is aware of that at this point, howard. that was within fox news, and i went public. i didn't expect -- >> also -- you also, by the way, accepted $5,000 from gawker to serve as the fox mole. does that make you look like more of a weasle? >> i'm not going to comment on any financial arrangements that i may or may not have had with gawker, but what this was, howard -- this was a primal scream from a long-time fox employee who just couldn't take it anymore and could not take it one more day in that place. >> when fox first confronted you on suspicion that some of these videos had been access from your computer, you denied it? >> that's correct. >> did you think that you would get away with this, or were you half expecting to be fired? >> i knew after a point that they had me. after certain points just the evidence was there. had he nailed me, you know? i'm not a very good mole. i'm not good at espionage stuff. >> we won't sign you up for the cia, but fox says it's considering legal action against you, and that a crime was committed. do you feel that you broke any laws? >> i think their legal accusations are completely baseless, and they're trying to intimidate me into silence because i'm revealing unflattering information about the inner workings of the company. >> so let's talk about what you have revealed. among other things, you wrote that the newsroom is kind of a dreary place. you leaked a video where sean hannity was having friendly babter with mitt romney before an interview. you say they run conservative stories and headlines and has some racist comments in it. doesn't seem to amount to all that much. >> look, well, originally i could not reveal that much stuff. when i was still anonymous, if i revealed everything i knew, it would have gotten me right away. as it turns out, the digital trail was such that they nailed me anyway, but the original plan was to sort of leak it out and dribble it and maybe eventually i would some of the more interesting stuff i know would come out later. that's going to have to come at a later time. >> is that because you're saving it for a book deal or something like that? >> i don't know what i'm going to do next, howard. i'm still weighing a lot of options. you know -- that's -- i have seen it speculated in the press that that's what i was doing from the beginning. that was not the plan. >> so, joe, if you felt so uncomfortable with your situation at fox news -- nope. -- there are dozens and dozens of resumes. cnn must have gotten 20 resumes from me, and the truth of the matter is i was black balled within the industry that people hiring managers see fox news on your resume, and they say this guy is conservative, this guy is a nut. we don't want him in our organization. i was completely blackballed within the cable news industry after working at fox news. >> you say you don't want to reveal anything more now because i want to get a sense. you acknowledge being a traitor and weasle, so obviously you felt it was justified because you felt you had information to reveal, but it sounds like you were just uncomfortable with what you see as fox news's conservative leanings. >> that's correct. i think there is a lot of -- as has obviously been stated repeatedly in the media, there's a lot of right wing bias at fox, and the way they're slanting the news, i just couldn't take one more election cycle where they're on complete attack mode against the democratic candidate. >> were you conflicted at all in deciding to act like what you describe as a weez and a traitor -- did any part of you say, you know, i should judge quit and i shouldn't do this and i shouldn't be a mole? >> i have a lot of co-workers still at fox who i'm sure are reeling from this. i'm not a sobero path, howard. i don't want to make it sound like i world war ied there for eight years with a chip on my shoulder, and i hated everyone. there's a lot of, you know, really nice, you know, people who i really like and respect, so those people, if i hurt any of them, i apologize to them, but i felt the need to speak out because my story -- my story had to be told. i couldn't be in that building one day longer without, you know, exploding. >> joe, now that you have done this and acted as a mole against fox news, do you expect to get another job in cable news? >> well, i have been pass mying resume out around here. no takers yet. i think it's pretty safe to say my career in cable news is over. i don't foresee anyone outside of current tv hiring me, but i'm looking into new opportunities. that's -- i don't know what the future holds, but i'm looking forward to some new opportunities. >> joe, thank you very much. >> thank you, howard. you can watch the entire interview with joe on our website, cnm.com/reliable sources. i obtained a letter from a lawyer at fox telling me to preserve any documents he took from the network and saying be advised that your admissions are admissions of likely criminal and civil wrongdoing on both your and gawker's part, which will be subject of further extensive investigation. fox news will pursue its rights and remedies in appropriate legal forums." up next, steve croft and bob simon of "60 minutes" on the legacy of their late colleague mike wallace. ♪ you make me happy [ female announcer ] choose the same brand your mom trusted for you. children's tylenol, the #1 brand of pain and fever relief recommended by pediatricians and used by moms decade after decade. in your breakfast cereal, what is? 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>> i couldn't honestly answer you. >> and he called i mam. forgive me, his words, not mine. a lunatic. >> now, if selling phony university degrees afters i hazardous occupation, hanging one on your office wall when "60 minutes" walked in could be down right embarrassing. >> you're not a medical doctor. >> no, i'm not. >> mike wallace oped on this program five years ago and talked about one of his signature techniques, the hidden camera investigation, had become so widespread. >> i have no doubt that what we started is -- has become a plague because it's too much. self-conscious confrontational ambushing and news as you know has turned into that kind of thing. there's a lot of ber at the same time in it, and there's a lot f of -- he retired. >> i wouldn't have known what else to do. >> up and down the halls and doing stories and reading a current column and saying he is full of, you know. >> ouch. what do we learn from wallace's seven designate aid career? i spoke earlier with two veteran 60 minutes correspondents from new york. steve croft, bob simon, welcome. >> thanks, howie. steve, looking back on mike wallace's career, you ask questions for a living wrush know it's an art in front of a camera. how did he over so many years man to weasle information out of people? >> i think he had -- he had tremendous powers of concentration, and i think that he from the moment he sat down, he always was very well prepared, always had read the research, and had a good sense of what he wanted to get out of the interview, which was mainly getting under their skin. >> i think he was very intuitive. i think before he sat down with somebody, he somehow knew where their achilles heal was and went for it immediately. one thing he did different from most others is i think usually in an interview, which you know is going to be a tough interview, we build up to it. you start soft and then get hard later on, but my first question was always designed to throw the person off balance, and forgive me, are you a lunatic? and he was above all master showman. i mean, people often talked about mike's questions as well as the answer of whoever happened to be sitting in the hot seat. >> i think he was definitely a showman. i think that's one of the things that don hue wit and mike wallace had in common, and i think, you know, mike started out as a trooper. he was a radio announcer and tv quiz show person and had done all of these things in the early days of television before there really was television news. >> right. >> and weather you had essentially john cameron swazey and a bunch of people ripping and reading, that was pretty much it. i think by the time he got into news in the early 1960s i think it was still a pretty stojy business, and he was -- sort of didn't have the barriers that-other people felt. he wasn't afraid to break windows and break glasses. he did. >> nobody err called mike wallace stojy. you tell the story of what happened when mike wallace came to bosnia in 1993 where you were reporting. that was an interesting experience for you, was it not? >> it was. people make a lot of fuss about correspondents who are dodging bullets and risking their lives. well, frankly, mike impressed me more than that. he came to -- i was in sarajevo, and he came to bosnia to do a story on the war criminal, mass murderer, and we went to his office, and there were about ten of his thugs standing around with automatic weapons, and he was a psychiatrist, an accredited psychiatrist, and mike sat down and said what's it like being a psychiatrist and a mass murderer? i -- i was frightened. i was shake, but mike wasn't. it was -- for mike it was the way he does interviews. >> and he was, steve croft, a pit bull in the office as well. that's what morley safer said on cmn. there was a couple of years where they didn't talk to each other because of an internal battle. how competitive was mike wallace with his colleagues? >> incredibly competitive. it was -- there were always a lot of turf wars, and i heard mike talk about this just the other day in an interview that we had done back in 2006. he talked about the turf wars and how he just felt that he was going to get the story. he wanted to get the story, and morley, i think, for a long period of time when it was just the two of them on the show or when dan rather first came in, i think that morley was in those fights. he would tree to leave the office on monday thinking he had a story and then come back and find that mike was already on it. >> when i was in israel, i was based in israel, mike called me and said that hezbollah had invited him to come to shoot a "60 minutes" story, and mike called me to ask my advice, and i said, mike, beirut is pretty hairy these days. particularly with hezbollah running around loose. it's pretty dangerous. mike said i'm not asking if it's dangerous or not. i want to know if it's a good story. i said, well, yeah, it's a good story, and he went. >> he went. but, you know, as he did this more and more, he was tremendously successful and globally famous. what drove them to not just come to work at a relatively advanced age, but actually stealing stories from colleagues. what animated him to do that? >> i think mike always wanted to be the best, and i think he was a little bit insecure given his early career and i think he was always out to prove things, and he used to tell -- i heard his producers talking. this is five or six years ago when he was in his mid 80s talking about how mike felt that he still hadn't done his great story and that he hadn't -- he was leaving no -- nothing of importance behind. that was part of it, and i think that also this was really the only thing that mike had in his life. he didn't really have any hobbies. >> he didn't play golf? >> he didn't play golf. he played tennis. he would go off to the vineyard for, you know, six weeks in the summertime, but that was really the only time that he relaxeded. he was always working. always. >> he loved to work, but i don't want to canonize him here. he in the earlier years of 60 minutes pioneered the ambush interview and the hidden camera investigation, along with others, and later he backed away from some of that feeling that perhaps some of those techniques were not the best. >> he remained the -- frankly, the best intufr there ever was. people who have tried to imitate him have all fallen on their face because mike never screamed. he never shouted. when you turn on television these days, you hear an awful lot of guys being aggressive and screaming. mike never had to do that. he never raised his voice. he raised his eyebrow, and that was a pretty -- could be pretty devastating. he also did something that very few people have picked up, which is not complicated. when somebody stopped talking, mike would be silent. he wouldn't come in right away with another question, and very -- people don't like silence, and very often when a guy mooib was trying to break down was confronted with a silence, he started saying something he really shubt have said. >> well, i'm going to fill the silence here by asking steve, but when wallace with a camera crew in tow would accost some miss concrete on the street, that was stagey. the kind of thing we would probably look at more skeptically today. >> yeah, but i think at the time it wasn't. at the time he was the first person that had ever done it. as mike said, look, we don't have subpoena power. we wanted to try to get answers from somebody, and the only way we could do it was to chase them down. i think in the end what -- and actually mike said this in the interview that he did, that everybody started copying it, including geraldo rivera, which mike had actually a great amount of respect for, and he thought that it had just become cliche and that it was bringing out more heat than light. he still did it. he did it fairly recently. certainly the ambush interview he did with the pedophile priest or bishop or something, monsignor, i don't know, high ranking person out in california, that wasn't that long ago. he would still do it, and we would still do it in rare occasions, but i think that at the time that he started it wasn't cliche. people loved it. >> after the break, this question. can younger tv correspondents live up to the wallace standard? 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[ traffic passing ] ] ♪ [ music box: lullaby ] [ man on tv, indistinct ] ♪ [ lullaby continues ] [ baby coos ] [ man announcing ] millions are still exposed to the dangers... of secondhand smoke... and some of them can't do anything about it. ♪ [ continues ] [ gasping ] sdmrimplt more of any conversation with mike wallace about bob sipon and steve croft. >> i was thinking the other day that mike wallace has now left us donahue it, of course, the great executive producer of 60 minutes, and others. many members of that generation leaving the scene. i don't want to say it was some golden age, but do you feel it's something that is lost when people who were the sort of giant figures are leaving us? >> i don't think there are any giants to replace them yet. i'm waiting for a tenor to replace pavaratti and domingo. one will come along, but i don't think we've seen them yet. again, nobody has been able to interview like wal yashgs and he was just -- i think the expertise was breaking down people's facades. he asked all his producers, who have a lot of different things to say about him, they give him a list of questions. producers always give us lists of questions. mike would be off on his own within 30 seconds, and if you remember when you saw mike doing an interview, he was never looking down at a piece of paper. he didn't need a piece of paper. he needed eye contact. he knew when he was making somebody really uncomfortable. >> but maybe steve the giants -- >> it's not -- >> that's exactly what i was going to get to. >> it is the business. you had -- you had the explosion of cable news for one thing, and you have a lot more emphasis right now that's placed on live and panel sdugss and people standing in front of buildings doing live shots around the world. as opposed to when it was just the evening newscast where you had people that would go out and gather and film and come back and put packages together. . there's not that much of that anymore, and it's very hard to find people who have been brought up that way, and quite frankly, have the experience of some of the -- of some of the great people where they worked overseas and where they worked in washington, where they have a whole breadth of experience. so it's a little bit harder to grow the field has expanded so much. that's one of the reasons why you feel like, you know, there are none of these people that are really standing out. >> do you believe, steve, that in this multi-media age where a lot of shows revolve around the host's personality and opinions, that a lot of people coming up in tv business just are not got getting the grounding doing the basic city hall level reporting or foreign reporting to -- in a way that was done in the past? >> it came from newspapers or wires or print. there were writers. they were investigative reporters. nobody had started in television because there wasn't any television. it's only, well, i guess in the last couple of decades that people go straight from college or university or whatever into television, which means that they're not coming in with the -- either the instinct or the writing or the nose for muse that everyone had to have back then and which they had all because they had been reporters long before they stood in front of a camera. >> an excellent point that's often lost in the glare of the television lights. mike wallace, boy, what a remarkable career over seven decades. thank you for helping us to remember him. bob simon, steve croft, thanks for joining us. >> thanks. that's "60 minutes" tribute to mike wallace airs tonight. next you up works we'll talkle rick santorum dropping out, and cnn's hillary rosen feels the backlash for slamming ann romney. the cable segment explode odd twitter and within hours was a raging political brush fire. cnn contributor hillary rosen, democratic operative, was talking on anderson scooper's show about mitt romney being out of touch when she said this. >> his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. she's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing. >> this is a woman who suffered breast cancer and has m.s. she raised five boys. that's hard work. >> my career choice was to be a mother, and i think all of us need to know that we need to respect choices that women make. other women make other choices to have a career and raise families. >> to talk about the latest warfare, here julie mason, the host of the press pool at siriusxm satellite radio. let me slow tloe up a tweet, jonathan martin, that hillary rosen sent out after she had that issed on cnn. she tells ann romney, i am raising children too, but most young american women have to both earn a living and raise children. you know that, don't you? did she make -- take a dumb remark and make it worse by some doubling down on twitter? >> i think she assured that the brush fire that you referred to was going to keep blazing for a few more hours by doing that. it's not until she did ultimately abolz that it began to settle down. i am not sure, though, that the romney folks ultimately want to fight on this terrain, howie. i think there was a smart comment by rich laurie from national review to this point saying it's going to be difficult to battle on the gender issue when there are bigger and broader inteks that you can take this president on. i'm not sure why a republican would want to battle against a democrat on this sort of gender wars because that's not good terrain traditionally for a republican. it's kind of like a democrat putting on tax cuts. >> let me come back to that broader point. jewel where i mason, there's been a lot of chatter about, well, should the candidate's wives be fair game for pundits. i'm not saying ann romney can't be criticized. hillary roeszen wasn't criticizing what she said, but her decision about how to conduct her life. >> isn't that splitting hairs? ann romney is fair game like michelle obama is fair game. they're taking a role in their electrics. they're giving policy speempz. they're out there. >> why the backlash? >> well, because this is politics, and any small thing -- this is the culture of umbrage that can take it and blow it out of proportion. we saw a barrage of memz from the romney campaign fueling this democrat versus democrat. >> even putting aside the romney campaign and i like this phrase you use, a cultural umbrage. it seemed to me the cable network in particular feasted on this and continue to feast on this for days. i guess we're doing it here. isn't there a lot of faux outrage about this on the conservative side just as there is from the liberal said. >> howie, i think the touch stone of this campaign to date has been just what you said. that is faux outrage, and examples replete on both sides. when eric, the romney advisor talked about the etch-a-sketch. this latest example. it seems there is some episode that tipically takes place on cable tv and then goes to twiter and then comes back to cable tv, and it's sort of burning really hard for 28 to 48 hours, and then we're eventually moving on to the next episode. it's not terribly satisfying or gratifying. >> is it -- are these symbols for important issues like women's issues, is romney a shape shifting conservative ala the etch-a-sketch analogy. >> that's a rationaleization. >> that's the fig leaf, you're saying. >> it's a proxy for the bigger issue. >> another point i wanted to get to -- >> it's easier for us to cover because you have a soundbyte or you have a tweet, and you can show that on the screen over and over again. go to a panel discussion for ten minutes, and there you go. boom, segment. >> it's cotton candy. here's another point. >> that's gender, by the way. or race. you know, there you go. >> race, of course. when cnn or the cable network hire contribute orz who are also former party officials or party activists, whether it's karl rove at fox or carville or others at msnbc, it enables the trackers when they get into verbal trouble to say, ah say, a-ha, she, hilary rosen is speaking for obama, the campaign is putting her up to it, seems the price networks pay when they hire people that have a dual role. >> this to have consider whether it is too damaging to the brand. you saw glenn beck out of fox news and bill o'reilly. and i do think that damage is the fox news brand. >> beck and o'reilly were not party activists in the way dick morris or karl rove are. >> that is a good point. i think 9 heavy reliance on had the party activists does damage the news brand. >> asked romney about advisory, got to that point the other day saying on cnn, she is your employee at cnn, not our employee. >> formal tie to the obama campaign. i thought she was reveling in the attention when she agreed to go on "meet the press" this morning, but she cancelled that appearance. let me turn to rick santorum, who of course dropped out this week. 3-year-old daughter bella, she spent the weekend in the hospital. and it seemed to me that all the journalists ignored that and portrayed merely political calculation. was that fair? >> i think in some of the coverage there were references to his daughter's condition. i think it was a matter of his own financial situation, which was precarious as he said to tony perkins this week, going into debt, wasn't raising any money after wisconsin a combination of that fear of losing his home state of pennsylvania on april 24th, but i think also his daughter's condition. i do think that was mentioned in a lot of the coverage, the fact that she was in the hospital over easter weekend. that certainly weighed on him. >> wasn't the first time she had been to the hospital. >> accuse the press of being cynical and ignoring the bella situation, but a couple days later, santorum said that he quit basically because he couldn't raise any more money after those losses to romney. maybe the press had it right. >> ring santorum benefited from the press not always taken very seriously from this campaign. i think the coverage a lot more critical of him h , had we knowe won the iowa caucuses. >> for a year, the press basically largely ignored and discounted rick santorum and then comes along and did win iowa, ended up winning 11 states. even though he got testy, curse $out the "new york times" reporter, jeff zeleny, at the end, did he something in this campaign, he ended up losing, where the media geniuses i just underestimated. >> tough give him credit. he worked his butt off for two and a half years, went to all 99 counties in iowa and the old-fashioned way, he made a showing there and that catapulted him into contention. he had very little money compared to romney, a shoestring organization. he did very well for himself and i think did he pretty well in terms of the media coverage and to his credit, actually, he said afterwards, you can't blame the media for his loss it wasn't the media's fault, lost michigan, ohio, illinois. >> everybody blames us what are you talking about? let me get a break. up next, newt gingrich slams fox news and fox bites back. people with a machine. what ? customers didn't like it. so why do banks do it ? hello ? hello ?! if your bank doesn't let you talk to a real person 24/7, you need an ally. hello ? ally bank. no nonsense. just people sense. but one is so clever that your skin looks better even after you take it off. neutrogena® healthy skin liquid makeup. 98% saw improved skin. does your makeup do that? neutrogena® cosmetics. this is my grandson. and if it wasn't for a screening i got, i might have missed being here to meet him. the health care law lets those of us on medicare now get most preventive care for free like annual wellness visits, immunizations, and some cancer screenings. and that's when they caught something serious on mine. but we could treat it before it was too late. i'll be around to meet number two! get the screenings you need. learn more at healthcare.gov. you don't want to miss any of this! newt gingrich on fox has been for romney all the way through and -- julie mason, you worked for fox for years. >> i think he woants a job here now. he isn't flood fair and objective news coverage. he is angry at fox news because he thought they would give him more than they did. from what i can tell, they did a fair job of covering this primary. >> he was on fox a lot. a spokesperson firing back. newt is auditioning, says fox, for a wind fill of a gig at cnn and bitter, that is fox's word, terminated his contract last year when he was gearing up to run. >> i think he is bitter more than he is losing the race for president looking for explanations as for why he is, in fact, losing. almost fascinating subtext of this primary has been at every point, santorum, gingrich and romney, at least there's a spores thought fox was against them and thought that they were getting bad treatment from some either the news or the commentary side of fox. the conversations were constant on the campaign trail the last six months. they are out to get me. you heard it from all these guys. a lot of the news coverage was tough. i think the commentary was sl split. >> newt gingrich is on fox a lot. >> still on a lot. >> likes to kick people. maybe comes to cnn, team up with his close, personal friend john king. jonathan martin, julie mason, thanks very much for joining us. before we go i could hardly believe what lawrence o'donnell said. in the course of criticizing mairs religion, the host made a crude attack on mormon's religion. >> made by a guy in upstate new york in 1830 when he got caught having sex with the maid and explained to his wife that god told him to do it. 48 wives later, joseph smith's lifestyle was completely sanctified in the religion that he invented to go with it, which mitt romney says he believes. >> mormons were outraged, said they had every right to be. this week, o'donnell apologized. >> i am truly sorry if i said something inaccurate about joseph smith and i'm sorry that my word choice ripped some people's attention away from my point, that we should not tolerate religious intolerance with voting, i wish i could take those words back. >> that was a well-delivered apology and one that had lawrence o'donnell needed to deliver. that's it for this edition of "reliable sources request." join us next sunday for a critical lk