Endless reality drama thats dominated nbc news. You could call it american anchor survivor with both Brian Williams and his sub lester holt in limbo. More on that coming up. But lets get to the duggar story and the jenner story. The jenner story in particular because the reveal of her new face and new name was flawlessly executed. The vanity fair cover dominated newscasts and then the e cable channel announced the name of her new reality show. These are all steps in jenners public transformation all carefully thought through. I want to give you a peek behind the scenes. You might have wondered who helped jenner pull this pr plan off . Well let me tell you. Jenners publicist is named allen nero. He often declines to comment. Its no surprise he declined to comment for this segment but one person who worked with minimum says ive never seen it done better and called him a mastermind. So joining me now are two experts who know how all this works. Press representative Howard Bragman of 15 minutes pr who joshg and bonny fuller. Good morning to both of you. Thank you. Howard since you helped celebrities in situations like this when they want to make announcements to the world, how would you describe how its gone with Caitlyn Jenner this week . You couldnt have asked for a better rollout. Im very impressed and ive talked to allen numerous times and i have told him im a little jealous. I would have liked to have handled this assignment but allen did a masterful job. Hes a grownup. Hes smart. And he did his research. Thats really important. Tell me what you mean. What kind of research . Theres a lot ever land mines you can step on when youre dealing with a topic like this. The community is very sensitive, and allen really went and got together with the organizations, went on a big learning curve, and thats a big part of the reason that it was done so intelligently and so sensitively all at the same time. What they were really trying for was to tell bruce caitlyns story but they were also going for a teachable moment and i think they achieved that in a big, big way. Sometimes people see this and roll their eyes. They think its too carefully orchestrated. For the general public no. Theyre not thinking about this being a beautifully executed plan. Theyre just thinking about, oh my goodness theres this gorgeous cover of Caitlyn Jenner introducing herself to the world and beautiful photographs and a long story that they can read which is a very sensitive story and really explains the whole transition that has occurred but also what bruce jenner experienced for 65 years and the secrecy he had to live with and how that hurt him and hurt his family and so it turned it into a very empathetic situation so people who have never met a transgender person dont even know what a transgender person is suddenly found themselves sympathizing and being very open to caitlyn and to learning more. And there has been a lot of empathy but, howard theres also been some backlash. Ity a bit of backlash actually. A great story in the Washington Post pointed out some conservatives, Republican Party commentators and talk radio host are purposely calling Caitlyn Bruce and rejecting this announcement of this trans gender moment in history. Are you struck by the backlash . Do you think its something that allen and the other pr people expected or is this something thats revealing about the state of our society . You know as well as i do we live in a very contraryian society. I tell clients you could cure cancer tomorrow and youre going to have a handful of people who are going to criticize you and say, great, now you put the pharmaceutical companies and the doctors and the nurses out of business. It comes with the territory. It came with chaz bono. It came with taking michael sam out of the closet. You have to look at the big picture, and the overwhelming message was positive. Let me play a sound bite from anderson coopers show. He was interviewing Buzz Bissinger and he talked about all the secrecy involved in the article. Those pictures are incredible and we didnt want them out before. Before. And neither did caitlyn. Caitlyn said i will not let a paparazzi make money off of me because thats a big deal. This is the picture heard around the world. I will not let a paparazzi make money off me. If i have to stay in my house for two months i will do it and thats basically what shes done. I think thats a key point, bonnie. One of the reasons this is all stage managed so that he back then bruce, now she, caitlyn, was not being exploited by the paparazzi. She wanted to do it on her own terms. Its her right to decide when she wanted to reveal herself as her trueself self because she wanted it to be a teachable moment and she wanted it to be a moment that was a freeing moment. She said as of this moment when the vanity fair cover comes out, i am free. And so it had both i guess pr impact but it also had a huge a monumental emotional impact for her. I think it was entirely her right to be able to do it on her own terms. You think about everybody who has profited. Vanity fair profits. Abc profits with a special. E will profit with their reality show. Caitlyn will also profit and shes trying to ensure the paparazzi wont profit as much. Lets turn to the other big Celebrity News and thats the duggar family. The interview with megyn kelly was not perceived to be flawless. A lot of people brought up questions about it. The interesting thing to me however is this was all organized, talking aboutp r people organized by Mike Huckabees pr concern, chad gallagher. Hes a Senior Adviser and works for the duggar family. Would you have advised the family if you were representing them to go to fox news . Absolutely. Youve got to go to your base and i looked at the interview, and i actually give meghan credit, she did ask some tough questions. It wasnt all soft balls. The followup wasnt as aggressive as it possibly would have been on another network but i think people who went in wanting to like the duggars, probably left liking the duggars and believesing believing them so you think it made sense to go with fox . Absolutely. What did you think of the questioning . I dont think with the interviewing and the questioning that they turned around any of their critics and they have a lot of critics, and i think by not asking some of the tougher followup questions, i mean for example, Michelle Duggar had made comments about transgenders and relating them to child molesters. Now, meghan asked the question but michelle didnt answer it, and she didnt pressure her. Shes just an example, and i think that for people who might not support the duggars, they could have been turned around depending what she said or if she had a mea culpa moment and said you know what . That was a mistake. I shouldnt have said that and my views if she had Something Like that i think it would have opened up her critics to being more sympathetic to the situation that theyre in. What i was struck by most was the way she framed some of her questions. Take a look. What the critics are going for is that you shouldnt have been preaching about moral values when you had a secret like this your own family. The main charge weve heard from your critics has been theyre hypocrites. They preached family values. What im asking you is can you understand the critics reaction to the news . What she was saying was framing things as critics. Doesnt it frame the duggars as the victims of a nasty media . Absolutely. The duggars kept criticizing the tabloids and saying the tabloids had jumped on this story and were attacking them when in fact shes then really calling the wall street journal, the new york times, every media outlet tabloids. Howard where does this family go from here . What does this family do next . Tlc isnt saying whether theyre going to bring 19 kids and counting back or not. This family is on life support and im afraid the plug is going to be pulled for them. Im not really afraid. Im comforted by the fact i think the plug is going to be pulled. What happened is hulu pulled them tlc has put them on hiatus advertisers were running for the hills. Its hard to see a scenario where they come back. Is it the fault of the media, the pile on weve seen that will end up taking this show away from the family . No. Its the fault that the family was stupid enough to go on a reality show when they had these skeletons in their closet and you just dont do this. To think this stuff isnt going to come out is a naive way of looking at it. And the second part is the hypocrisy of this family who is judging everyone elses life and i think theres a biblical verse about that which i wont try and reiterate here but they clearly got what they got because of the position they put themselves in. Thank you both for being here this morning. Later in the show, the man who had more hit shows on the air in the 70s than most networks do now. Norman leerar. Also the gop worried that the highly influential womens magazines are going to be schilling for hillary. Ill ask the editor of Cosmo Joanna Kohls if that is the case. kids laughing hes flying ok guys, pause the movie were going to watch the rest in the toyota camry. Hit play again ehhh. What happened . You cant watch the movie. Ugh. No network connection. Who wants to go back in the chevy malibu . Me lets go peace out chevrolet. The first and only car company to bring builtin 4g lte wifi to cars, trucks and crossovers. This is cool. Yeah. 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Getting my free credit score at credit karma when is the last time you checked . Your credit is outa sight alright arent you curious to know what yours is now . Still got it. Credit karma, get your free score now. Welcome back. Why prolong the agony . Thats what one tv executive asked me this week as we were talking about nbcs big and still secret decision about Brian Williams. Theres still no update about whats going to happen to williams once his sixmonth suspension is over. But this morning i want to move our attention to someone else this man, lester holt who has been filling in for williams for more than four months now and still doesnt quite know whats going to happen to either of them. Does lester holt get to keep the job or not . Well here is what my sources are now telling me. Holt is being kept completely out of the loop and so is his staff. But things have mostly gotten back to normal at the nightly news. People arent really talking about williams anymore. Its looking increasingly likely holt will get the job permanently. Now, this cannot be easy for either man or for those that work around them at the network. This is really the untold story of the Brian Williams controversy, the lester holt story. Joining me now to explore where this is heading are here in new york former machines executive mark efron a Media Consultant and professor and Andrew Wallenstein wallenstein, the coeditor in chief of variety. Mark you were at msnbc in the mid2000s about lester holt and everybody praises him. What is it about him thats so special. Hes the consummate professional on the air and off the air. Ive worked with great apgors who are not so great off the air and wonderful people off the air who are okay on the air and some combination thereof. Its very rare when the tumblers all click and with lester it does. Hes so easy to work with. Prepares but makes it look like he hasnt prepared yet on the air viewers trust him because they can tell hes done his homework and he knows what hes talking about. Hes kind of gon it all at msnbc and nbc. He was anchoring the iraq war coverage for you. I have never worked with anybody who you can literally sit him down brief him for 30 seconds, and just leave him, and he can go for six hours, eight hours, and that looks easier said than done. For sure. Especially when there arent a lot of facts and you dont want to conjecture wildly but you want to be informed. Lester could do that better than any other anchor i have ever worked with on the network level, on the local level, on radio, anywhere. The banner here says lester in limbo. You have stayed in touch with him over the years. You let him know you were going to be on the show today so he wouldnt be surprised. And this must be such a tough situation for him. Do you feel hes in limbo . What i know from lester is that hes making the best of a great situation in that hes anchoring five nights a week a National Newscast and anybody who has worked with lester feels his leadership but not in an im in charge here kind of way. So knowing lester the way i do and having worked with him very closely for a number of years, hes doing everything he can to make the people off the air as well as the viewers feel comfortable in this current situation. Youre out in l. A. Where lesters agent happens to work. Is there any sense a new contract is under way or there are talks going on about whats going to happen to holt if williams is not returning to nbc nightly news . No evidence that i can speak of, but i find it interesting that if on the one hand nbc is so keen on keeping him around that they would, as youre reporting, also keep him in the dark. I would think if they saw a longterm future for this guy, they would be doing something to cultivate that relationship better. Then again, maybe we should just kind of check that off as nbc news not necessarily being great at managing talent. Weve heard that rap before. We certainly have. I think it is often true in television the anchors are the last to know about changes. Mark is that fair to say as a former tv executive yourself . Its clear there are going to be times when you involve the anchor in the situation and there are times when you dont want to not for any kind of devious reason but youre trying to get all your ducks in a row because you know things leak. I remember when ann curry was dispatched from the today show in 2012 forcibly removed, savannah gult rithrie, her replacement, didnt have a new contract until the same week. The last thing they did was take care of savannah guthrie. I think in lesters case i know lesters agent pretty well the point is i think nbc probably knows that lester is not going to go anywhere so when it is time and hopefully it would be time for them to offer something to lester, they will work it out. You say he wouldnt leave, but if hes passed over for this job, if nightly news goes to someone else or if Brian Williams comes back to the chair, even though that seems unlikely at this point, wouldnt he look to leave at some point . Again, i dont want to speak for lester. Andrew let me ask you about one of the most sensitive parts of this story, and that is lester holt if he becomes a permanent alaskaor would be the First Permanent africanamerican nightly news anchor in the united states. Does that add another layer of complication for nbc thinking about keeping him in the job or not . I dont know if id characterize that as a complication of any kind. I think it would be a great thing for both lester for both the network, but also i dont want to make too much of this. I mean the sad fact of the matter is the evening news 6 30 p. M. Is not what it once was. So, you know the honor here for anyone of any race unfortunately is diminished. I think lester represents a sizable portion of the audience, and i think hes earned his place at that table, but it would seem to me that if i were looking to for somebody who could lead a nightly newscast in this very fractionalized media environment we live in i would pick lester holt for a lot of reasons, not just because of the color of his skin. And i think the other thing we havent talked about is, you know lester can also do the lighter stuff. Lester is a musician. Lester has played jazz on television. Lester has a lot of the skills beyond reading a prompt ter and doing interviews that its necessary to have if one is going to be leading a nightly newscast in 2015. Andrew whats your spin on the ratings. People look at the ratings and take away Different Things. Lester holts nightly news is holding up pretty well but not quite as well as Brian Williams nightly news did. As my variety colleague recently pointed out, theres no promotion behind lester and that doesnt make for a fair comparison. It will be interesting to see what happens should he get the nod and take over for Brian Williams and get some depent promotion behind him he could be beating abc day in and day out. Andrew mark thanks both for being here. When we come back, the man who brought the sitcom to the modern era, norman lear the father of all in the family and so many other hits will join me to talk about his tv legacy. Hp instant ink can save you up to 50 on ink delivered to your door so print all you want and never run out. Plans start at 2. 99 a month. Right now, buy an eligible printer and get three months of free ink with hp instant ink. Available at participating retailers. The most affordable way to print. Hp instant ink. Big day . Ah, the usual. Moved some new cars. Hauled a bunch of steel. Kept the supermarket shelves stocked. Made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. Whats up for the next shift . Ah, nothing much. Just keeping the lights on. laugh nice. Doing the big things that move an economy. See you tomorrow, mac. See you tomorrow, sam. Just another day at norfolk southern. Making a fist something we do to show resolve. To defend ourselves. To declare victory. So cvs Health Provides expert support and vital medicines. At our Infusion Centers or in patients homes. We help them fight the good fight. Cvs health, because health is everything. Super poligrip seals out more food particles. So your food wont get stuck and you can enjoy every single bite. Eat loud, live loud, super poligrip. Super poligrip holds your dentures tightly in place so you never have to hold back. Laugh loud, live loud, super poligrip. We spend a lot of time online around here. But with all this speed from xfinity, its all good. Hey, why dont we do some homework for a change . Gary, you too. Dad. Work stuff. Yes lovin the new design konichiwa hirosan. Five minutes. All this speed is very empowering. Check out the new hardware. With the Fastest Internet available, xfinity is perfect for people who need to get a lot done at home. And now you can go even faster. Weve just increased the speeds on two of our most popular plans. Welcome back. You know this upcoming week is 70s week on cnn because the channel is premiering the followup to the 60s. Decades before Caitlyn Jenner and la vern cox brought lgbt issues to our screens or the outspoken rang wage allowed on cable tv there was norman lear. Lear got his start in tv in 1950 writing for jerry lewis and dean martin on the colgate comedy hour. He would eventually revolutionize and redesign the american sitcom all in the family, good times, sanford and son, the jeffersons maude, one day at a time and so anand so on. The shows broke boundaries of subject matter and language. You name it, he went there. Thanks for joining me. My pleasure. Ill take that back. Well see. We will see. Yeah well see. People always say even decades after your programs originally premiered that you made people talk. You got people talking with your programs. Is that a failure on the part of other show creators they didnt get people talking in the same way as you . I think the difference might be that what they talked about following all in the family included the subject matter of the show, whether it was either menopause or mikes inability to make love because he was studying so hard or archie is out of work or his feelings about Richard Nixon or whatever we were dealing with. Did it ever occur to you that television was just supposed to be disposable and mindless and entertaining and not make people think . When i was accused of if you want to send a message, lear theres western union, that was the general idea of youre not supposed to have a point of view in a show. And for a long time i didnt think we were expressing a point of view. I really thought we were just making people laugh, serious people, we were dealing with serious subjects because theres humor in everything. Then i realized now, wait a second im 52 years old or whatever the heck i was at the time. I have a point of view. I have children. I care about my country. I care about my family. I deal with real subjects and find the humor where they were. Then i realized preceding us were dozens of shows in which there were no problems in the american family. They didnt deal with menopause. They had no abortion didnt exist in the world. Nobody was out of work. Well that carried a message, too, you know. Wall to wall floor to ceiling it carried a message. There were no problems except the roast is ruined and the boss is coming to dinner and the family was really upset. So how often were you called on the carpet so to speak, for controversial or provocative subject matter . Well weekly. Every time they saw a script they had something to say. The American People were ready for 98 of everything we ever thought of doing, and it was these frightened people representing other people who were representing other people who were representing ultimately response sors response certifiessponsors. I wanted to do a story about edith losing her faith in god, and we found a way to do that when we had this you mentioned her we had a wonderful transsexual character on the show that she loved, and beverly, archie was driving a cab. A woman had an attack in the back of the car and he gave her mouthtomouth resuscitation and when she came to thank him, edith answered the door and found out she was transsexual and the audience found out she had been a male. So now were faced with archie is going to come downstairs in a moment. Hes going to meet somebody he gave mouthtomouth resuscitation to. Shes there to thank him and it was a guy in archies view dressed as a woman but the character was really wonderful. And we thought the only way that edith might lose her faith is if this character was killed for being who the character was, and so we were able to do two parts. If you were to ask me which two shows, you know, on all in the family i favored the most it would be those two episodes. Let me ask you about language on your shows. There was a memorable episode where you used the word fag. I cant imagine hearing that on Network Television today. How did you get it by the censors . It was the language of the moment when it was used by people who would use it. Archie would use it and we did. That was a perfect example of it would be silly to take it out of archies mouth. Its so a part of him. I remember the dialogue. Mike had a friend over who wore was wearing glasses and carried an umbrella and archie was calling him gay or queer. He was calling him queer. And mike said just because he wears glasses, carries an umbrella you call him queer. He said, no a guy who wears glasses is a four eyes. I guy who is a fag is a queer. It was so archie. It wasnt misusing the language. As i sit here and think about it now. You know would america live with that . It wasnt one state that seceded from the union. What are the chances wed ever see a reboot or a recreation of all in the family . I have been asked to consider it by what did you call them. Theyre not networks. Zroo streamers. I think that was your word. People who stream. Netflix perhaps . Netflix, amazon and im thinking about it. Im also thinking about i think you know that theyve come at me to do latino version of one day at a time and i like that idea. So im thinking about it. So many people are able to connect with these shows decades later. Because we were dealing with human problems. They dont change. Theres been so much Forward Movement since then but there are a lot of people trapped in lives that are not aware of that Forward Movement. But that certainly explains why people are watching today and think theyre watching something that might have been made last week. I wonder if the same is true when it comes to race relations. It feels like one of the dominant narratives on television for the past year in News Television has been race with ferguson and baltimore and everywhere else. Race problems have not gone away. And we have barely begun to deal with them when you see the kinds of things that are happening in the cities you mentioned. Things are every bit as difficult racewise as they were then. We may be better involved about the problems but whatever is behind it all, our human nature has not changed. If the 60s were a time of revolution the 70s were what . How would you describe it as a decade . It was a decade in which i was having one hell of a time and i had five families on the air and one on moon crest drive. If you could go back to the 1970s for one day, what wha would you do . Id work out. Thank you so much. My pleasure. My pleasure. Thank you, brian. Norman lear really is one of a kind and hes a big part of this weeks premiere of the cnns original series the 70s. The episode on thursday is all about television. Coming up here a turn to politics. Are hugely influential womens magazines going to be schilling for hillary. The editor of Cosmo Joanna Coles answers that right after this. Neither is afraid. Buy in. Quickenloans home buy. Refi. Power. Meet the worlds newest Energy Superpower. Surprised . In fact, america is now the worlds number one natural gas producer. And we could soon become number one in oil. Because Hydraulic Fracturing Technology is safely recovering lots more oil and natural gas. Supporting millions of new jobs. Billions in tax revenue. And a new century of American Energy security. The new Energy Superpower . Its red, white and blue. Log on to learn more. Welcome back to reliable sources. Check this out. Campaign reporters sure did not appreciate this. It says there will be no opportunities to interview Hillary Clinton. Her speech will be her interview. Thats the blunt wording handed out to reporters attending her speech this weekend. Its another reminder clinton hasnt opened up to the press. She has answered questions a couple times but she hasnt granted any formal interviews. That prompted wolf blitser to vent his frustration a little bit in a futile request to the campaigns adviser. Joe is the Senior Adviser, a major strategist in the Hillary Clinton campaign. Well stay in close touch with you. Thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, wolf. Please tell the secretary were looking forward to a fullscale interview with her asap as well. Thanks very much. I thought that silence spoke volumes, you know. When clinton does start giving interviews might she seek out friendly forums like maybe womens magazines . This recent piece in politico asserted the republicans are worried these magazines are, quote, in the tank for clinton. Lets go right to the source on this one. Joining me on set is joanna coles, the editor of cosmopolitan cosmopolitan. Take me inside the editorial meetings in your magazine. Are you taking more of an election this time around than in the past because of Hillary Clinton . Well first of all, i think anybody would find the editorial meetings at cosmopolitan where we discuss endless sex positions extremely interesting and may i say it might change things. We are very interested in the issues around politics and how they impact our readers which is to say that we have many millions of millennial readers and theyre interested in how they pay off their student debts, interested in are they going to get a job in this economy. But also in the personalities, right . Theyre also interested in how theyre going to get Great Health Care and do they have access to contraception and god forbid should they need it do they have access to an abortion. Theyre watching candidates they feel will reflect their interests as everybody does but whats important about this election in particular is there will be a lot of millennial voters because there are so many of them and a lot of them will be voting for the first time and our First Priority is to get people to the polls. There is such lethargy around that. We want to animate readers, go in and vote. You dont have the right to complain about d. C. If youre not exercising your right to vote. You have a Rooted Interest in making them vote. Do you have a Rooted Interest in them voting for Hillary Clinton . We have a Rooted Interest in them being part of the political process. We leave it to them if they want to vote for hillary. Would we like to see more female candidates running . Of course we would. I think the political system would be better off. Its really early in the campaign to say whether or not they would be better off with hillary because we dont know all the candidates and we havent seen what hillary stands for yet. This issue of whether womens magazines are tilted in favor of Hillary Clinton came up recently in politico. Let me read a quote from the article. She said she reviewed several months of covers and said looks like readers will be getting a heavy dose of liberal cheerleading this Campaign Season along with their skin care and makeup and fashion tips. Liberal cheerleading, is that a fair phrase . Liberal cheerleading probably is because for the most part young womens interests are better supported by liberal democrat candidates but not all, and i do think its too early in the process to say which candidate is best going to represent them. We just did in the magazine a piece on all the female senators so we interviewed 16 of the 20 and so across party, and actually it was the most optimistic piece id read about d. C. For a long time because these were senators actually working across the house with each other and it suddenly made you think, goodness washington is actually a functional place after all. Because voters dont like it when women politicians brag about their achievements they dont brag as much as the men. They dont always say i got this big passed or i got this done but they are getting on with it. Let me show you a conservative comment. It was from fox and friends last week. Hillary clinton as she moves into 2016, laura, is noting one of her secret weapons and it may be the womens magazines. You look at some of the past covers here and the coverage of the Clinton Family in general, it kind of suggests that readers will be getting a heavy dose of liberal cheerleading to say the least. Their readers are 53 million. Glamour has 28 million for glamour alone. Cosmo has a reach of 53 million. Thats smart. That reach is strong. So you can hear fox and friends ripping off that politico article. We have them reporting and them deciding. Fox and friends very good at that sometimes. They are. I wonder if some conservative commentators should be concerned about the womens magazines . Well you heard them say the reach of cosmo is 53 million. Womens magazines have enormous reach and i think young women are very anxious about whats happening to the political process in washington and they do want to get involved. Its an example of candidates or politicians in general being able to go around what we would call the traditional media and reach people in different ways. We talked a lot about going directly through the media, going to social media, having candidates speak on twitter and facebook but they could also go to alternative media, so to speak. Maybe womens magazines are an example of that. I dont think of womens magazines with 53 million readers as being alternative. I think it might be as big if not slightly bigger than the footprint of reliable sources brian, but i do think what youre hinting at and what was reflected on fox and friends is that this is a really big audience that has been underserved by what i think is the Mainstream Media news programs in the evening which actually people are stopping watching. If there were republican female candidates leading the pack, it sounds like youre saying you would be on that beat and covering them. We absolutely would. Were very interested in women in leadership roles. We cover a lot of women in Business Leadership roles, and we would love to be able to cover more women in politics but, you know, theres less than 20 in congress only 20 out of 100 in the senate so we have a ways to go. Thanks for being here. My pleasure. Up next on the program, one of the thorniest issues for the news media. Every politician and every source these days is demanding to be off the record to be unnamed. Well meet one reporter who is trying to find this trend right after this. Begins to change. ray id like to see her go back to her more you know social side. She literally started changing. It was shocking. Shes much more aware. jan she loves the food. ray the difference has been incredible. She wants to learn things. vo purina pro plan bright mind promotes alertness and mental sharpness in dogs 7 and older. Purina pro plan. Nutrition that performs. What do you think . When i first sit in the seat it makes me think of a bmw. I feel like im in a lexus. You would think that this was a brand new audi. Its like a luxury car. Feels kind of like an infinity. Very similar to a range rover. This is pretty high tech. Yeah it is. It reminds me of a mercedes. This is chevy . Laughing i have a new appreciation for chevy. They thought about me. I could totally rock this. This thing feels pretty boss. It looks kind of dope. Thats pretty cool. This is the jam. Pretty bomb dude. Maybe i will go chevy. Im definitely in. Big day . Ah, the usual. Moved some new cars. Hauled a bunch of steel. Kept the supermarket shelves stocked. Made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. Whats up for the next shift . Ah, nothing much. Just keeping the lights on. laugh nice. 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Guaranteed sleep train your ticket to a better nights sleep welcome back. On the record. Its a phrase every journalist knows and uses. But at home you may not know exactly what we mean. And nowadays it seems like everyone from Political Campaign operatives to even other journalists always say things are off the record. They preempt their comments by saying off the record. I want to explore exactly what this means and why this is one of the biggest battles in journalism right now with Spencer Ackerman a National Security reporter for the guardian. He has had enough of this practice. This week he was tweeting a new addition to his email signature. Let me show it to you before i bring it in. All emails are presumed to be on the record unless and until a mutually accepted negotiation of ground rules has successfully concluded. Any unilateral declaration by recipient of this email that a conversation is on background or off the record will not be honored. Very serious language there. So joining me now to have an on the record conversation is spencer. Thanks for being here. No problem. This is on background. Okay. Lets explain this to the viewers at home. What is the problem . When you say somethings off the record or on background what do you mean . So this is a weird kind of argo that journalists and sources have developed over the years that basically means lots of Different Things to lots of different people. So its good to define these terms. Off the record means theres information that someones going to give you but you cant cite it you definitely cant name that person but it should inform what youre going to write going forward. On background is the sort of thing youve sort of seen ubiquitously increasingly especially in the media over the years in which someone cant be named but theyre called an official or someone familiar with this persons thinking, that kind of thing. The white house will say a Senior Administration official when in fact who are they talking about . Pretty much always a spokesperson. Weve just sort of gotten into the habit of referring to everyone were not quoting by name as senior because it makes us sound more important. This is really a plague in journalism. It really is. Because so much information is being shared on background. Sources are more and more reluctant to go on the record meaning we can attach their name to something, say who it came from. So what are you trying to do to stop this . So im an anonymity pragmatist. Right . Im not a politics reporter. Im a National Security reporter. So that means very often im going to speak with people who really do have very good reasons for not having their name attached to something, particularly on really sensitive matters. So youre not saying all anonymity is bad or is a problem. What youre highlighting is this problem of people emailing you and automatically saying its off the record without you even talking to them about it. Exactly. So this happens by degree. The way these things are supposed to work between journalists and sources is you have a conversation about it. There should be some kind of reason given up front i think for the granting of anonymity. It shouldnt be an automatic reflection reflexive thing and definitely shouldnt be the sort of thing that acts as an upfront toll or a tax on information. A tax on information. Thats a really interesting phrase. Yeah. So think about it like this. If i need to know something and i need to know something because my readers need to know something, i go to a source for that information and the source starts out by saying before i tell you this you have to agree to not cite me or to not cite the organization i work for in some cases. You know and so on and so forth down the line. And weve gotten so used to it for a variety of reasons, some of which are professionally advantageous to us. Were afraid that if we dont grant this the next reporter will and then well miss out and well get scooped on something. That kind of thing. Weve just grown too accustomed often in our business to just grant the anonymity. So i dont want to say im never going to do it. I wrote a story this week after i put it in my signature file in which i gave someone anonymity but i made them argue for it. Ron foreignnier who was here last week often says on twitter journalist should ban together and fight against unnecessary use of Anonymous Sources. Do you agree . I think theres definitely a collective action problem we have for precisely the reason that a lot of us will grant anonymity. Were afraid that the other guy, our competitors, you know if i dont do it she will. Shell give them the rules that the source needs in order to make sure or maybe not even needs but wants, in order to make sure her readers are served with this information. I use Anonymous Sources all the time like you do. Even people in media often insist on being anonymous. But i worry the viewers at home dont trust you. Readers dont trust us as much as we want them to. We need to be pretty transparent about why we do these things. Spencer, thanks for being here. I appreciate it. Great to sigh. And well have more reliable sources in just a moment. The pursuit of healthier. It begins from the second were born. After all, healthier doesnt happen all by itself. It needs to be earned. Every day. Using wellness to keep away illness. And believing that a single life can be made better by millions of others. Healthier takes somebody who can power modern health care. By connecting every single part of it. For as the world keeps on searching for healthier. Were here to make healthier happen. 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Dont you want to buy a house. Like, ever . You should probably check out credit karma, its free. Credit . Karma . Free . Credit karma. Really free credit scores. Before we go this morning our show called reliable sources we definitely want to let you know when weve made a mistake. Last week when Glenn Greenwald was here talking about Edward Snowdens role in reshaping the debate about mass surveillance he was bemoaning actually exactly what Spencer Ackerman was just talking about, the overuse of Anonymous Sources. But greenwald called it the kind of reporting that got judy miller fired from the new york times. Miller reached out to me and im glad she did. She was actually not fired from the times. Back in 2005 she agreed to leave after weeks of negotiations with the paper. Now, i should have caught that when glenn said it and im sorry i didnt. As always we want to hear from you about the show. So send me a tweet. Im brianstelter on twitter or look up my name on facebook. Were out of time on tv but ill see you on twitter and facebook and check out the media news of the newly relaunched cnnmoney. Com media. And stay tuned because state of the union starts right now. Harleys, a pig roast and politics. Republican white house hopefuls swarm iowa as a crowded gop field gets even bigger. This is a special state of the union. Good morning. Im dana bash live from iowa where several of the republican president ial candidates turned out this weekend for senator joanie ernsts inaugural roast and ride. This hour my interviews with newly announced president ial candidates rick perry and Lindsey Graham and some colorful moments with Scott Walker Ben Carson and mike huckabee. For years joni ernsts predecessor, former iowa senator tom harkin hosted his famous steak fry. It was one