a major chunk of washington journalism is filled in through the prism of the white house, which is why you see so many reporters standing right here on the north lawn. and a good bit of that coverage involves the man whose job it is to deal with the media. as anyone who's ever watched robert gibbs in the briefing room well knows that can get pretty contentious. >> didn't expect to have this package within a party about the public option? >> again, contrived almost entirely by you guys. >> with all due respect, and i sympathize with you trying to explain the vice president's comments, but that's not even remotely close to what he said. he was asked about if a member of his family said -- >> i understand what he said, and i'm telling you what he meant to say. >> gibbs is the man who speaks for president obama. a longtime adviser which must come up with what his boss derives as the speeded up and media culture. i sat down with him right across the alley from the white house. robert gibbs, welcome. >> how are you? >> excellent. what do you make of all the media speculation about who the president will pick for the supreme court? you've got your front runner, elena kagan, your short list, your medium list. what do you think? >> well, i think there is a space between the announcement of that retirement until the introduction of the president's pick that has to be filled and it will take up a lot of column inches and a lot of airtime between now and then. >> you float some trial balloons here at the white house, that's been known to happen. >> we have -- we have -- we have certainly given people a sense of the size of a perspective list. i think this president, obviously, we have names that were not picked that the president looked at for the opening a year ago -- >> last time, right, but i've described this accurately as the president looking at a number of nominees, not just ones that were looked at last time, but we'll give him a lot of choices. >> apparently so are we. president obama regularly takes jabs as the news business. he seems to enjoy tweaking those of us, especially in cable news. here he is with matt lauer. >> i haven't noticed that at all. >> it gets spun up with the way the media covers politics, the 24/7 news cycle and the cable chart and the talk radio and the internet and the blogs. all of which tend to feed the most extreme sides of any issue. >> now, this amuses me, because you guys play the game. you put people out on the shows, you talk to bloggers, you have anchors and correspondents in for off the record lunches, so you're a willing participant in that news cycle. >> well, you either have to participate in it or you're at the mercy of it. i will say, i'm always amused when i turn on the television and two people are at the same location, but in boxes that make it appear as if somehow they don't just not subscribe to what the other one believes, but they're physically separated from any common viewpoint. >> the hollywood squares. >> i think the president believes, having traveled around this country for so long now, that there's far more that unites us than divides us. that the truth is, what makes really good television are not two people that are at the end of a four or five-minute segment are going to come to an agreement, but at the end of a four or five-minute segment are maybe 30 seconds away from doing each other bodily harm. f >> how much cable news does the president watch? >> very little. >> how does he know how bad it is? >> you don't have to watch much of it to watch -- to watch the worldwide wrestling impact of how issues are bandered around. >> he is right in some of his criticism about a lot of the chatter and debate being pointless and partisan, but i kind of get the impression that what really bugs him is the cable chatter that the white house doesn't like. guys don't complain about msnbc, whose opinion -- >> well, i don't -- i think if you were to talk to individual hosts at msnbc, you would know that we've been on the other end of many of those phone calls. i don't -- look, again, i think it's -- i think it's when you take an issue that's as important as many that we're dealing with, again, and boil it down to a 2 1/2 or a four-minute segment where people yell at each other, i'm not entirely sure what that does for people that watch -- maybe that's why, quite frankly, less people are watching. >> well, that is true. >> i would say this too. >> a lot of people watching fox, though. >> i would say -- >> let me ask you about fox. the white house campaign against fox news. d did that end when fox's news bret bear was invited in? >> i'll let fox determine whether or not they got out of that interview what they wanted to get out i have based on the fact that -- i think the uniqueness of having an interview with the president is getting to sit as close as we are and having that insight. this is the last interview the president did before something as historic as health care passed. i don't think historians will look back and think, we really got a look of what the president was thinking. >> but has the white house moved on from criticism of fox? >> we live in the town in which you have to play the game and we're happy to put guests on, happy to do interviews. obviously, i take questions from their correspondent each and every day in the briefing. i don't think many people have to watch fox to understand the political slant that they have. >> in their news coverage as well as their opinion shows? >> here's a good example. the president signed the stark treaty last week and there was a lot of debate about whether us reducing our nuclear warheads was making this country less safe. and then the anchor disappeared and for several seconds, there was a 1960s video footage of a nuclear test and a mushroom cloud. now, what you didn't see was, you didn't see in any of that where the last time we're particular with seeing pictures of start treaties being signed are that of ronald reagan, or when the president makes a pledge to end nuclear weapons on our planet -- >> reagan did the same thing. >> so i think in that case, you are, and you've mentioned that their increase in cable numbers, they're feeding an audience that they know wants to see and hear a certain side of that argument. >> and speaking of detractors of this administration, barack obama, on several occasions, has called out by name rush limbaugh, glenn beck, sean hannity. doesn't he elevate their stature when he does that? >> well, their stature is largely evaluated by the people who listen. again, it's one of those things where if you're not -- you have, in all, i think in a lot of different phases of the media, people can make statements that aren't checked, right? the media in some cases covers the food fight, but doesn't necessarily check who started it and whether they started it for a reason that was legitimate or not. >> so you want more fact checking, more accountability? >> well, i think you -- i think instead of covering the food fight, covering whether or not when people say is, in fact, right or wrong. >> on that point -- on the that point, i gragree with you. president obama has not held a full-scale news conference since last july. and i know your stock answer, >> howard, what did you -- here's my question for you, what do you think he did last tuesday afternoon at the nuclear security summit? >> he took some questions. >> he took some questions. how many questions? >> you tell me. >> he took eight questions for probably half an hour. >> okay. what would you consider what he did in february when he went into the briefing room and took -- i'll help you out on that one, six or seven questions. >> a mini news conference. but, look, clearly from the first six months of the term, where you were having a number of prime-time news conferences, and i know the president said he was overexposed then -- >> he wasn't, but -- >> you guys have pulled back from that particular format and decided it's not in your interest to have that many -- >> howard, if it's not in my interest, why did i have the president take eight questions from eight different news outlets -- and when i say eight questions, in some ways, i'm being charitable, because if you watch any of the questions, there's two or three at a time. so the notion that -- this president has done more interviews, more town hall meetings, where he takes questions from everyday people. and i'll tell you this, howard, i'm in my seventh year of working for him as a state senator, as a senate candidate, as a u.s. senator, as a presidential candidate, and now as president. there hasn't been one time in the 500 or 1,000 times that we've done town hall meetings that i've ever known what somebody wanted to ask and when they wanted to ask it. so this president has taken questions through countless interviews, through answering questions through the media -- >> i'm not arguing that he's not accessible to the media. just making the point about the news conferences. but i appreciate your pushback. >> i think this is a great arbitrary washington measure of -- >> how accessible a president is. >> but it isn't. i don't know if you would consider talking to scott wilson at t"the washington post" -- >> i think all of those interviews are important, but i think there's a hunger for more press conferences. let's move on and ask you about the art of the leak. a couple weeks ago "the new york times" had a front page story about the president about to announce the next day about a new policy on offshore oil drilling. on conditions that they not be identified. that's what i would call an authorized leak. why is it in the white house's interest to leak a story before he makes the announcement? >> it's interesting, because we talk about the news cycle, and if you think about it what it used to be 10 years ago or 15 years ago, you would say the news cycle lasted, you know, several hours, six hours, eight hours. the news cycle now is continuous. right? every reporter, quite honestly, is a wire reporter, because immediately their copy goes up on the internet. >> and we all blog. >> right. and twitter and all that sort of thing. >> so you need to get out ahead of that cycle? >> this thing, the news cycle starts at 5:00 a.m. in the morning. it lasts probably until 10:00 or 11:00 at night. it sleeps only a little bit before it all starts again. and on occasion, we want to get ahead of what the news is going to be that day by letting folks know. i will say this, you know, we had a discussion with the white house correspondents earlier in the year about the use of background sources. and i offered the correspondents' association, i said, let's end background. right? we won't do background, you don't do background. >> and the reaction? >> the specific offer was, if you've got a background source, one, you should put them on the record, and if you're not going to put them on the record, them have somebody at the white house -- >> give them an on the record response to what they have to say. >> give them an opportunity to say if that is or is not true and we'll attach our name to it. >> is that because you don't like -- look, we just talked about an authorized leak, but every single day there are leaks. senior administration officials say this, that, and the other thing about internal meetings, what did rahm said, axelrod say about advice to the president. you don't like those stories? >> mostly because it's because of people that didn't win an argument -- >> right. >> -- in a policy discussion where the president made a different decision and then they want to find some way to litigate it in the media. now, i'm fine with that. >> we have the cameras rolling, but don't you ever speak to cameras in the background? >> absolutely. but i've offered to end it. but it's got to be a two-way street. like i said, i'm happy to -- if somebody feels to passionately about an argument that they just lost that they want to call somebody at "the washington post" up, why would they not use their name? >> because they don't want to be identified. >> but, again -- >> so you think we -- you think journalists shouldn't accept that? >> i think what we can all do is do better. and i think we can all put what we want to say to the american people and the news media all on the record. >> back live in the studio. more of my one on one with robert gibbs in a moment, including why he says press briefings get so contentious. and his newest love affair, twitter. when i grow up, i want to fix up old houses. ♪ [ woman ] when i grow up, i want to take him on his first flight. i want to run a marathon. i'm going to work with kids. i'm going to own my own restaurant. when i grow up, i'm going to start a band. 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(announcer) fiber one. cardboard no. delicious yes. so, at national, i go right past the counter... and you get to choose any car in the aisle. choose any car? you cannot be serious! okay. seriously, you choose. go national. go like a pro. more now with my sit-down at the old executive office building with robert gibbs. when you're in the briefing room and just getting hammered by reporters on whatever's the hot issue of the day, it seems you have about 57 ways of not answering the question. you'll tell a joke, give a very long answer, say, i'll get back to you on that. i sometimes get the impression that you don't like to make news at these briefings. >> no, i think, i will tell you, howard, i spent a lot of time thinking -- not a lot of time, i've spent some tile thinking, i wonder what the briefings would be like if it really wasn't a cable tv show. >> if it was mike mccurry who let the cameras in. >> and i think mike would be the first one to tell you, it was both the best and the worst decision that he ever made. >> so you think the correspondents are playing to the cameras? >> i think we all are. i'm not absolving myself from that. >> right. >> but i think -- >> but sometimes there are perfectly straightforward questions not necessarily asked with a whole lot of flam buoyance that you sort of dance around and you see that as your job. >> if i give a longer answer, it's my hope to give a broader set of context to what may or may not be being asked. >> and you know that 20 seconds of that, at most, might get used on an evening newscast. >> but i think there are people that will watch the whole briefing or will read the transcript of the briefing. and i think, again, what's important is, there are so many issues that we're dealing with that are hard to boil down to 20 seconds. >> financial regulation. not a 20-second -- >> exactly. and that's why, you know, one of the things that we're trying to do more of is bring folks like we did with secretary geithner, bring them into the briefing room to talk directly to the white house press corps about the issues that we're working on on financial reform, what are our bottom lines, but i do wonder, again i wonder at times what it would be like if we turned the cameras off and we could just have a discussion -- i sometimes joke that i know when somebody thinks they have a good question, because when i walk in, they've already got their makeup. >> i think the networks wouldn't cotton to that suggest, but i take your point. before i let you go, you recently joined twitter. and i've got to tell you, at first you were kind of boring. kind of putting out the talking points and linking to articles, but lately you seem like you've gotten into it and you even weeted about an 18-mile bike ride. >> i needed some advice on how to -- on some biking. >> what do you get out of being on twitter? >> well, i got on twitter the president -- i hesitate to call it a news conference, because i don't want to -- >> when the president did his mini news conference in february, there are the seats along the wall that normally my deputies sit in when i'm up there. so i sat in one of these seats -- >> and they're all -- >> right. bill burton had his laptop and twitter up. and to me, it was fascinating, because i'm watching the white house press corps sitting 10 or 15 feet away from me, reacting to and responding to the questions that were asked and the answers that the president were giving. >> so you're getting a realtime glimpse of what was going on in their heads. >> it, to me, was fascinating. and i thought it was an amazing tool to know, okay, i mean, it's my job to know what is important to reporters. and this was, to me, a great immediate yomedium to do that. i also think it's a fabulous medium to communicate with not just the white house press corps, but tens of thousands of people that want to know what the president is doing or a picture of who he met with and i found it to be fascinating. >> but, of course, instead of being in the 24-hour news cycle, you're now in the 24-second news cycle on twitter. >> well, it takes an amazing amount of discipline to write out all of what you want to say in 140 characters or less. if you ever -- if you ever watch me do it, it takes me a few minutes to sort of edit even myself down. i just think it's a fascinating, fast-moving medium. i am trying to do a little bit -- i'm balancing the fact that it is a -- it's a white house -- it's an official white house account with also sharing -- >> your own person -- >> right, some sort of interesting things. >> you're the first white house press secretary to have to communicate in 140 characters. >> it's a great challenge. but it's -- i tell you, it's a lot of fun. >> robert gibbs, thanks very much for sitting down with us today. >> thank you. >> after that interview, gibbs tweeted that he had gone kayaking. now, we don't yet have a supreme court nominee, as gibbs and i discussed, but the white house denounced cbs news this week for a report on one leading contender, solicitor general, elena kagan. the cbs website reprinted a column by conservative blogger ben come niche saying that kagan would become, quote, the first openly gay justice. administration officials, speaking on background, say kagan isn't gay, and when cbs refused to delete the posing, anita dunn told me the network was posting lies. cbs news.com eventually killed the column and the network and comeich apologized. and coming up, outing oprah, kitty kelley takes on the queen of daytime in her latest controversial celebrity biography. plus, courting conan. the late-night funny man moving to basic cable. is this a giant step down for the comic who once held forth on "the tonight show"? 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[ male announcer ] honey nut cheerios tastes great and can help lower cholesterol. bee happy. bee healthy. oprah is a billionaire who sits atop a sizable media empire. syndicated talk show, production company, "o" magazine, and the forthcoming oprah winfrey network, but she keeps her distance from most ordinary journalists, granting few interviews these days and using her mini platforms to shape and control her image. >> this has been very embarrassing to me and i deeply regret leaving the impression that i did from the larry king show that the tr