>> if you turn one young man away, think of the repercussions for that. you know, he could've put a roadside bomb somewhere. he could have killed a family somewhere in iraq or syria. i mean, it's incalculable, the value. >> woodruff: plus, we remember "washington post" editor ben bradlee who led the paper's historic coverage of the watergate scandal. >> it changes your life, the pursuit of truth. at least, if you know that you have tried to find the truth it's very exciting, i find. >> woodruff: those are some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> supported by the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation. committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. more information at macfound.org >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> ifill: chaos came to the heart of canada's capital city today. a rare mass shooting left one soldier and a gunman dead, and three people wounded. it also triggered a day of high drama that included unconfirmed reports of multiple attackers and speculation about whether a terror group was involved. >> at 9:52 a.m. this morning, the ottawa police service received multiple 9-11 calls regarding a shooting at the national war memorial. >> ifill: witnesses to that initial incident at the memorial site say a man dressed all in black with a rifle gunned down one of the honor guard. from there, they say he ran toward the main parliament building, a short distance away in central ottawa. within moments, more shooting erupted. police and soldiers quickly descended on the building, with weapons drawn. footage taken by a "globe and mail" newspaper reporter captured the sound of gunfire echoing down the halls. >> shots, don't really know. thought it was dynamite or construction rather than anything else. suddenly the security guard's come rushing down the hallways, usher us all out to the back of the parliamentary buildings. >> ifill: a cabinet minister said the shooter ran right past a room where prime minister stephen harper was addressing lawmakers. ottawa police confirmed later the gunman was shot and killed, but a search of the area continued through the afternoon. >> what we're asking the community is to be is to continue to be aware, to be vigilant and to report any suspicious activity that they deem is serious that could impact their safety. >> ifill: the attack came just two days after a man with islamist ties killed a canadian soldier with his car near montreal before being shot dead. after that, canadian authorities raised the national threat level, but they say they had no warning of what was to come today. >> i thinks its still too early to confirm that but i think that from our reaction i think that it caught us by surprise. >> ifill: in the aftermath, the canadian military closed public access to all of its bases. and president obama spoke by phone with prime minister harper, and offered american help. >> ifill: campbell clark is chief political writer for the "globe and mail" newspaper. i spoke to him a short time ago about the surprising attack in canada's capital. >> for half hour, hour we've been hearing reports about who the shooter may have been. there has been a name reported, but we don't know too much about him yet. a lot of it is speculation, but there is now some suspicion that this is somebody who was probably inspired by islamist ideology and isil. that's not confirmed, and the police certainly haven't confirmed the identity yet. >> ifill: let's get back to what we do know about what happened today. there is a definite connection as far as we know to what happened at the war memorial and what happened at the parliament, is that correct? >> that's correct, yes. there was somebody who was shot and killed at the war memorial, and then just a few minutes away at the parliament building there were shootings a few minutes later. it's not clear if there was one shooter, two shooters, three shooters, but it does appear the person who did the shooting at the war memorial ran toward the parliament building. the person who did the shooting in the parliament building was shot dead in the hall of honor. you walk in the front door of the parliament building and that hall right there. >> ifill: shot by the sergeant at arms, we understand. >> shot by the sergeant at arms. that's a ceremonial position, but he's also the head of security, and he's a former royal canadian mounted police officer, so he was the man who shot the suspect. >> ifill: do we know if there is a connection between what happened today and what happened in montreal not too long ago? >> no, we don't. on monday there was a hit-and-run of two soldiers, so they were also soldiers. one of them was killed, and then the assailant, the person who ran over these two soldiers was shot by police. and what we've learned about that is, you know, still a little vague, but we understood it to be man who was inspired by isis ideology but was a bit of a lone wolf. there was no connection that we knew of to a cell, to an organization. he was inspired by the ideology. so now it's very unusual to say the least that two days later there is another attack. it was believed that there wasn't any connection to others in monday's attack, so now another one is certainly perplexing police officers and observers here. >> ifill: there have been reports on and off all day about there being more than one shooter. do we know whether that's true? >> it hasn't been confirmed by the police. i can tell you the police were certainly acting like they thought there was another shooter. the downtown area of ottawa for the four blocks south was shut. police were running up and down those streets telling people, get back, stay away from the buildings, and this is hours after the initial shooting, saying get back. they were looking up at the roofs as though they thought there was a gunman on the roof. so they certainly were acting as though they thought there was someone else. they were searching buildings. but as yet the police have not confirmed whether there were other shooters. earlier in the day they were talking about two, possibly three shooters. it's not clear whether that is the case now. >> it's very unusual to hear of reports like this coming from canada. has there been an unusually tense reaction among people on the streets in ottawa especially? >> well, this is very unusual in ottawa, and, yes, there's been a tense reaction. i think people are, you know, afraid, tense, concerned. ottawa is a quiet town. it's a city of less than a million people. it's the capital, but it's a quiet capital. it's not an area with heavy security. it's in the like washington, d.c. the parliament buildings don't have that kind of armed feeling, even though there's security there and heavy security. but it doesn't have that kind of feeling, and certainly people are surprised that would happen in this city. >> ifill: we each keep following the story as it unfolds. campbell clark of "the globe and mail," thank you very much. >> woodruff: in other news of this day, a federal jury convicted four former security guards today of shooting more than 30 iraqis in baghdad, in 2007. 14 of the victims died. the guards, all of them american, worked for the former blackwater security firm, protecting u.s. diplomats. they said they acted in self- defense. the charges ranged from first- degree murder to manslaughter. >> ifill: american jeffrey fowle returned home today, after being detained in north korea for nearly six months. fowle landed at wright-patterson air force base near dayton, ohio early this morning. he was met by his wife, three children and other relatives, who rushed to embrace him on the tarmac. from there, they drove home, where fowle issued a brief statement through his lawyer. >> jeff would like you to know that he was treated well by the government of the d.p.r.k. and that he's currently in good health. the past 24 hours have been a whirlwind for jeff and his family. jeff needs some time right now >> ifill: fowle was arrested in north korea last may for leaving a bible at a night club. two other americans are still imprisoned in the communist state. >> woodruff: the secret service is facing new criticism for diverting agents from patrolling around the white house to help a co-worker with a neighborhood dispute. the agents were sent out to a maryland suburb several times in 2011. today, the inspector general of the department of homeland security labeled the incident a serious lapse in judgment. official autopsy results have emerged in the shooting of a teenager. the autopsy showed michael brown was shot in the hand at close range by a white police officer. the officer has said brown reached into his vehicle and tried to grab his gun. some witnesses have said brown had his hands raised when he was killed. >> ifill: some 60 million americans will see another small increase in social security benefits next year, just 1.7%. the annual cost-of-living adjustment was announced today. for 2015 the annual cost of living adjustment was announced today. for 2015, the change works out to an average of about $20 more each month. it's the third straight year of an increase that's less than 2%. >> woodruff: wall street broke a four-day rally after oil prices dropped again, and pulled down energy stocks. the dow jones industrial average lost 153 points to close at 16,461; the nasdaq fell 36 points to close at 4,382; and the s&p 500 slipped 14, to 1,927. >> ifill: still to come on the newshour. the governors races to watch this year. six things that should cause more concern than ebola. the state department fights islamic state militants on social media. remembering washington post editor ben bradlee. why more companies are giving women the option to delay motherhood by freezing their eggs. and, one author's remedies for american literature and democracy. >> woodruff: and now to politics, so much of the attention during these midterm elections has been focused on who will control the senate, but there's a story developing when it comes to governors. of the 36 gubernatorial races across the country, 12 sitting governors are at risk of losing. if that were to happen, it would be the most in half a century. here to explain it all is newshour's political editor domenico montanaro. so half a century. you're saying it's unusual to have this many seats at risk. >> it's very unusual. just like house members and members of the senate, governors really usually have very high incumbency reelection rates. when you look over the past 20 years, there's been 88% of governors who have run for reelection who are reelected. in fact, you can see three times in the past 20 years or so you've had 100% reelection rate. so it's very unusual what's happening now. it could be as low as 57% if all 12 of those governors lose. i mean, this hasn't happened since 1962 where you've had 11 governors lose back then. now, even if half of those governors were to win and you lose, wind up with six sitting governors, that's the worst that we've had in a quarter century. 1990 was the last time as many as six have lost. >> woodruff: so this race raises the question: why? why is it happening this year? you've divided the governors up in different groups starting with tea party republicans. >> that's right. there are three big reasons overarching for. this we're talking ideology, economics and numbers. you mentioned the tea party republican governors who have run. you know, there's the old axiom in political reporting that all politics is local, but it's turning out that a lot of these folks, all politics is turning out to be national because you have people like sam brownback in kansas, tom corbett in pennsylvania, paula page in maine who are swept in, in 2010 during that tea party wave, who really rode that wave to victory, and this time around they're experiencing some backlash and seeming to govern more idealogically. usually a give's seat is place where people who are managers can get stuff done. that's why it's been a very good launching pad for the presidency as opposed to senators. >> some of these races have gotten very nasty. we were talking about florida earlier. >> no question about it. the florida give's race, you've seen a high level of nastiness. but there are other governors, republicans, who are in trouble, and we talk about economics. three of the governors who are in jeopardy here, you can see nathan beal, rick snyder and sean parnell in alaska, they each have some of their own issues. beal dealings with ethics, snider in a blue state generally and sean parnell has this weird independent thing that's happening. but all three of those states have unemployment rates higher than the national average and six of these 11 governors are dealing with economies that are doing worse than the country at large. >> woodruff: now there are some democrats who are in trouble, as well. >> absolutely. we've seen four of those democrats, in fact, one of the democrats, one of the governors is a democrat who has already lost, and that'sfield abercrombie, as you can see on your screen, dan milloy in connecticut and pat quinn in illinois also at risk of losing. and this is an unprecedented thing to see this many governors in one place. >> woodruff: one point we were talking about earlier today is how many governors are running for reelection surprising when the voters are so sour about what's going on in government that so many of them want to keep their jobs. >> that's another part of. this you saw some of the... there were 24 of these governors who came into office in 2010. 28 overall are running for reelection. that's more than we've seen since at least 1960. so when you have that many people running, of course there will be more targets. >> woodruff: all right, domenico montanaro, thank you. we're watching it. >> ifill: the centers for disease control and prevention now says everyone who returns to the u.s. from west africa will be monitored for 21 days-- the incubation period for the virus. that announcement coincided with the first day on the job for the new white house ebola coordinator. ron klain was named "ebola response coordinator" friday, and appeared for his first official day at work at a white house meeting with the president. >> what we're seeing is that the public health, infrastructure and systems that we are now putting in place across the board around the country should give the american people confidence that we're going to be in a position to deal with any additional cases of ebola that might crop up without it turn entering an outbreak. >> ifill: among the changes in the u.s. response to the crisis: security workers at five major u.s. airports are now screening passengers from liberia, sierra leone and guinea. the new monitoring announced today, begins next monday in new york, new jersey, pennsylvania, maryland, virginia, and georgia. they are the destinations of 70% of travelers from west africa's ebola zone. meanwhile, an american freelance cameraman who contracted ebola in liberia was discharged today from a hospital in omaha, nebraska. doctors say ashoka mukpo is cured. >> there's no greater reward than to take a patient with a critically ill serious medical illness and make them better and we've done that. >> ifill: but a new scare arose tuesday in newark, new jersey as ambulances raced to the airport to pick up a liberian man reported to be showing symptoms of ebola, but that was a false alarm. governor chris christie says they followed protocol. >> he is now asymptomatic. there is no indication at this point that he has been infected with the virus. >> ifill: dozens of ebola survivors in sierra leone were also released from a treatment center, virus-free. they received certificates showing they're now healthy. all told, the world health organization reported today ebola has killed more than 4,800 people in west africa out of nearly 10,000 cases. still, the head of the international red cross argued today against closing borders or banning travel. >> it creates a lot of fear and extreme panic that sometimes leads to very irrational type of behaviors and measures, like closing borders, canceling flights, isolating countries, those are not solutions. >> ifill: the official said he believes the epidemic can be contained within four to six months. and the race to find a vaccine continued. two companies, glaxo smith kline and johnson & johnson said today they're discussing a possible collaboration. >> ifill: the government's latest steps illustrate again just how much anxiety remains about the prospect of ebola's spread. but as public health officials continue to emphasize, the real risk to most americans remains small. in fact, there are a number of other illnesses that continue to pose bigger threats. we outlined some of those concerns online and it attracted a great deal of public interest. so we decided to provide that context on our broadcast as well. hari sreenivasan recorded this conversation in our new york studios. >> sreenivasan: to get more information and perspective on this now from dr. william shaffner, an infectious disease expert joining us from nashville. first off, there were quite a few cases we heard out a few months ago about enterovirus d-68. this was something that was discovered in the '60s, but this is really first outbreak that we've had. yeah, hari, it's a very large outbreak. it's run across the entire country. children, many of them, have been affected. some children had difficulty breathing and asthma attacks. and now there's even a question about whether this virus is capable of producing a paralytic illness. that's still under investigation. but that was a big surprise that came upon us, yes. >> sreenivasan: okay. then something that we thought was long gone, measles. we've kind of seen a reemergence of measles, almost 600 cases this year. >> yeah. can you imagine that? that's because there's still measles out in the world, but our parents, many of them, are withholding their children from vaccination, and so when someone with measles comes into this country, it can spread among our own children, causing a whole lot of illness. illness that we thought was long gone and actually you know before we had measles vaccine, measles caused 400 to 500 deaths of our children each year. we're letting down our guard a little bit there. >> sreenivasan: so how concerned should we be about whooping cough or pertussis making a comeback? >> yes, it's back. we all thought it had disappeared. that's due to two things really, hari. the first is the vaccine we're using is excellent short-term protection, but then the protection begins to wane. then also some parents are withholding their children from vaccination, so we have more suspectables and now whooping cough is spreading, particularly among adolescents and young adults. >> sreenivasan: how significantly should we be concerned about antibiotic resistant bacteria? >> well, that's the bane of infectious disease doctors such as myself. the bacteria, not the person, the bacteria become resistant, so that means we have fewer antibiotics that work. that's, of course, a consequence of the widespread, often overuse of antibiotics that we're responsible for in medicine and parents often expect as well as the use of antibiotics when we raise animals for food. >> sreenivasan: there was an excellent "frontline" on that topic recently. what about the common flu? this is flu season. people are getting vaccinated or getting the shot at their offices or at small clinics. that kills i want to say thousands, tens of thousands of people every year. >> to many people flu is almost mundane because it is so well-known and it comes upon us annually, but influenza causes almost 200,000 hospitalizations each year. it can strike normal, healthy people and put them in the intensive care unit, and depending upon the severity of the season, somewhere between 4,000 and almost 40,000 deaths each year. so flu is to be reckoned with, and if i can get in a punch line, if you haven't been vaccinated against influenza, viewers, please do so. it's our best protection against influenza. >> we list all these diseases that have incredibly devastating effects around the country, but the perception and the fear of getting ebola seems to have swept the nation here. i mean, the harvard school of public health recently did a public opinion poll. 85% of people responding out of 1,000 average citizens. they thought they could get ebola from someone next to them coughing or sneezing. yet every doctor we have on this program and many others say absolutely not. >> you know, that ebola anxiety, we might call it, is real and needs to be addressed and by having careful conversations such as we're having is very, very helpful. ebola is new, mysterious, fierce. it has a very high mortality rate. and people feel a lack of control. there's nothing they can do about it. they can get vaccinated against flu, but they feel put upon. i've even spoken to some people who seem indignant that something like ebola could even come to the united states in the 21st century. so people have a hard time just learning about this and kind of integrating it into the thought process. in the meantime, they have a lot of anxiety about it. >> is it just that fear inherently is irrational? i saw cable news today where people were... the reporter was talking to two individuals who had sat three seats over or three rows away from the passenger who got on an airplane. they were so concerned about the possibility of catching ebola from that individual, from that distance, that they had quarantined themselves. >> well, i'd like not to call it irrational. when people are just learning about something, something that they regard as a threat, and they haven't integrated all this information still enter their thought process, their sense of anxiety obviously increases. and we need to provide both education and reassurance, and we need to be very clear in our messages. so people can become used to this. >> all right. dr. william shaffner joining us from vanderbilt university medical center in nashville. thanks for your time. >> my pleasure, hari. >> ifill: late yesterday, word came that three teenage girls from the denver area were detained in germany over the weekend by american authorities. the teens, now returned home, were allegedly on their way to syria, to join the islamic state group. the militants have been luring recruits worldwide with a sophisticated web-based, media operation, a program which the u.s. government is now targeting. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner has the story. >> warner: the islamic state group's sweeping land grabs across syria and iraq this year have beeen matched by an online onslaught as well. the group posts videos documenting its brutality, the killings of soldiers, journalists, aid workers and citizens beheadings, and touting its military victories. this one yesterday, showed u.s. military equipment air-dropped sunday to kurds fighting isis in the syrian town of kobani but captured by the jihadis. other postings offer idyllic visions of the so-called islamic caliphate the group aims to build across the middle east. many are in english, aimed at potential recruits well beyond the u.s. government views this campaign as a major threat. as the then-chief of the national counter terrorism center, matthew olson, made clear. isil disseminates timely, high- quality media content on multiple platforms, including on social media, designed to secure a widespread following for the group. >> warner: last month, president obama urged his fellow leaders at the united nations to join the fight against the islamic state in the realm of ideas. >> that means contesting the space that terrorists occupy, including the internet and social media. their propaganda has coerced young people to travel abroad to fight their wars, and turned >> warner: the u.s. state department has jumped in on that effort, with a very public online capaign across multiple platforms. arabic language videos assailing the islamic state faction, to tit-for-tat facebook and twitter post against isis supporters. in a project dubbed "think again, turn away" aimed at dissuading potential isis recruits. >> here at the state department, work is going on since 2010. this year it added english. we weren't permitted to film the operation center, but we were able to catch up with the man spearheading its latest efforts. former "time" magazine editor richard stengel, the under secretary of state for public diplomacy. >> what isil is doing it's using social media and other platforms to try to get mindshare, people who would be sympathetic to their goals, young men that they're trying to recruit. so when the president talks about contesting a space he means get in there, between isil and those young men. >> warner: the state department has worked to persuade islamic governments and religious leaders overseas to join the messaging campaign. >> we're not always the best messenger for our masses. that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it, but part and parcel of what we're trying to do is to enable those better messengers than we are. those people who can say this is illegitimate islam. >> warner: but some of the state department efforts have proven controversial, especially this video entitled "welcome to islamic state land," a collection of isis own gruesome videos sarcastically labeled with lines like, "run, do not walk to isis land where you can learn useful skills blowing up mosques, crucifying and executing muslims. travel is inexpensive because you won't need a return ticket." it was slammed by some critics as offensive but stengel makes no apologies. >> some of the things that we do say in that space are things that make people uncomfortable because it's a dark space. and to contest the space you have to mirror some of the things people are hearing. i don't think we're gonna appeal to these young men by, you know, quotes from thomas jefferson about freedom and democracy either. sometimes when you lie down in the mud you get mud on you, and that does happen. >> they were deliberately playing to a 21st century, the latest generation, millenial generation of people who are watching and picking up on kind of the snark that's in there. phillip smyth, an expert on islamist movements at the university of maryland, says there are pitfalls to the u.s. government engaging more directly in social media. for one thing, it's hard for a government to match the jihadis' agility. >> a lie can make its way half way around the world before the truth can ever get its shoes on. they can act much more quickly than we can because we have to go through a checklist of what we are going to do and how we're going to respond. >> warner: are there limitations on what the u.s. government can do in that space, what you can say, that other actors out in the space don't have?" >> yes, of course there are limits to what we can say. i mean they're not bound by fidelity to the truth, they're not bound by democratic values, they're not bound by any of the things that we are. >> warner: phillip smyth voices another wide criticism that by directly engaging with the militants in dueling postings, the u.s. government just elevates their stature. >> a lot of them take it as a badge of a special badge or a special medal if you will in kind of recognition for what they've done. if you're doing counter messaging strategy, maybe an official account isn't always the best way to do it. there will be times that you're dealing with people that you wouldn't normally want to deal with but that is the nature of the effort. >> warner: and how effective is this campaign? charting that is a tricky business. >> if the end goal is to turn people away from engaging in terrorism, i mean, there hasn't really been any research that's been published that could say, it's effective or ineffective. >> warner: stengel, while admitting effectiveness is hard to track and prove, has a quick response to that. >> if you do, if you turn one young man away, think of the repercussions. he could have put a roadside bomb somewhere. he could have killed a family somewhere in iraq or syria. i mean, it's incalculable the value. so i would say, yes, even though it's hard to measure whether you're accomplishing that, the fact is the goal is so important and the value is so great that you can't stop doing it. >> woodruff: now, we remember one of the nation's most revered newsmen. ben bradlee was 93 when he died of natural causes yesterday at his home in washington. he left his mark as the steward of the principal newspaper in the nation's capital, spanning a tumultuous period in american political life. >> woodruff: ben bradlee's celebrated tenure at "the washington post" helped make it one of the great american newspapers, and the zest he brought to the job never left him, even in later years. >> it changes your life, the pursuit of truth. and at least, if you know that you have tried to find the truth and gone past the first apparent truth towards the real truth, it's very exciting, i find. >> woodruff: bradlee was born in 1921, to a prestigious family in boston, where as a teenager, he developed polio, but eventually recovered. after serving in the navy in world war ii, he began his journalism career with "the new hampshire sunday news," before going on to reporting jobs with "the post" and "newsweek" magazine. along the way, he befriended john f. kennedy, one of his washington neighbors, and became a close confidant, as kennedy moved to the senate, and ultimately, the white house. in 1965, bradlee took over as managing editor of "the post," and just three years later, executive editor, in what became a famous collaboration with publisher katharine graham. together, they defied president richard nixon, and joined "the new york times" in publishing the pentagon papers in 1971. >> you couldn't get much more hostile than the nixon administration was. there haven't been administrations that liked reporters since kennedy. >> woodruff: the trove of classified documents exposed the tortured history of america's involvement in vietnam at a time when public opposition to the war was rising. then, in july 1972, the post began its pursuit of the burglary of democratic party headquarters at the watergate complex in washington. bradlee assigned two young reporters, bob woodward and carl bernstein, to the story, and, almost alone at first, they followed a money trail that led first to the president's re- election committee, and ultimately, to the white house. woodward reflected on that time recently, at his home in washington, and recalled bradlee's firm guidance. >> he was good not just because of what he published and allowed to go in the paper, but what he kept out. i can remember times when we would show him drafts of stories. he's just, "you haven't got it yet." that didn't mean, "we're not going to run it." it didn't mean, "i don't believe it." it meant more work. go talk to more people. >> woodruff: woodward and bernstein's reporting and the mounting weight of other disclosures triggered a national political crisis and led finally, to president nixon's resignation in 1974. nearly 30 years later, bradlee looked back in a newshour interview. >> i think it made politicians more scared of lying, but it sure as hell didn't stop them. and i think it was very good for "the washington post." >> woodruff: it also produced a best-selling book, "all the president's men," in 1974. and two years later, an oscar- winning film adaptation came out. jason robards portrayed bradlee, winning an academy award for best supporting actor. another central figure waited until 2005 to come forward, mark felt, former associate director of the f.b.i. revealed he'd been the source known as deep throat. bradlee spoke about keeping the secret, in another newshour interview. >> it offers proof of the fact that anonymous stories, anonymous sources can be handled properly and be useful to society, and that when you-- before you throw reporters in jail for keeping their sources anonymous, you'd better be careful. >> woodruff: long after watergate, bradlee continued pushing his brand of journalism, and his stewardship of the post helped bring the paper 23 pulitzer prizes. again, bob woodward. >> even though in the 1970s and 1980s there was no internet. there was no 24/7 cycle of news, there was in ben bradlee's head. it was 24/7. what do you got? what do you know? are you sure? we're going to work on that. there was a kind of energy that, you know, there were a lot of wonderful editors around but he was unique. >> woodruff: it was a widely held assessment. jim lehrer was one of bradlee's close personal friends. >> he was truly a peter pan. you know, he didn't want to grow up and he didn't. and journalism was all about stories. he wanted stories where something happened. where there were real people doing things and he wanted the details, and he wanted the story to be right. >> woodruff: bradlee stepped down as the post's executive editor in 1991, but continued to serve as vice president at large. >> people just wanted to come to work and be around ben, you know, he lit up a room when he came into it. >> woodruff: bo jones served as a "washington post" executive and publisher during part of bradlee's tenure. >> he was completely genuine. he was apolitical in the sense that he would go after a story wherever it came from, whether it was from a democrat, republican, a liberal or conservative regardless of what it was. when he went home he didn't unload what his true feelings were. it was what he was saying candidly at the office. >> woodruff: last november, bradlee was awarded the presidential medal of freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. president obama praised him for opening a new era of investigative journalism, and reminding us that our freedom as a nation rests on our freedom of the press. >> he should be remembered as a spiritual leader for good journalism. a spiritual leader for individuals who want to practice journalism. a spiritual leader for getting that extra fact and working just a little bit harder. he stood for and stood behind reporting as, in and of itself, a kind of magic way to have a good time and at the same time do something that really matters. he saw journalism and the reporting part of journalism as really important. he really believed that the public needs to know everything and the only way they're going to find out, is if there's good reporting. >> woodruff: in his final years, bradlee's wife, "washington post" journalist sally quinn, says he battled alzheimer's and dementia. ben bradlee was 93-years-old. >> ifill: for decades, medical advances have made it possible for women to postpone or extend their ability to have children. now, two big tech firms, apple and facebook, say they will pay up to $20,000 to allow employees to freeze their eggs for later fertilization. that decision has sparked a fair bit of conversation about the benefits, risks and choices women could face. we look at some of the questions the practice is raising, with: sarah elizabeth richard, the author of "motherhood rescheduled, the new frontier of egg freezing and the women who tried it." and, alta charo, a professor of law and bio-ethics at the university of wisconsin madison. alta charo, i wonder if we're moving now from choices based on health concerns to choices based on having greater options. >> in a sense, yes, we are. egg freezing was important for women who had to undergo a medical preening such as chemotherapy and who wanted to at least preserve the possibility of having children genetically of their own some time in the future. but the prospect of women beginning to do this in order to simply preserve their fertility while they advance their careers is a new phenomenon and somewhat more troubling because it is simply not as successful as having children through ordinary conception or even true ordinary in vitro fertilization and freezing your embryos. >> ifill: sara's kosher pizza, -- sarah elizabeth richard, you've written a book about this, "motherhood rescheduled: the new frontier of egg freezing and the women who tried it". what are the options for women here? >> it's great that companies are covering it and makes the option available for women who wouldn't have paid for it on their own or didn't have the option to pay for it. so they'll have more opportunities to have children. that said, this is unchartered territory because first wave of women who froze their eggs pretty much froze because they didn't have a partner or because they had gone through a divorce or weren't in the right relationship. they froze for love. now we're seeing this being put out there as something, would a 32-year-old freeze because she wanted to put more years in her career. it is unchartered. we don't know how women will make decisions in terms of planning their family and work and love lives and dating lives. so it's unknown right now. >> ifill: alta charo, are there health risks involved in this procedure? >> probably not as many as people fear. certainly the question of how to obtain women's eggs has come up before, whether for in vitro fertilization in the 1980s or for the cloning of eggs for research in the 1990s and the early part of this century. there has been some concern all along that the use of the drugs necessary to help them super ovulate might cause problems, but the data suggests that it's actually very safe. it is, however, very uncomfortable and certainly not an experience one welcomes if you can avoid it. >> sarah elizabeth richard, let's talk about what conversations this does open and doesn't open. for instance, some people said expanding women's opportunity to have children would mean expanding day care or paid maternity leave. does this take the place of that? >> i really hope not. that's been a big point that a lot of women have talked about. it certainly doesn't replace that conversation. in fact, one of the great outcomes of even talking about all this is that we are talking more about having affordable childcare and better maternity leave. so it's almost like one is bringing up the other conversation. so i think all subjects rise in this situation. >> ifill: let me stay with you for a second. is this something with only resources can afford? everybody doesn't work for apple and facebook, right in. >> the funny thing is those women can probably afford it anyway because i hear the salaries are quite good there. no, it's not something that all women can afford. that's one of the big problems or challenges in making it accessible to a lot of women. one of the women in my book, she put it on a credit card and paid that balance off over many years. other women have gotten help from their parents. i was really lucky. i used my savings and then my parents helped me. but, you know, that's not fair because a lot of women don't get access to it. that said, though, the prices are coming down. we're seeing it being offered for as low as $4,000 in some markets and a lot of clinics are offering packages, for example, you can buy three cycles which would give you the opportunity to put away enough eggs where you have a little chance of one turn entering a baby later. they're offering all kinds of different pricing schemes. so it's definitely getting better. >> technology is a great thing in many, many cases, but in this case we're using technology to enhance a lifestyle choice, aren't we? >> well, i think what we're seeing is technology being used to make it possible to keep the workplace organized just the way it is and the way it was originally designed for men, whose careers and educations would take place right after they finish high school into their 20s, and where women would ideally be able to have children earlier in life when their bodies are better suited to it. women are now using technology to try to make themselves seem as much like man as possible. so they can have their children later after they laid the groundwork for their career. it is absolutely true. this is giving women options and it's making it economically feasible. it's probably the most realistic thing for some women, but it is a shame that we haven't started a better conversation not only about the fixes like the day care that was just mentioned but a deeper conversation about how to reorganize the work world so you don't need to be a super woman at work and a super woman at home at the same time. that's never been real izic. i think the exfreezing is a severe response to it. >> ifill: is this at the frontier of the conversation? >> we're definitely at the frontier of the conversation. that said, if you're a woman in your early 30s or late 20s and you don't have partner or you don't see starting your family by the age of 35, if you can afford it, there's no reason not to freeze because you may not start your family until you're 38 and those eggs might come in handy. but a lot of women don't realize is what if you want a second or third baby and you're in your mid-30s or early 40s. you may want those eggs. >> it's not so easy to have children in your late 30s and early 40s. it's not something we want to encourage people to do if they don't have to. this is not the best time for you and your body to do this. i don't think it's a good idea to encourage women to make life harder for themselves. >> ifill: alta charo and sarah elizabeth richards, author of "mother rescheduled," thank you both very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: finally tonight, a re-examination of three classics of american literature. jeffrey brown has that. >> brown: in a utilitarian system, books can be dangerous. what about in a democracy, specifically in our own? what >> ifill: again, the major what place should we make for it? the new book, the republic of imagination, mixes memoir with literary crimp and policy critique. to explore such questions, its author, azar nafisi, previously addressed them in the bestseller "reading lolita in tehran." welcome. >> thank you. >> brown: so in tehran in those years, literature was dangerous. here very different, right? >> the way i feel is that books are dangerous in their own way in every society. but the way we treat them here, the way we destroy them here, is not through guns or bullet or jail. we just become indifferent toward them. >> indifferent? >> indifference is one of the most fatal weapons you can use. you don't see, you don't hear, you don't touch. ray bradbury says that you don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. only get people not to read them. they are almost like flowers that just wither and die if there are no readers. >> brown: you see that happening in our society? >> i see that happening in our society. i noticed it when i returned to america in 1997. i noticed it in the way they were being taught at universities. a lot of times in many english classes, not all by any means, they were taught as handmaidens to something political or ideological. >> brown: in the book you use several classics of american literature, just to pick one, the middle one, which is sinclair lewis' "babbitt." you use that as a way to look at what is happening to today. remind us first of all, "babbitt," why that is important to you. "babbitt" is such a wonderful book in so many way, but the essence of "babbitt" is the sort of rotarian or the corporate man, the man in the middle who is not really the top but with a business mind. and what "babbitt" represents is more than anything else thought. his home, the way he speaks, all of them are according to a rule, but it is that standardization of thought, and in "babbitt," it will soon be 100 years since that book was written, the standard for success, like now, is money. and even the way he speaks, you know, the way we talk about job creators. >> yes, job creators. so you take it further. you look in our schools, at the emphasis on outcomes, on testing, on the common core, and you see something that is too much focused on utility, on jobs, on outcomes? >> yes. and in babbitt, his son tells him, i don't know why we have to read this shakespeare and them. and babbitt talks about how he likes these... they didn't have television then, but how he likes these classes where professor so and so teaches you. he said, read shakespeare and them because you have to pass. that's his philosophy. i think that's what common core, it's a manifestation of an attitude. it is not you did this wrong here our there. it is the fact that you're saying, our children should go to school and later to college, not because they're passionate about it, not because they want some meaningful fulfillment, but because they should be career-ready. right out of "babbitt." >> what's being lost? >> it's what's being lost in a democracy, because in a democracy, both the individual and society have responsibilities, and the society's responsibility is to provide the citizens with opportunity to fulfill themselves as human beings. when you take fulfillment, meaning, passion out of education, imagination, you are taking it not just out of humanity, you're taking it out of science. science itself is all about the passion to discover, you know? and why should our children want to give back if all they go to school is based on greed and making more money? why should they even want to serve their country or be concerned about what happens in this country when we all teach them this is a dog eat dog world and each for his own. >> so what do you want to see happen? what would you propose to regain this sense of, as you put it, the public of imagination? >> well, the first thing is i think we need a national conversation very seriously about defining ourselves. you know, america, like the rest of the world, is in crisis. i feel that this crisis is not just economic or political. it's a crisis of vision. so this time of rapid change, both in economy, technology and all sorts of other things, we need a national discussion about what kind of an america do we want to be. and then the first thing that you go through is education, is humanity, because i believe that the basis of this country, as george washington also believes, is enlightenment. the idea of enlightenment. and you forget that, what are you left with? >> >> brown: all right. the new book is "the republic of the imagination." azar nafisi, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> ifill: again, the major developments of the day. shootings erupted at canada's war memorial and the main parliament building in ottawa. one soldier and a gunman were killed. and the c.d.c. announced that starting monday people arriving in the u.s. from three west african states will be monitored for ebola for 21 days. >> woodruff: on the newshour online, before the ex-games made skateboard culture part of the mainstream, and before hip-hop artists topped the billboard charts, photographer glen friedman captured these subcultures of the 1980's. his new book is "my rules" and you can see a photo gallery of his work, on art beat. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> ifill: and that's the newshour for tonight. on thursday, we sit down with matthew broderick about his return to broadway in "it's only a play." i'm gwen ifill. and i'm judy woodruff. join us on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> and by the alfred p. sloan foundation. supporting science, technology, and improved economic performance and financial literacy in the 21st century. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. brought to you in part by the street.com. featuring stephanie link who shares her investment strategy, stock picks and market insights, the multi-million dollar portfolio she manages with jim cramer. you can learn more at the street.com/nbr. jittery markets, just when you thought it might be okay to step into the market. a fresh worry appears, a shooting in the heart of the canadian capital, a soldier dead, a gunman killed in the parliament there. that, plus oil prices send stocks falling. and at&t reports weaker than expected earnings after the closing bell and warns that revenue won't be as strong as first thought.

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