Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV 20120804

david westin is presently the president and ceo of news rite an ambitious license to original news content. news rite launched more than almost six months ago and hopefully he will tell us a tbit about it. he was president of abc for over a decade from 1997 to 2010. during his tenure, abc news received 11 peabody, 13 due points, and more than 0 news and documentary emmys. plus more than 40 ed awards. innovation was a hallmark in his administration, he created and built an array of special uniteds from for abc news outlets lead by the hard hitting investigative unit. in 2007 he announced the largest single expansion of foreign news coverage in the history of abc news by sending seven new digital reporters to -- osama bin laden the last with the western journalist from afghanistan. as well as barbara walters with monica will win sky, the highest rated news program in the history. before joining abc he was a partner at will her cutler and pickerring he was a law clerk to supreme court justice lose powell jr. before i forget, he was president of abc networking groups for three years before heading the news division. please give a warm welcome to david westin. [applause] >> thank you very much. the gracious duction. you thank you i'm that that delighted to be here in san francisco with you tonight. i've heard about the club for years. a god friend of mine nancy gibbs was here recently for a presence club. she told me what a great experience it was. i've been looking to tonight. i thought i would try to explain a little bit about why i wrote the book. i had -- was fortunate in having another unusual experience. i started in journalist as the president of abc news. i had not been a journalist before. i had a steep learning curve. frankly, learning back, i had more to learn than i realized. it gave mae fresh perspective from somebody coming from the outside. i was fortunate to be able to learn a great deal from some of the greatest journalist of the generation. i wanted to share the experience with the others who haven't the opportunity to be behind the scenes particularly when they were big breaking news -- stories. it wasn't difficult for me to find big stories talk about from the death of prin sis princess diana and the impeach and 9/11 and the wars that followed. there were a number of major news events that we were called upon to cover during my tenure. i got see and work with the journalist as we struggled to do our best, to do right by american people. let me starting starting with actually, with the death of princess diana. it happened early in my ten year. it was labor day of 1997. i'd been there for four months. petered jennings was one of the people i worked with. i got to know peter very well. we got close personally and professionally. back in the fall of '97 he was a great journalist and was very skeptical of everything including me. he was not sure why i was returning abc news. he wasn't very shy about it. and looking back, he was right. he was perfectly justified. we worked on a number of major projects during our time together. and agreed on almost everything, and when we didn't agree, peter was right. but the first time we really clashed was over the death of princess diana and it was not comfortable. it was labor day weekend, as i say. most people were away that weekend. a i found myself in the news room with peter to talk to. they were out of town. one of the first decisions i made we would prepare a prime time special to air the next night. it happened on saturday night. we were going air the special on sunday. peter called in about 1120 at night when he caught up with the coverage. i took the call on the news room floor off camera from where the weekend anchor was reporting about the death of princess diana. peter could be very firm and to the point. he said i understand princess diana died and you're considering a prime time special. he said, that is your right, but i feel i owe it to to tell you if you do a prime time special no will take you seriously. here i am four and a half months in and i have peter jennings a bona fide legend. somebody i had a enormous respect for telling me i was a blowing fip don't have a lot of journalism to fell back on. i fell back on my family, i said, peter, i understand she wasn't a head of state, but i have a sister back in michigan, i'm from michigan, by the way, i have a sister in michigan. rebecca, and rebecca never reads tabloids she read every detail about i did a diadiana's life. i think there are other people who will feel that way. i said, it's your right. i will have nothing do with it. that was at end of the conversation. here i am thinking what i have dismoan i'm wrecking abc news. peter called the next morning. i got a call at home. he said david i'm in the car on the way in. i've read the congress, you really right. i would like to do a special. i said, of course, you are the principle anchor. i have to tell you that i've signed up barbara walters and dianne sawers. i said you will have to do it to the with two of them. he said that's fine. we had a two-hour special that night anchors by peter barbara, and dianne. in that particular instance what was unusual, peter, actually was wrong and i was right. that's not the point. that's not whey took away from it. it was a important point. peter was saying you have to keep in mind the line between entertainment and news. you have to be talking about why you reporting the story. are you reporting it because it's historical significance or people want to know about it in you have to keep that line in mind. there's nothing wrong reporting things because people care about them. you should be thinking about why you are doing it. the line has moved substantially. if princess diana died today there wouldn't be debate. it was right for the line to move, probably. what i learned and took away was the importance be a line and people be wrestling with that. there's no clear answer, it's not easy. that was the point peter was making. the most important story i worked on during my time, of course, was 9/11. 9/11 as you recall, happened it on a tuesday morning. i was in my office in time to get in and watch "good morning america." i had nine monitors on my wall. that will give you a. d. d. but i saw out of the corner of my eye, first, it was one of the cable news outline cnn smoke coming out of the one of the towers. we were in commercial break. diane and chair leer were anchoring. and then fairly quickly we came back out of commercial and we went what we called to special report to the full networking, and they started reporting and incident the reports that plane had crashed into one of the towers and then not long afterwards we remember we saw the second plane come across the screen live on tv. it was clear we were under attack. we came fairly quickly to the conclusion it was probably terrorism and quite probably al qaeda and that was because as mel baa mentioned. in '97 my first year there we interviewed osama bin laden and interviewed him. osama bin laden had predicted they would be attacking civilians in the united states. ironically to think back on it, there was a big debate in the news room where we would air the interview. most people didn't know osama bin laden and some people thought he was really just something of a show boat. -looking for attention. and in the end, of course, we aired it. we jumped fairly quickly to the conclusion it was likely terrorism and possibly al qaeda. it was a or rend use story for us a of us. it was horrific, it was tragic, it was wrenching. i learned various things from the coverage of 9/11 which was not only that day, we were on the air for about 100 hours straight. lead principally with peter and lead by dianne and charlie and ted. one thing i learned is how much you expect out of the journalist in sometime of crisis. everybody wants to reach out with their loved ones and that's a time when you're a journalist you have to be there "24"/7 and working around the cluck. sort of ironic somewhat humorous story, believe it or not, that day came when our news room late in the morning started getting e-mails from e-mail accounted we couldn't identity. it was something like, i may not get it right, hot babe 364. it we couldn't figure out what it was. it took us a half hour. it was george steph no loss he walked near ground zero and had struck up some sort of a acquaint tanship with a young woman and talked her into using her computer. he was trying to report in what he was seeing and airing. and he took us a half hour or more to realize it was george. i also experienced fairly early on some of the pressures from the white house because it was, of course, it was a terrible time for everyone we didn't know what was going on. we all felt under attack. we felt vulnerable, and the white house took a fairly aggressive stance early on with the reporting. they objected particularly to peter jennings that first day. peter among the coverage, i thought entirely appropriately talked about the fact we haven't seen the president. he gave the first set of brief remarks. peter at the time said presumely his security detail doesn't feel comfortable. the white house wasn't too happy. i talked to them on the telephone. they thought we were being disloyal to question where the president was at that time. another issue that came up in 9/11, actually came up the saturday afterwards. we were on the air, as i say for welcome 100 hours straight, at the end we did a peter jennings special on saturday morning. peter did several of these specials on very important topics we try to explain things to children and take their questions. we decided to do one on 9/11. we gathered a group of children with experts together in a studio, and took their questions and tried to explain things. in the course of that special, one of our experts, a man named kyle pry wit, a child expert may made a really telling point for me, which was, children don't process information the way the rest of us do. when children saw the video of the planes going into tours and the towers coming down, they thought it was happening again. it was a new building. it was a different event. the video had been shown hundreds of times. in the car on the way home i called into the heads of standard and i say we have a problem with this. we're dissensitizing people. we may be affecting children. we would know show the moving video on abc news. from that day on, if we ask things on the anniversary we would show still photos only because of the concern how the children might be absorbing this. one of the great perks of my job, and it was a great job, don't misunderstand me. it was a great job. one of the great perks i got to fly around the world and talk to anybody i wanted, just about. on the eve of the iraq war i went to the middle east and had an extraordinary experience of sitting one evening and the next day going to and visiting. if you recall at the point he was holed up in the bunker, it was a sort of largely damaged building. high-rise building about six stories high or so with burned out cars outside of it. and we went in and he helped the war. it was a great experience. i visited latin america, got to visit with the president there of colombia and of mexico and hugo chavez who is a intense gentleman. he's become ill. i got visit with him under a huge portrait of -- whom he identifies with to a remarkable degree. i think it's fair to say that. i got to travel with barbara walters to cuba for the second interview with fidel castro. and that was a great experience in part because i really was able to participate in not only see the process that a terrific interviewer like barbara goes through. the process by which she gathers hundreds upon hundreds of questions. we flew done and went over questions. he thought which ones to ask. what order to put them in. there's a lot of thought and care that goes into a great interview that i think people otherwise might not appreciate. and that's what makes it look so natural when she its is down. she has done the homework so thoroughly. we did the work on the questions with, we're proud of them. and then the way it works, i'm told with castro is you go down and wait. he doesn't particularly schedule a time to see you. you have to wait and they'll let you know when it's the right time. we were waiting two or three days. at one point a group of officials came to have a drink with us we were standing around and mt. in the middle the senior official said we'd like to see your questions please. barbara and i looked at each other journalists don't give the interview subjects the question in advance. that's not the way it works. we said, i'm sorry, we don't give out concerns. i was concerned that castro might cancel the interview. barbara was more confident. it ahead one night. in the course we learned there was another journalist from another networking who was scheduled to fly in a couple of days later, and we were both concerned. barbara and i were concerned if the other journalist would get the interview they would air it first and take away what barbara had done. we were asked to mote with the foreign administrator to work it out. they said that's right. you should have exclusive. you have to talk to the president. that's above me. i can't make the decision. i was basically assigned to meet with fidel castro why u.s. television it was important to have an exclusive. we went around to school the next day barbara with castro and i was in tow to talk to students about their experience. and i said at one point, you know, i need to speak with you mr. president. we went off to a side room and i said, this has been a terrific experience. i think it's a good interview. i think you have a lot of things. in order to have the effect you want it to have, it's important it be an exclusive interview. i apologized this but it's the facts of life. he listened to me and my delight, i don't know if it was surprise, but delight he said that's fine. okay. it'll be exclusive and we held the exclusive interview chaffs great experience. dianne sawyer which was someone that was a privilege to work with closely for many years. she has lot of remarkable traits. she has a versatility that is unprecedented. she can handle every sort of story. she's very senator and writes beautifully. one of the things i respect most is she is fearless. it can express itself to going to "good morning america." there was a lot more risk for her. when he agreed to do it she said i'll do it for three months and that's if you pull me out if he's going badly. she was there for, i think, 11 years as it turns out. her fearlessness expresses itself in a willingness of finding stories that other people are not covering. things like the underclass in america. in places like new jersey poverty, indian reservations. sometimes the great journalists show their greatness in the stories no one else is covering. it's not the obvious story. it's one that is not being paid attention to that should be. we had a fair amount of fun. one of the things of the millennium. i don't know if you recall it or not we put on a program for a little more than "24" hours. we about around the world time zone by time zone as the clock ticked to 12:01, when i first to be that idea to peter, peter jennings loved it. right from the outset. he said i want to anchor it. i said for "24" hours? he said absolutely. i want to do this. this is made for me. it was many many respects. he was a man of the world. he knew so much about the world. i'll tell you about three days, i think, before the millennium broadcast before we went into rehearsals, i went down to visit peter in the weekend on the officer. he was sitting there with a stack of index cards that have must have been twelve or fifteen inches high high. i said what are you doing he was essentialing trying to make sure he knew every world about the fact for 2,000 years. i said whatever happens with this, it was a risk. we didn't know whether everyone would pay attention. i said whatever happens no one is going to come away from the experience having a doubt that you know a lot ha you know the world. you can relax about that. it's not a problem. it was a wonderful experience. and i treasure it. now actually, one of the biggest stories that we had during my time, abc news was not one covered. it was about us. by us i don't mean about abc news. it was about the news media overall. 2010, which was my tenure, there was an enormous change in what the news media was in the country. if you think when i went there? 1997 foxx news and msnbc didn't exist. they didn't have a website. we created we created abc news.com my first year there. much social media and twitter and all the rest of it. so what is described as news has expanded dramatically. s did a enormously bigger tent. when people talk about the news media now, it covers a wide variety of things. it can cover everything from time modern journalist, the way people peter and dianne and barbara did it. to blogs to extreme opinion to gossip, and it all comes under some big umm well laugh news media. i think a fundamental question is, does it change the nature of journalism? does it change the commitment such as peter had toward making sure you're covering something that is important? does change the drive to manage sure you're getting the facts right that you're checking and rechecking. does it change the basic decision between opinion on one hand and fact-based-journalism on the other. as i look around today, i see examples of both. certainly we can find things that are examples of extreme opinion, of bloggers and rumor, and even innuendo. there's symptom great journalism being done. again, to come back to peter one more time, he was one of the early adapters. he came to me in 2004, and said i really want to cover the 2004 conventions gavel to gavel and i know it at this day in age you're not going do that on the networking. you're not going to take the time to do that. i've heard about the streaming video thing. we have fairly new thing for most of us at that time. and so we started something called abc news now with the democratic convention in the summer of 2004 peter jennings anchored gavel to gavel coverage of the conventions on a extreming video that the net made possible that otherwise wouldn't be possible. there are other terrific examples. george is a great journalist and embraced social media and the internet aggressively. on the other hand,here's a fair amount that all of us might cringe at a bit on the internet. i did think that in the end, i think this is really i discovered through the process why while i wrote the book. when i set out i wanted to write the book because i gotten to see something i wish others could see. it is richer, it is harder, it is -- in many ways more valiant that what i appreciated great journalism really was. but as i gone through the process i realize there's a further related reason why i really care about what i talk about in this book. that is i don't want this toes no tal georgia. i don't want it to be left in the past and say it wasn't that great. we had peter jennings. it wasn't that great. we had ted. they did great journalism back then. there are examples of wonderful work being done today. i want to make sure that the quality of work continues well into the social media and whatever comes after social media age that we're encountering. there's a fundamental question about whether all these changes will makes better more informed citizens, or whether it will reduce all the great work that being done to some lowest common denominators. ultimate this is one of the most important things i think it's not up to the journalist, and it's not just up to the people who run news organizations. they have an important say many in what gets done in journalism today. the public has an important say in what gets done. i learnedded at abc news even the greatest journalists and the best organizations do pay attention to what people are coming to. it's inevitable. if you carry about what you're reporting. your care about how big your audience is. if you don't, you're keeping an diary. by definition if you care about the importance what you're saying you want as many people to pay attention as you what you get. if everyone rushes to the latest rumor or the latest celebrity scandals or something like that, there will be more of the coverage on the other hand if people seek out the high quality great journalism being done. there will be more too. you have a say. everyone in the audience has a say. and responsibility, i think, in what journalism ultimately becomes. in the end the biggest surprise for me today there are not things that make my cringe. given how big it's become it's inevitable. it's probably healthy there's more news and information people are spending more of their time and whether it's healthy or not. it's inevitable. that's the way it's going. the biggest surprise isn't so much there are things that make me cringe. there is so much great work being done. president early news abc news.com charlie gibson used to say when you look at the top ten stories in terms of traffic on the site only three or four of them what we would think of as an important news story. i would say the good news with the unlimited number of choices that still three or four of the top ten. they can go to any bizarre video they want. they are coming to important stories. it's terrific. i'd like to believe it will all continue. i'd like to believe that some of the time honor journalism that peter, bash are, and dianne have and will don't future. i'd like to say it's possible. there's lot of great journalism being done. ultimately it will be up to all of us. the thing i want people to take away from the book is our joint responsibility to reward great men and work working in journalism by giving their our time and attention. thank you very much for listening. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much. david westin former president of abc news and author of the new book "exit interview" now it's time for the audience question. we'll come back over some of the things you talked about and hopefully hear a little bit more in depth. as you can see, we do have a large number of questions. most of them are not repetitious. they want to -- and the thought i first one was interesting. is there a burglar event that occurred since you since abc you would have liked to have lead the coverage on? >> that's great question, i have an immediate answer. there are two or three things. the one time i've had any inklings of regret or saying i'd love to be there for that was they got osama bin laden. that was the one time why heard that. and part of that was just to come full circle because i'd be with that story and abc news we worked hard on reporting the al qaeda story and osama bin laden story. that was a story, yes, i would have loved to have been there. >> i imagine that's an affliction. [laughter] carrying on with you when you had the opportunities to be right at the forefront of some big stories. and what way does the approach to reporting on ongoing events how have they changed over time such as the different is there a difference in the way we're covering the iraqy war or i guess now the afghan war. >> the big change that happened during my tenure was -- they didn't exist before the 2003 war. particularly with television is what technology makes possible. now irch can have an camera anywhere any time. you can also transmit out. going back to the iraq war we were in the stone age in terms of telecom communication to get out by phone and things like that. today it's advanced much beyond that. you can get fairly high quality streaming video just about anywhere. i think it's changed congress a great deal. i think over all for the better. the ore thing another story that would be nice to cover is the arab spring and that the advent of social media twitter and the posting on facebook and things like that. things we're seeing in syria. presents particular challenging too. we had this during some some of the demonstration how you vet that and not being manipulated. it's not your people and taking the video. you're getting it presents challenging. i think overall it's a good thing. we have access to more information and video than before. that's a big debatable question with reporters out there and know the old ways. the inability to vet to know to affirm that what you're delivering are the actual facts. how much does that bother you? >> well, bother me? first of all, it's inevitable. so i try not to be bothered by things that are going to happen anyway. it presents certain challenges and increased responsibility on the editorial process. we certainly had this, for example, back in iran when we were getting video. there are ways to check things to figure out, you know, is it possible that happened and were those people in that place and what else do you know about the source that are not different in kind what reporters have always done, you know, we all had source of some other or another. it's always been a challenge. also, it makes us nervous to some extent you know no matter how well you vetted the sources you could be wrong. it happened in some places. i think it increases the responsibility on the editorial process, but again, i think in general more information is something we shouldn't resist as journalists. it's a question what we do. how we process and vet it. we have a responsibility to make sure it's right. >> you volunteered to take over as president of abc news, it was a step down for you, according to the writer, then you had to wait fifteen months for them to retire can you explain why you volunteered? [laughter] this is an exit interview. i talk about this in the beginning. step down, in the organizational chart, it was a step down because i was head of the networking and news reported to the head of the networking. it was not a step down looking back certainly. i don't think it felt was at the time. because abc news is and was a special organization. be able to run that day-to-day has a lot of challenges, but a lot of rewards attached to it. i never felt it was a step down. it was in the organizational chart, that's right. i took it for a sufficient reason. not the reasons you like to hear. i had not had a lifelong run quest to run a news organization. i had been a lawyer as you said in washington, and then i'd been general counselor of capitol city abc parent company. i had worked with the journalist at abc as their lawyer and then as the supervisor of the networking. but it wasn't something i was question for. it was a matter of my predecessor who was a legend first in sports and then in news coming toward the end of his tenure, and they needed a sec or so i try to do that as head of the networking with my boss bob who runs walt disney now. it's a pressing issue for us. we cared about abc news we wanted to make sure it was able to make the changes we knew were going to be made. i pulled addict cheney in the sense that i tried several things none of them work. in the end i reluctantly said said to bob, i think i can do the job i'm not sure i want to to. we talked about it for awhile. i did it really more as a good corporate citizens but someone who cared about abc news. i thought i would be a transitional figure until someone else came along. the surprise to me, the thing i did not -- i loved it. i've been blessed with a number of really great jobs working with great people. there's nothing like running abc news it was a great job. i didn't know it when i folk the job. i blundered into it. i got lucky. will investigative journalism continue to play as much in the role in the field of journalism as it has in the past? >> i hope so and i believe so. you mentioned in the introduction the investigative unit we put together with bryan ross and others. and invested in that at the time when there was a lot of pressure on resources. we put more resources into it. partly because i believe in it. i think it's one of the -- not the only, but one of the prince responsibilities. to find out whether government anemia people in power would rather you not know. it's core at the great journalism. i think it can be justified as a business matter because if you think about it in a world where there's more and more outlets many of whom are telling you different versions of the same thing. an exclusive investigative report is something that you really own. you can rise above the crowd and get attention and you can draw an audience too. i saw that i believe in the internet as we went to the internet. if we had a significant investigative report our traffic would spike immediately. it would go up. the good news i think this is one time you can do well when by doing god. i am hopeful for investigate i have work. let's be clear, it costs money. this is one of the things i talk about in the book. is the business of journalism is right next to the journalism. if you don't care about the business you don't care about the journalism. it requires investment of money. i took that seriously. i needed to manage the business side so we could do the journalism. scattered throughout probably be other questions that bear on the same topic. what is your view of the blatant right-wing reporting of fox news. is there any objective reporting done anymore and let's see here, without completely blurring the line between news reporting anded territorial extent? >> well, you've hit on a sore spot for me. as i said was the changing of -- fox news and later nbc which changed the environment. to go back and think of the mind set and how wrong we were when fox news and medicare c p northbound c ever -- msnbc. we missed the fact that what fox news was doing was something different. it was mixing palmics with news. it was a very powerful combination. and it's a brilliant business model. understand this it's a brilliant business model. and msnbc now appears to be taking chapter out of the book. the reason it's brilliant when you're supported by advertising, what mattering is getting as broad of -- of an audience you can. anybody you lose you lose ratings. when you go to the cable area, cable is supported every bit as sub contradiction fees by advertising. when you go to sub contradiction fees passion counts more than the size of the audience. you can make more money having a smaller audience that is passionate. when you have 10 or 15% of the audience who saysly turn off my cable box if you don't have that channel on, then you can command enormous rate out of the cable operator. it's a good smart business move. you see it in other parts of cable. it's not just news. i mean, you can see that hbo is a matter of passion. deep engagement. people who care about it have to have their hbo. disney channel has a deep engagement. when you go over into news what endwaijment has turned to is partisanship. you have right and you have left. and that in itself is not necessarily evil. we had opinion in newspapers. there's an editorial page. what is the problem and identified the question is the blurring of the line. it's when you mix the front page with the other page. i think it's dangerous. they owe it to tell you this because i believe it to be true. as posed to telling you this because i want it to be true. i'm telling you this because i think you wanted to be true. i figured you out and that's what you want. that's a danger mainly for society. i think our republican is weaker. we're not going to solve our problems if we're making up our own quotes. >> what, if anything, can be done about that? >> what i can do is name five television news anchors who care about the line and who struggle mightily not to violate it. the fact is we are all biased. everybody is biased. in the book i talk about this. i went to the university of michigan when we had the coach. if i covered a michigan football game, i would be biased. i might struggle not to be. i would be having a tough time doing that. the question is not biased. are we going fight against it or just give into it? and i think there's a big difference between those two. because the fact that everybody is bitessed doesn't mean you can't struggle to be less biased as opposed to embracing it and saying i'm fine and go with. absolutely george works really hard not to be biased. anchors. jake tapper, but bryan williams understand this, dianne sawier understand this. they succeed and fail. socialit's value their trying. not all news is created equal. there is a difference. there's a difference. i saw it in the experience with the struggle behind the scenes to do the right thing. >> how much do you think the absence of a strong federal role the fcc regulatory? i don't mean in telling what you what do say or do. with various regulations sort of keep things organized? with the disappearance that had that was there for many years. >> it's changed the nature of broadcasting. fcc and the federal government has never regulated cable the way they did broadcasting on the theory going back boo in to the '50st with the public air waives. you're holding something in public trust and obligation. and my own understanding of history is that in the early days of television, the bills of the world, the general -- essentially not explicitly made a deal with the government, they said if you let us run "i love lucy" we will build really good u news organization. i personally think it was a mistake to think there was wonderful people who decided out of the goodness of their heart they were going invest a lot in news. i'm not sure it happened. it was a good solid business decision made. it was informed by the fcc that you talk about. with deregulation that went away and so the rational for news had to shift. it came also frankly, at the time when broadcasting was expanding dramatically 60 minutes came on the scene and went into prime time which is a wonderful program. they ask a fabulous job. they made a lot of money off of it. it's a mixed decision, again, and so news had to start justifying itself by return to shareholders as well as reflecting well on the company and, you know, being god for the brand. and that is the reality we have today. i think that the change in federal regulation, and in fact, you can argue whether it's good or bad. in fact, the federal regulation did get into some substantive speech regulations and issues there were some issues about that. but the fact is, it's different, there's no question about it. >> elections and the old equal time rule. >> exactly. fairness doctrine equal time. >> are they missing elements now or the business doing better? is journalism better with them gone? >> i think those really valuable things, although, broadcasters certainly resisted at the time. they were valuable things at the time when you had three networks. this is exploded so much now. you can find anything. that's why part of my point is, we have to be our own editors now. it used to be the fact there were a few trusted editors nationally, whether it was print or broadcasting with it's not true anymore. everything is out there, and so all of us, as citizens, have a responsibility to be more discerning to be more thoughtful about what we're watching. one of my pete peeves is people who complain about the latest celebrity scandal and receipt every single detail to me about it. it's clear they're spending a lot of time paying attention to it. i want to to say don't watch it. if you don't watch it, they wouldn't do as much. i think we all bear a certain responsibility. if dprowr from your experience in the 2000 election and the national election how is the nature of political coverage in particular changing due to innovation, such as the internet and social media and we can expand on that some of your thoughts about both of those things. >> well, there are two at least two, i think, fundamental changes. the new cycle is turned from "24" hours into nano sets. the time to respond go around and times get picked up by main extremely media before they get denied. which is a real problem a real danger. people form it sticks in the back of their mind. it's been totally disproved. so that's one issue. the other issue, on a continuum that i saw because in the early days of my tenure, we already had presidential candidates, for example, moving away to some extent from news outlets and starting to do late night talk shows and daytime talk shows. that exploded in social media. political candidates go directly to their people. it's all done on twitter. . . audience questions and you certainly have sparked -- this isçó a card that says a÷my person sitting here in the room with you.jf 9/11 occurred. we watched british, friend and italian media because of american reporting was so far behind with information, why? [laughter]i]çor that is the first time that i heard that.w3 you know. certainlyt( wasn't intentional you know.lp it is interesting.lp different on that. having been in the control room. and our challenge was to get the information in so quickly we couldn't vet. and one of the things that having been in the newsroom. thelpñi feelingfá waslp to castr minlz out there. it was sojf unthinkable what happened. the first planest(çó flown into the two hours.i]fáqxd peter jennings kept on reporting correctingjf the reporter on the scene. no the building came down. andi] there was apart of it. peter could not believe it. none of us could. it was unimaginable what was going on. >> on top of that, we know looking back exactly pretty much what happened. you know. talking about the pentagon. and the time, the reports that there were other planes. there was also sorts of buildings that were unattack. bizarre reports that and given what happened. could you not rule anything out.ts &hc% we were frantically trying and at the timeñr -- and i do not blame theq government for this, we were not getting anything out of the government.(zeyrñ the federal gt had shut down. >> vice president cheney had gone into the secure location in a bunker.fá president bush was on air force one and again they were doing that.xd they were worried about the security of the country. but it left us by our out there andc trying to figure out and vet these things and to figure out what was going on in the reports the best that we could.q i am not sure whatfáxd information was reported first. england and france. that was the first time that i heard tv. the one thing that i could promise is that we were not holding anything back because we thought that we should. by the way.ñi not online 9/11 itself but pdays after that, there was ñ on the certain reporting.e1 >ñk they thought that it was i am suree.c in good faith on that and sayçó5a we do not think that is a good idea. if the nation ever had the sense that the government was a greig with the media to hold it back, then theok media would not be able to trust anybody so. we will not be able to do that.t(çów3 >> i want to you read the book. that is one of thexd exciting chapters and our own conde rice'slp role to execute the wishes of the white house on >> so you seem to be emotionally involved in the debate about what to do. and putting your patriotism against your news judgment i guess to be the way. >> you had something in thefáe1 book that you talk abo34zq!jdtqn or notq?ñi >> that is in theq 9/11 chapter.imjdtq) rá was a couples after nine lever. we were on the air non-stop. and i was in control withñi and press-9 calls asking why there was a american8fzez the lapel.t( some of the people had gone into -- by the wayé@ with thejf leg of the backdropui] andjf u. long before i was there that nobody wore any lapel pen on the air. and that thew3 rashw3 nells when you reporting the we had been attacked and#xe had thousands of inemq civilians killed. but i thought you know. sooner or later that there would have to be aparting of the ways here to report on the administration. in away that distances ourselves. i don't want people to be confused. >> the other thing i would be perfectly honest. flashing through our minds( you do not4yáujp &hc% think about it.çó you needãa response. i thought wei] do have a canadian. what will happen when i go to peter and say peter. have you to wear thef3.s american la 3e8 pin. he became a citizen and war patriotic. it made meok think we will start to differentiate. whether they wear the lapen pin or not so i said no. juájt+ip &hc% it was veryfá controversiad i came under the fair apartment of criticism for the pos)(+zjy >> by the way. i respect people the other side of that. i would make the same decision today. it was the right decision. >> and in the reading.q control room involved. and there as many hours. people were working for you. talk a little bit about that part of your management style? >> well,3ww3 içóe1 don'2áf myself as axd micromanager. at the same time particularly when it is ñc3 will you have to be in the process.ñi for several reasons.lp >> one reason isñi thatñi q don't want to expose your peopleñi all over themselv. you will be able to be inça position to back them up. we will talk with it. and agree with the position.jf and and finance involvedxdn the decision if in a thec#e doing your job correctly. also aq news oerg station likeñr that, particularly n breaking news, you cane1 go wrong. it is very exciting.ñr let me make this clear. being in alive control room so i do not want toq act like it is a big burden. butñi part this excitements goinglp wrong in the insta. you know. you arexd called upon to me certain judgements. do we go with the story. not go with the story.e1 if you get it wrong. you will be pretty bad. you know. if you have something like ñ really great. ''t really great. say. okay let's take time out now and take five minutes and go off to the side and have a conversation about this. would i go down on the set and sort of talk to him to the side and say this is what we are doing. what do you want to do with that. >> and you had toxb:"áq process.cipate in the you could not do that from a remote distance. it would notlp be fair tox% control room to say that you will make your own call. and if it goes wrong. it will be on your head. i would have toón$beñi in there. i decide that had. °m7gçót( writing about the e calls and some that you have thought over and wondered if you made the right decision. >> some that i got wrong. >> you mind sharing a short ulrr i do. 2000 election.ok >> think about it. we got the election here. wrong twice in one night. you know. projecting it for vice president gore. >> and relatively+ in the evening in florida. we had to pull it down after a couple of hours.ñi and at 2:30 in the morningp  down after a couple of ho y;ñok-9 tie election. could you not project anything that night. you know. jt)jájjjt error was greater than the margin of the difference of the votes. hrso i partd it. call.ñr everybody else. the other networks. cable andw3 broadcast were we could have just held back. i was in the control room. they asked me do you want to over rule? >> no a decision and our "ecision desk said yes,ur this is okay.ok we went through it. and i could haveçó been noa hero but in a better position than i was testifying before the congress.r on how we could have gotten something that wrong twice inw3 one night. >> you have encouraged people several times tonight to watch and look and listen. with the new rules surrounding expenditure of the funds and abundance of commercial messages.ó[ could overshadow theñr news version of events by running just volumes of theseqñi one sidet[ñ they are paying for it. the messages. >> it looks like they are certainly trying. it looks like they are trying to overcome the news organizations.t(r moj -- money and politics.d partisanship. and right and left. i do not think?nm that we would spend as much time as we could, follow the money on. but all that i could say ip that it is up to the news organizationes to do their best to counter act that. whether there are things to shine a light on it.çó but ultimately this is true for the entire country.t(xd we have to trust the people. weñr have to trust the peo] ultimately in the 'g-term. to be disconcerning and smart enough, to be q%1 enough the way that peter was skeptical to make the best decision? i was wony%ìc% crossed align that had been the formula that ñ cannot be as relyablyñrp, organizations to get ahead? so mucht( social media. and twitter.çóxd so many ways to receive both good and bad information. >> iñi don't knowxd the anr i would say that. there was a number of times in the history of the country that people thought it was going south.çó some of the countries alwaysfáqlp come back. core of that. has worked awful well for the country for a long time. and so i don't know. i wouldn't bet against the system.e1 even with the stresses and the strains offáq everythig from mediaw3 toq those pacs ej"uz invest in the negativepacs tiesments. >> at what point abc news did you fi.ó the background in law was your appropriate than the field of journalism and addressing the challenges facing news today? of course there were legald issues comingnb up that i knew something about and i that would be everything fro1,ñi ken starr and the grand jury investigation to ñ verses gore decision of the supreme court whether it went upsp] supreme court and went down the second time. i could speak with confidence about the way of cod and not with how they woulr come out but how they worked in general. worked in general. where it is to get information. have you thought it through and would you do it any different? >> first of all, you know i think basically, it's the same in this respect. the question is, how much of the truth can you learn about something that matters? that is what the core question is and that is true whether it's happening quickly or slowly and you have to resist the temptation to go quick weight in order to do that in the second thing is always be willing to correct yourself. i think sometimes journalists are too reluctant to go back and say do you know what i believed it was true but it turns out it wasn't exactly what i thought it was or maybe even -- to what i thought it was but the basic quest for truth is the same whether it's social media or whether it's more traditional media. >> unfortunately we have reached the point where there is time for one more question. so could you explain your new role as news right -- at 79 how will interact with -- >> what we are doing is representing a number of newspapers and the "associated press" and developing a business model with the same original journalism and the digital age. that is the mission and the basic idea is this huge growth actually in the news but almost all of it on the internet and mobile and much of the information we consume ultimately comes from newspapers but it's not a newspaper site. to third-party sites he takes the information. the question is can we develop reasonable licensing in ways that we can still afford different borders that we all need in this country. >> are thanks to you, david westin former president of abc news and author of the new book, subseven. we also want to thank r. abbott -- audience on the radio, television and internet. >> booktv continues now with more from our recent visit to louisville kentucky. the city has had a rich political history founded in 1778 and named after louis the 16th. louisville was given his first town charter in 1780 by thomas jefferson. zachary taylor the president of the united states was raised and is buried in louisville. up next we take a look at politics in the modern age. this is just under 15 minutes. >> the internet is revolutionizing the way people obtain and process information, and as a result, changing the fundamental ways that we interact with government. and as a result, i think altering to the very core the way we think about politics, the way we elect officials, the way we interact with government overall. until just a handful of years ago, i mean we thought we knew the internet, how people were going to use it. we thought we had some sense of of it and tell facebook hits and twitter hits. not enough can be said about how much that has altered the way people gather information. there is political science theory out there that suggests people, that participation particularly in the united states didn't paint a tremendously over the last 50 years or so, just gradually declining and declining in one of the theories asserted out there as to why is that social capital is on decline in social capital can be in the simplest term thought of this sort of an interconnectedness between people and then if people generate social capital, they are compelled to participate in the process. one of the ways social capital is built is through social networking and in the pre-and internet world people thought of this as joining groups, as being you know, being part of civic groups, being part of bowling leagues, things of this nature and since social media -- my co-author and i argue in the book that social media is reconnecting people. now we are not going to assert that it can replace face-to-face interaction because it doesn't. that said, we offer something that we didn't have prior to and so people are beginning to exchange information. most people have a facebook page and they no, they will have some friends who are posting up political news. some friends who aren't. nonetheless, you can't begin to feel a part of a community and facebook has taken this a step further into where they are using algorithms to predict which friends you interact with the most. so those are the friends that are going to show up in your homepage. so if you are having friends who, birds of a feather flock together. people who tends to have friends with similar political views might be those who are more likely to start showing up on their facebook page, so then the news stories that they post, what ends up happening is a lot of people get information that reinforces their own predispositions because they are getting things that are supportive from their friends. and what we found in the book is, we used survey data and measure how much and in what ways people are using social media, and then test to see if it actually does increase political participation which is -- you know it's social if social networking via the internet is stimulating social capital than we would expect there to be a relationship between social media use and political participation and we find that is the case, even when holding constant sort of traditional predict there's of participation. so if we control for people's socioeconomic status, age, income, education and the traditional predict there's of whether somebody is going to participate or not, even holding those things constant. heightened social media use predicts an increase in voting, and political participation and a whole range of different ways. when we think about political participation most people tend to think of it simply as phony. if you vote that is particular participation and yes that's true true but reconceptualize for following scholars that came before us on this front. political participation is much broader. they're signing petitions, going to rallies, writing letters to your congressman or state legislators. contributing money to a campaign, a whole range of different things of that nature that you know, so what we end up doing is we actually create a measure that incorporates all of those kinds of things and then look at how on line social media use relates to this and find that on line social media use predicts that type of broad participation. where i think the biggest ramifications are, it's around the way people process information. cognitively. most of the things, sort of the formal ways that government uses the internet to campaign or whether it be for open source kind of information, that kind of thing, that is all being worked out. what we don't know a lot about yet is the way that it changes how people perceive their world. and i think that people, any attitude that we have about our surrounding world, really nothing more, it's just a product of the information we have successful. i see some object whether it be political or a tree or anything and then i draw upon whatever information i have to evaluate what i think about it. and when it comes to politics, most of that information is coming from media, you know, conversations with friends, these kinds of things. that is where that information is coming from and we are constantly updating this information. now, that is just sort of a theory about how people evaluate the world around them and how we process it and why we would think one thing over another so you can go into somebody's mind and if you could measure if you have this type of information than you can predict a range of things. if all of this information is coming from the outside world from the most part and we have this new mechanism, the internet, that i think is coupled with the fact that people do not like to take in information that challenges their own predispositions. it's uncomfortable. it goes back to 50 psychology theory and we don't like information that challenges our predisposition because it doesn't feel good. this is why you know, your "fox news," your "msnbc," why they are hip because they just feed people information that reinforces their own predispositions. everybody is happy, everybody is comfortable. well the internet facilitates this process because people can self-select even easier than they can by picking "fox news" and even if you watch "fox news" or if you watch "msnbc," you were going to be forced to get some of the alternative view. the internet, not so much. i mean, it's very easy for people to pick blogs, to pick a range of information that supports their own predispositions. their social networks, their people, so i think that the future, like what is the future of this? it's that the internet, as disseminators of information, media and what not, becomes more and more savvy to them and use it for marketing, that it's going to further polarize people because what is going to happen is people's attitudes are going to become more and more crystallized and back to my original point, if it is nothing more more than a summation of the information you have and now the more and more you are constantly updating this information and the more and more you get, it's just reinforcing information, then your attitude is going to be crystallized from both the left and the right. so it creates polarization. we measure this in the book, and find evidence that people do indeed self-select information and that as a result attitudes become more extreme and polarize. now, after we looked at that, that is one indication. everybody automatically assumes that a polarized country is a bad thing. you know people think, oh that's terrible. that means there is conflict in all of this. one of the other things we found that was one of the most interesting things in the book i think was that the more one-sided information, the more likely they were to participate in the process. i know that most americans think that they believe it's a good thing for us to participate. it's a good thing for us to faux. you know, we know that people believe that so strongly that if you look at surveys and ask postelection, survey the public on whether or not they voted, after every election, somewhere in the range of 75 to 80% of the public claims to have voted and we know in the presidential election years it is only about 50% so that means somewhere in the range of 20 to 30% of the american public is willing willing to liar to a complete stranger and say they voted when they didn't. now that is funny in itself but what it tells us is that there is an incredible pressure in this country that we are socialized that you have to though. get out there and vote. people are embarrassed if they didn't so they are more likely, they are more comfortable lying to somebody about it than they are saying they didn't do it so that is how americans think participation is important and if that is the case, our results suggest that as the country -- as people, not as a country but let's say at the individual level, as people's attitudes become more and more polarized, they are more likely to participate. so the internet is indeed polarizing people, perhaps a positive byproduct of that is participation. >> now from louisville kentucky we hear from local author dewey clayton. this book is the presidential campaign of barack obama. >> how historic was the campaign of barack obama? >> it was a transformative election. we have had 43 previous presidents and they have all been white and they had all been males. so here comes a young senator, who has said old and innovative strategy as to how to win the white house. many people felt that it wasn't his time and many people felt it wasn't the time for an african-american. he was in the democratic try mary running against bill clinton who had the name clinton, the biggest largest brand party. she had a considerable war chest to get -- warchest advantage and a lot of recognition and the fact that he was actually able to go up against the war hero, maverick in the general election and america was truly incredible sometime between 2006, 2005, 2006, sometime in there, i know people began telling him in various forums that we think that the time is now right for you. one of his advisers said that you know timing is everything in politics and one of his advisers a think in early 2005 said even though others may be saying that this is absurd, began saying that now might be your time and clearly one typical moment was the speech that he delivered. he gave the keynote address at the democratic national convention in 2004, and when he delivered that speech, he became a rock star almost overnight, and that clearly sort of catapulted him, his stock in his ability to sort of get voters. most people when they mention barack obama many people will refer back to that speech where he talks about racial reconciliation and many people think that in that speech, he knew what he was doing and he was laying the groundwork for america to move forward with the presidency. in 2006, when there was the midterm elections, congressional elections, he campaigned for democratic candidates throughout the country so not only did people get to know him in doing that but he got to know the country as well and i think about.it was nonstop. he knew very well that it would be very difficult to. the previous african-americans who had run for president had not fared very well. reverend jesse jackson had made two unsuccessful runs in the 19 -- 1984 and 1988 and reverend al sharpton ran in 2004 is well along with former senator carol moser von. he knew it would be difficult particularly because in america one of the things that has existed and is changing now is the fact that a condition of racially polarized voting very much exists in this country and that is where white voters largely vote for white candidates in black voters largely vote for black candidates so barack obama will rise but if you were going to win, the presidency, he would have to run a different style of campaign than traditional african-american candidates ran. and so therefore, he developed -- he's not the first to develop this but he decided to run a eraser lies campaign and to downplay his -- and so unlike jesse jackson or al sharpton who ran as an african-american candidate, obama ran as the candidate who happen to be african-american and there is a big distinction here. that was a large emphasis that he placed on his campaign from the beginning, and it was a successful one as well. that was just one tenant of his overall strategy. early on, barack obama's team or team obama, decided that they were going to run a grassroots campaign or a bottom-up campaign as opposed to a top-down campaign. one of the ways i think that, one of the keys to this was using a new media, social media and particularly the internet. so early on, they began organizing in an incredible way -- in other words back in 2004, howard dean, the democratic candidate, had first began -- again using the internet, but dean did not take it to the level that obama did. one of the things that obama did early on is he hired one of the founders of facebook, chris hughes, and he hired him to be the head of his sort of technology team as such, and so he decided that, if i create this media called my barack obama.com which is very much identical to facebook, then i'm going to recruit -- i will make it easier for young people to go on my web site and access it and getting gauge. so to answer your question, hillary clinton -- largely by using social media and how organizing her. when hillary clinton and john edwards were going around iowa making campaign appearances, barack obama always held numerous events where literally hundreds of thousands of people had since mobilized and begun the organizing, campaigning, working others, recruiting others and the likes of which we have not seen ever before. in fact joe trippi who was howard dean's campaign manager, said that the dean campaign's use of the internet, they were like the wright brothers and he said obama was like the apollo team. so he really took it to another level. and the iowa caucus, which was the first caucus held in january january 2008, out of nowhere brought obama won in iowa. he won the iowa caucuses. had he lost the iowa caucuses, he probably would have lost the election because i think if hillary clinton had so much wind behind her sales that she would have been unstoppable but by him winning fair, i think that said not just to white america but to black america as well that he was a viable candidate, and people began to say, we need to take a second look at him. he also got some major endorsements which do not did not hurt him. opera went very early on decided she was going to support barack obama and began campaigning for him. ultimately jesse jackson, al sharpton and others came on but i think clearly it was just a movement. it was a tidal wave in people began to hear him, see him plus there was the realization by many that this was an african-american who had a legitimate chance to win an any people began saying, never thought i would see this in my lifetime. so it was just, it was a wonderful time in american history. people clearly, when i was going to campaign, i would be asking people, there was an opportunity that this person could be the first african-american president. >> can you compare his 2008 campaign to the campaign that he is running now? >> you can compare it because there is still a lot of similarities although some things have changed. clearly, at that point, we had for for the first time -- we did not have a president who was is running for a second term and the vice president was not running as well so you had basically in open seat as such for the presidency. however, he was able to sort of run on the record of the previous president, that being george bush. this time he is incumbent. it's a little different ballgame when you are in combat -- when you are dealing. it's not as easy to sort of -- you have to take responsibility for what has happened so although he has run the same type of campaign, the rules are different. for one, obama out raised john mccain in the 2008 election considerably and one way he did that was, as i talked about the media and whatnot, so he raised almost a billion dollars in that campaign. that was unheard of. that was the most money that had been raised by a single candidate in an election ever. in 2010 we have the supreme court decision, citizens united versus the ftc settled that is change the rules as far as money is concerned. so now, we have the creation of super pacs, who can raise unlimited amounts of money and just this past quarter we found out that the romney campaign had actually out raised president obama by $17 million. so already, we see these advantages that obama had as a candidate in 2008, probably have disappeared and that money again was very helpful for him and his ability to execute a 50 state strategy in 2008. that is one change we are seeing and once again he is the current president. the current president -- it doesn't matter. many people still may blame him because unemployment is still up at 8.2%. many people are unemployed. housing values have fallen so the strategy is different, and so the message of hope and change has had to change, because many people are not satisfied with it. one of the things that, as our american political system has made clear now, is that the president cannot do everything unilaterally. i think a lot of people had expectations that he could do so much but in reality, he had to work with congress to do a lot of things and many people would argue that the current progress -- congress that he has worked with particularly since 2010 has been largely recalcitrant and has been largely unwilling to sort of work with him to help create much of the legislative agenda that he has won in the past, so that is another difficulty. he is clearly facing those challenges but as far as the type of campaign he is running, think clearly he is still using the internet and i still think he's organizing in an incredible manner that i think his opponent may not be aware of at this point. there something called dashboard the administration has moved into it now and that's the ability to identify voters and target them specifically so i still think much of the way he campaigned before he will campaign again this time. but there is the hope and change, that's not totally with us now and so he faces many more challenges particularly as i said the economy. that is something that he is going to have to deal with. however a lot of people still go more than likely see that in spite of the economy, he is moving in that direction -- the country in the right direction so many people will not hold that against him, like i said, because he inherited an

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