♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: it's the biggest burst of hiring in the u.s. in nearly three years. the labor department reported numbers today that had economists sitting up and taking notice. a monthly survey found u.s. employers added a net of 321,000 new positions in november. the unemployment rate, which comes from a separate survey, stayed at 5.8%, that is a six- year low. and, in another hopeful sign, the average hourly wage rose nine cents, the most in 17 months. we'll examine what's behind the numbers, later in the program. protests over the killings of black men by white police kept going today with no sign of a let-up. they were fueled again by fury over a grand jury's decision in new york city. the panel decided tuesday not to issue an indictment in the death of eric garner. jeffrey brown reports on the day's developments. >> brown: one of the latest demonstrations came this morning in aurora, colorado, where hundreds of high school students staged a walk-out. a police officer even gave out high-fives as they marched past. in chicago and other cities, more protests geared up as the afternoon wore on. that followed a night of demonstrations nationwide, with thousands giving voice to anger and frustration. >> we're fired up! >> can't take it no more! >> brown: in new york, especially, emotions were still running high over the eric garner case. most of the protests were peaceful, but minor scuffles did break out. this morning new york police commissioner william bratton said today there were more than 220 arrests. >> some of them were much more assertive so those arrests include disorderly conduct, some assaults on police officers. i believe my officers showed remarkable restraint in the face of in many instances a lot of provocation. >> brown: meanwhile, the district attorney in brooklyn announced a grand jury will probe the killing of an unarmed black suspect in a dimly lit stairwell two weeks ago. a rookie policeman has said his gun went off accidentally. also today, the n.y.p.d. launched a pilot program to start outfitting officers with body cameras. but many protesters dismissed the gesture. >> eric garner's murder was caught entirely on film and the police officer who killed him has still not been indicted. so, it kind of makes you wonder whether or not body cameras would actually do anything. >> brown: elsewhere, some 150 people marched in phoenix overnight, after a black man was killed tuesday by a white officer who said he mistook a pill bottle for a gun. >> we're not going to stand for them and their brutality against black people. we're not going to just sit back and watch while our people get killed. >> brown: an internal investigation is underway in the phoenix shooting. >> woodruff: in another development, more than 100 activists arrived in jefferson city, missouri the state capital after marching 120 miles from ferguson. they protested police treatment of blacks, and the killing of michael brown in ferguson last august. new jersey lawmakers have found no evidence that governor chris christie helped create traffic jams at a major bridge for political gain. at the same time, the joint legislative panel does not rule out the possibility that he might have been involved. christie is a potential republican presidential candidate in 2016. he has denied any role in the bridge scandal. the international criminal court dropped charges of crimes against humanity against the president of kenya today for want of evidence. uhuru kenyatta had been accused of fomenting ethnic violence after a 2007 election, killing more than 1,000 people. prosecutors accused kenyatta and his supporters of obstructing the investigation and intimidating witnesses. >> this is a painful moment for the men, women, and children who have suffered tremendously from the horrors of the post-election violence, and who have waited, patiently, for almost seven years to see justice done. i have decided to withdraw the charges against mr. kenyatta after carefully considering all the evidence. >> woodruff: in nairobi, kenyatta was cheered and congratulated after getting the news at a meeting of business leaders. supporters also celebrated in the streets, chanting "bye-bye, i-c-c." the man who was once head of china's feared domestic security agencies was arrested today on charges of corruption, adultery and leaking secrets. zhou yongkang was also expelled from the ruling communist party. that made him the highest ranking figure to be prosecuted so far in president xi jinping's corruption crackdown. zhou had been a key rival to xi. back in this country, congress has voted to block suspected nazi war criminals from getting social security benefits. the senate approved the bill last night, and sent it to the president. that followed an associated press investigation that found dozens of nazi suspects collected millions of dollars in benefits since 1979, under a legal loophole. nasa took a big first step today toward a potential mission to mars. it was the first, unmanned test flight for the orion capsule, and it went off without a hitch. the spacecraft blasted off atop a delta-four rocket just after dawn, from cape canaveral, and it reached a peak altitude of 3,600 miles. about four-and-a-half hours later, orion made a bulls-eye splashdown, 630 miles southwest of san diego. >> it's hard to have a better day than today, it was a lot of fun, very exciting, each part of the mission. of course, part of the reasons it's exciting is it's a difficult mission, it's a tough environment to fly through, tough objectives that we set for this flight. but it appears that orion and the delta 4-heavy were nearly flawless. great job by the team. >> woodruff: orion's flight path took it deeper into space than any craft built for humans has gone, since 1972. that was when apollo 17 made the last manned flight to the moon. on wall street today, the dow jones industrial average gained 58 points to close at 17,958; the nasdaq rose 11 points to close at 4,780; and the s&p added three, to finish at 2,075. for the week, the dow gained seven tenths of a percent; and the s&p was up four tenths; the nasdaq fell a fraction. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour. how will the new defense secretary relate to the white house? what to make of the much better than expected jobs numbers. mark shields and david brooks on the week's news. a one of a kind survivor of pearl harbor. and, new questions on "rolling stone's" report of a sexual assault at the university of virginia. >> woodruff: now, president obama announces a change of command at the defense department as the military faces multiple challenges abroad. >> today, i'm pleased to announce my nominee to be our next secretary of defense, mr. ash carter. >> woodruff: the president's event in the roosevelt room at the white house confirmed what was widely expected, he's chosen ash carter to succeed chuck hagel at the pentagon. >> with a record of service that has spanned more than 30 years as a public servant, as an adviser, as a scholar, ash is rightly regarded as one of our nation's foremost national security leaders. carter is a pentagon veteran, although he's never served in the military himself. he was deputy secretary from october 2011 to december 2013. and before that, the technology and weapons-buying chief. >> it's an honor and a privilege for me to be nominated for the position of secretary of defense. >> woodruff: the honor brings with it a host of major challenges, including the battle against islamic state fighters in iraq and syria. winding down the u.s. mission in afghanistan. the ongoing conflict in eastern ukraine and the resulting struggle with russia. and deep budget cuts straining the defense department. there's also the question of working with the white house. two previous secretaries robert gates and leon panetta accused obama aides of micro-management. and hagel reportedly complained of a lack of influence. but carter made clear he means to have his say. >> if confirmed in this job, i pledge to you my most candid strategic advice. and i pledge also that you will receive equally candid military advice. republicans will control the senate that considers carter's nomination. today, they generally praised his qualifications, but arizona senator john mccain warned he, too, may have limited sway at the white house. >> woodruff: we explore all this now with, retired brigadier general david mcginnis, he was a senior defense department official during president obama's first term. and, david rothkopf, c.e.o. and editor of "foreign policy." he has a new book, "national insecurity: american leadership in an age of fear." we welcome you both to the program. >> thank you. >> woodruff: david rothkopf, let me start with you, what do you make of ash carter to be the secretary of defense? >> he's a smart guy, he's very decisive, he will be candid with the president. he has a lot of experience. he's brilliant. but he's just one man. leon panetta, bob gates were excellent choices also for secretary of defense and as you noted in the piece at the beginning, they've had real problems in the white house. there haven't been changes in the white house so i'm not sure why we expect change in outcomes. >> woodruff: general mcginnis, what's your take on ash carter? >> he's solid. he's well prepared for this job. he's been at this business as the president mentioned for two decades. i've seen him work in the clinton administration and i've worked with him in the obama administration. he's probably much more qualified for the job than his two predecessors were. >> woodruff: how do you think he's going to manage the pentagon? what should we know about that? >> he understands the dynamics of the management better than his two predecessors do. there's a critical component in getting the president the answers he needs, the options he needs to get the job done to make the right decisions as commandecommander-in-chief and k he's i in a much better position to do that than his two predecessors were. >> woodruff: david rothkopf, how do you see his ability, his managing the pentagon, his understanding of the pentagon, how he's seen by officials of the pentagon? how's this different from his predecessors? >> he was deputy secretary for some time, was the head of procurement there. he's had several stints within the pentagon. he knows the military brass, the bureaucracy, he understands how to make it work and has been effective in making it work in the past and that is quite different from the folks that precede him there in this administration. >> woodruff: but you still believe he's going to have difficulty getting done what he believes should be done because of the white house. >> well, look, you read the gates or the panetta book and you see the frustrations. you saw the frustrations in thenned of hagel's term in office. i think the problem is this: first of all, the white house does micromanage. the white house does tend to a top-down style that has alienated some of its cabinet. but secondly, it's seeking to pursue course in a place like syria and iraq that is full of ambivalence and half-way measures and he's going to have military brass at his back saying that's no way to fight a war. sooner or later when he makes with the white house, they're either going along, which will be a big change, or not, and he will feel like a shock absorber and the precious that ultimately did in hagel. >> woodruff: general mcagain news, how do you him handling it when the military wants one thing and the white house something else. >> the military is happening today like in the last 40-years, a two-dimensional, geographic environment. you've heard discussion about boots on the ground. we need to put people on the ground to control things. the reality is these conflicts are being dealt with in other environments, information environment, the human environment. that's how i.s.i.s. was so successful in managing the human environment and managing the information environment months before they moved. and the pentagon doesn't know how to do that. one of the challenges ash is going to have is to get the pentagon to provide the president realistic objectives in these environments and capabilities to operate in those environments, and that hasn't been happening. and i think the president is very frustrated by that over the years. >> woodruff: why do you think he'll get it when the people who preceded him didn't? >> he's innovative, he understands the process and the capability of the department of defense, not just each service. each service is constrained by its culture and won't go outside that culture. to be successful in these new environments, we have to come together in the cold wore jointness. >> woodruff: david rothkopf, what about that? you hear the general making the points that ash carter brings skill and knowledge that the folks who came before him didn't have? >> well, he does. i think the best hope we've got is this is the fourth secretary of defense for this president, that this is the sixth year in office for this president, that he's learned and that he's also facing a lot of pressure that he's going to have to learn how to work bet were his cabinet and military. >> woodruff: what do you mean facing pressure? >> well, there's been a lot of criticism from the outside that the president of the united states has not been responsive to his cabinet. there have been articles about alienation. a lot of people left. wasn't just pa panetta and gates who wrote the books. some in hillary clinton's book and valery naser's book. so there's a change needed, but there hasn't been a lot of evidence that change has taken place. one can remain hopeful. >> woodruff: do you think there will be a change in the way the national security council operates? >> no, i think it will continue to operate the way it's been operating. one of the frustrations of the view of micromanagement is the president has not been getting the input he wanted from the pentagon and the national security council has been filling the gap. that's been a big gap. we can go back to the start of how to deal with afghanistan. that took six to eight weeks just to get a meeting and the president satisfied. we can't have a defense establishment that operates that way and you want its commander-in-chief that way. i think the change has to be in the pentagon, that's where we disagree, rather than in the white house. >> woodruff: we hear it and it's all beginning to unfold. we'll watch for cbs to get confirmed and watch closely. general mcginnis and david rothkopf, we thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: let's take a deeper dive into today's surprising good labor news. jobs growth revved up last month with more than 300,000 added. at this pace, the economy is on track to produce the largest number of jobs in 15 years. one development that also caught much attention, average hourly wages rose higher than expected the largest increase since june of last year. even so, earnings have grown a slugglish two percent in the last year. hari sreenivasan has the story from our new york studios. >> sreenivasan: i'm joined by diane swonk with a financial services firm. what's behind the higher number today? >> a lot of good news. we had meet on the bone jobs in things like business services, an area hard hit during the recession, includes accountants, technical consultants, engineers, architects. that's the good news. we also saw manufacturing and construction jobs, awful low base but still jobs in that sector. then a huge hiring in retail, also food, restaurants, all those kind of areas. >> sreenivasan: holiday season? >> not just holiday hires. 20% was in the auto sector to sell cars. we don't tend to buy those for gifts in the holiday season. the department stores and the big box retailers didn't hire up and that's because they're showing off their online presence. we saw warehousing and packaging. shippers are hiring because last eyear we had bad weather and online spending and i was one of the ones who didn't get their presents on time. it's not good when it comes three days later. they're trying to get that in order all year. >> not all jobs are created equal. what's the quality to have the jobs we're seeing? >> we had really good quality jobs. in the last six months, we're seeing the good quality jobs coming back. the temporary hires we used to talk about, these are not temporary. these are full-time hires and full-time jobs. on the other side, a large majority of the jobs are minimum-wage jobs and also the number of people taking multiple jobs went up there month and part of it is things not related to retail hiring season but also hedging against the affordable care act, they're not providing healthcare but they have to get hours down below 30 hours and some people in the restaurant work 48 hours a week so they're splitting one job into almost two. >> sreenivasan: so more part-time work. >> exactly and we're seeing more people hold multiple jobs and a number people accepting part-time when looking full-time is high. a step in the right direction. we didn't land on the moon, because as good as the number was, we have a long way to go. >> sreenivasan: we have the caveats when we look at the numbers, but how many months do we need to go back to say there is something positive happening here? >> this has been a transitional year. we get the meet on the bone jobs, the full-time jobs that are graduate jobs. one of the places we have, a shortage of workers, people with five years' experience, what were people doing five years ago, they weren't getting hired. in many cases, you're seeing someone that has a lot of experience. experience brought in at low pay. there is mismatching. this year we started to see the full-time jobs come back. not enough. we still are far too reliant on part time and minimum-wage jobs. quality matters as much as quantity when you're generating jobs because you need to sea wages pick up. the majority of households are trying to regain ground lost during the great recession. this might be the best year of job generation since 1999, but 1999 was the year we were running out of people to employ. that's not the job today. >> sreenivasan: when you talk about minimum-wage or low hourly wages, they're not keeping one inflation, right? >> some of them are not. some of them will see minimum-wage go up. some 25 states have been going up, half the states, in 2015. in terms of what happens, if you're working two jobs, it's a lot harder to manage working two jobs than one. so even if your minimum-wage goes up, if you have the other issues holding hours down, again still difficult, we'll really see, these are nice broad-based games, that's good. we need to see a lot more of those, and extended period of time, wages. not 2% gains of a year ago but 3% plus to regain ground lost and that's the key. i think we might be able to get that, start getting there in 2015, but we still have a long way to go. >> sreenivasan: dian diane swon, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: protests sprung up across america as another grand jury chose not to indict a police officer in a killing of an unarmed black man and in washington, president obama announced his choice for the new leader of the pentagon. we turn to the analysis of shields and brooks. that's syndicated columnist mark shields and new york times columnist david brooks, who joins us from new york. hello, gentlemen. so we've just heard, david, the analysis on the jobs report. do we finally have something to cheer about here in. >> i think so. we might as well take advantage of it. we've had a lot of scuffling along and that seems to have stopped. what's impressive to me mostly is our job performance compared to europe. if you talk to most europeans, they're a bit of a funk. you have high youth unemployment rates. so we're doing pretty well, partly accredited to the obama administration. we might as well take a victory lap out of. this we've come out of the recession better than our peers, partly to the american system, which has some disadvantages, but has advantages which is dynomism. >> woodruff: time for a victory lap? >> i think so. the republican national chairman said 300,000 jobs, 223,000 created, ought to be expected every month, shouldn't be an exception. just from an historical perspective, during the eight years of president bush, there were 2.1 million net jobs created in the united states and of that 2.1 million, 1.8 million were in the public sector, state, local or federal government. that means there were 300,000 jobs in the private sector created in eight years net. so, i mean, this is rather remarkable. and i just point out that in the -- david touched on the fact that more jobs have been created iin the united states in the lat four years than europe, japan, all the industrialized modern world combined. and it's one little item and not important, and david and i disagree, 70 years since world war ii. in those 70 years, there were 36.7 million jobs created by republican presidents, a little over half the time. in 34 years, there were 63.7 million created by democrats. 29 million more. perhaps it's an accident once or twice or what, but, i mean, at some point, the democrats ought to be trumpeting the fact that they have been better on the economy and job creation than have been their opposition. >> woodruff: david? i was afraid you were going to turn to me. (laughter) >> woodruff: i was going to see what youhead to say about that. >> no, listen, if the president could turn up a dial and create jobs, that would be create. the correlation between policy and actual job creation, there's a huge amount of lag and they don't have that ability. a lot of it is the function of the psychlyicle labor market. president bush, a lot of jobs were wiped out in the grand recession. so business cycles come and go. what the government can do is create landscape to create long-term job growth, but it's rare that an administration has the ability to turn it on and off. off. >> it's 15 years since we've had 10 consecutive months of over 200,000. those 15 years ago, there was a fellow from arkansas who was the president of the united states. those were eight years of rather markable sustained growth. certainly other criticisms of bill clinton's leadership, but it's hard to argue that the fact there were more jobs created in blilten's eight years than in ronald reagan's eight years and in the 12 years of both bushes combined. at some point, policy kicks in and is reflected in the results. >> woodruff: we may not resolve all this right here. i want to move on, david, to ash carter, the president's nomination to be the next secretary of defense. we just heard conversation about how things may or may not change. what's your sense of that? do you think we'll see different policy coming out of the pentagon out of this administration now? >> carter has essential qualification for defense secretary which is he studied medieval history in yale and a ph.d. in theoretical physics from oxford, so obviously an academic slouch. (laughter) you know, i don't think things are going to change. i think this is a white house-centric administration and i assume it will remain that, but there's no question he's a very strong choice. i think some of us have been concerned with this administration, as it has gone on, you have fewer big personalities, strong voices, and carter certainly qualifies as one of those. >> i think he brings enormous credentials and he does bring a record of having stood up to the troops, particularly in providing armor and armored vehicles for them against resistance in iraq. i commend and salute him for that. but he also is on record in 2006 of urging the united states to bomb the nuclear facilities of north korea, and he obviously was one of the people arguing that we should still keep troops in afghanistan -- in iraq in 2011, after 2011. i do think, judy, david is absolutely right about the white house. notice, now, they've had three entirely different secretary of defense all with the identical criticism of micromanagement from the white house. it all begins with barack obama. every administration, every white house is ultimately a mirror reflection of the man at the top. this is what he is comfortable with, what he has encouraged, condoned and this is the structure he's created. if it's going to change, it has to begin changing with him. >> woodruff: i want to bring up something else we have been covering every night this week and that is, for the second time, we've had a grand jury, david, decide not to indict a white police officer in the death of an unarmed black man, most recently eric garner in new york. they listened to testimony for a couple of months, to 50 witnesses, but when you look at this on top of ferguson and some of the other cases around the country and the protests continuing night after night, how widespread is the problem with police use of deadly force against unarmed blacks in this country? >> yeah, i think it's obviously widespread. i watched the protests on 14t 14th street last night and in midtown. what struck me and what i was curious to see is whether the protesters who were pretty angry were taken out on the local cops, whether there was a class conflict between the protesters and the cops like in 1968. i have to say there was not. the protesters are well behaved and no clash with the cops that were supervising them. the protesters were angry but mature and civil and trying to make their case. two issues here, one is the racial which in the staten island case which is blatantly obvious, but the second is cop behavior. how do you restore order in the streets. do you always have to go to maximum force? i've covered cops in my career and they have to armor up. they're in a tough job and tough situation all the time so they put on emotional armor and they're sometimes very cynical about the people they have to be around just because they couldn't survive emotionally if they weren't and that could lead to a callousness, so we need to have this racial conversation but also an authority conversation about whether police restore order and whether they're just too macho. >> woodruff: how widespread, do you think? is this isolated incidences or in many, many parts of the country? >> i don't know, judy. i would say given the reaction of some people not only african-american but latino as well that enough people feel there is a pattern. it's hard to look at the staten island film and not believe that this was wrong. >> woodruff: eric garner. eric garner. this man was not physically threatening or menacing. he was selling individual cigarettes to homeless people. so the crime is tax evasion. if this is the biggest crime of tax evasion in new york city going on at any given moment i would frankly be astounded. the idea that you're going to use uh a choke hold -- it seemed the first police officer was actually talking him down and the officer went from behind and grabbed him with the choke hold that ultimately was fatal. it's hard to look at this and say that this wasn't overreaction on the part of the police. ferguson is conflicting testimony. you know, we heard different things. this one just does seem, quite frankly, clear-cut, and it's hard -- david's right, the police put their lives on the line in difficult situations. this was not a life-threatening situation. there was no way that any of the police officers there felt that he was personally threatened by this situation. this was not a menacing figure or a violent man. >> woodruff: david, you were saying we needed to have a conversation about race and another conversation about authority and how authority is exerted. you have the justice department investigating on its own after the grand jury decision. is that a way to have the conversations? is that part ofta way we come together on this? >> i don't know if we'll come together, but we can certainly change policy. washington has had a very corrupting influence here. washington has literally armored up. i talked about emotional armor, but this is literal armor, the federal government has given a lot of police officers beg weaponry and with that goes a swagger and a distance from the people being policed. so we've hyper militarized and in some cases hyperrer machoized. therthere's a lot of testosteroe flowing around. there has to be a time when the police officer steps back to diffuse. the staten island case, cleaear, with petty authority comes the sin of bullying and this guy seems to have just used that petty authority and been corrupted and brutalized by it, frankly. so that has to go into the training. it's almost like the moral responsibility of people with small amounts of authority but possibly life-threatening ones. >> woodruff: mark? the reaction, judy, in the two cities, i mean, the reflection is of the political leadership of deblasio in new york who has a racially-mixed child himself, who is different from ferguson where the police force was overwhelmingly white, where the political leadership was white. and david described the demonstrations in new york which have been quite civil and orderly as opposed to ferguson where the first protest was breaking into a liquor store. i think the situations are far from identical, but reflective in both cases of the situations of political leadership as well as the relationship to the police in both cases. >> woodruff: hopefully a lot of reflecting going on right now as well as both protesting and reflecting. it's a time. it's certainly a time for people to think some more about this. mark shields, david brooks, we thank you both. >> woodruff: we want to step back for a moment now sunday marks the 73rd anniversary of the pearl harbor attack. tonight we bring you a rare survivor of that day a u.s. military plane that is the last of its kind. we tagged along at the smithsonian's air and space museum's udvar hazy center as curator jeremy kinney showed off the seaplane to a volunteer and explained the debate over how to restore it. >> most flying boats by the navy perform the patrol function, and that's what this airplane did in the aftermath of pearl harbor. this is is a sakorsky j.r.s.-1 flying boat, present at pearl harbor on december 7, 1941. this is an important artifact in regards to the story of america and december 7, the pearl harbor attack. it's an unarmed airplane and a sneak attack on pearl harbor. this airplane was put into service immediately in response to the japanese attack. in many ways, america was the same way. americans just jumped right into the fight and get into world war ii. so this is an iconic symbol of the first day of the war for the united states. this particular j.s.r.-1 is a sole survivor. there is an s.43 which survived. but the j.s., seve 10 at pearl harbor. this is one of the first amphibians operated by the u.s. navy. that's why it's able to be here because it has land gear on it. if we restore it, everything that's original is removed pretty much or painted over. so, i mean, this is original glass, no matter how bad it looks. this is the original paint, no matter how badly chipped and cracked it is, the peeling fabric, which there are ways to repair that. these are things curators and specialists agonize over. it's a big debate in terms of what we want to do with it because it's only original once, even though it's in rough shape. and the immediate aftermath of the attack on pearl harbor, this j.r.s. flew in search of japanese submarines and the japanese carrier fleet. as the months wore on through 1942, it continued to support the mission for navy fighting, bombing and torpedo squadrons. this particular j.r.s. flew until 1944 with the u.s. navy. it went into storage. the navy kept it as an airplane. it actually performed yeoman service with the national advisory commit with for airo enacts which is nasa today as an testing platform. this area is for treatment, whether preservation or restoration of the museum's large aircraft artifacts and is here today to show the public of what the condition of the museum's aircraft are in. it's slated for restoration in the future. eth not currently being worked on, but it will be soon. it's here now to show these people what these airplanes look like before the staff and technicians of the preservation and restoration unit of the museum get to it. this is a painting of what the j.r.s. one would have looked like on december 7, 1941. this is an airplane that is painted to reflect its support mission. it moves in the museum to preservation. you look at this artifact, if you want to preserve it, you essentially leave it as it is, because its history, theoretically, is up to the present, rather than trying to go back to december 7. well, you know, it's history of this particular artifact is what brought it here. it's not only an example of what needs to be done to an aircraft in the collection in terms of preservation and restoration but also has the stunning pearl harbor connection that all americans can relate to. >> woodruff: we'll be back with a look at the new questions being raised over "rolling stone's" reporting on sexual assault at the university of virginia. but first, it's pledge week on pbs. this break allows your public television station to ask for >> woodruff: new questions and doubts are being raised about the story of an alleged gang rape at the university of virginia, an account that grabbed national attention, including ours. the story, first published in "rolling stone," detailed the alleged brutal rape of a freshman at a fraternity house two years ago. the victim said she was assaulted by seven men over three hours while two others watched, including her reported date. "rolling stone's" managing editor published a note today about discrepancies in the victim's story. he wrote, "we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced." the fraternity, phi kappa psi, disputed parts of her story and... >> the chapter did not have a date function or a scoail event during the weekend of september 28, 2012. ...there was no social event at the house on the night in question. we invited "rolling stone" and the reporter whom we interviewed before about this to appear tonight. we also invited the university of virginia. all declined. reporter taylor rees shapiro broke part of this story for the washington post. he joins me from a university studio in charlottesville. and we welcome you to the program. taylor rees shapiro, this is an horrific story as it was first reported. what parts of the alleged victim's account have now been called into question? >> well, it's been called into question the dates -- first of all, the date she said it occurred. she said ito curved september 28, 2012 which would have been early on her freshman year in campus. the fraternity released a statement they had not hosted any parties that entire weekend which calls into question the timing of what she said the allegations had occurred. in addition, it's not clear precisely who was among her alleged attackers. she had said for years even, you know, since from the very beginning, that she had identified one of the men she believed was involved that, in fact, they were somebody that she had been dating him, you know, had gone out on a date with him. when pressed, and she finally gave up a name to her friends about who it was, some digging into his background, you know, initially raised some, you know, questions about her account because things didn't line up. it appeared that the person involved was, in fact, never a member of phi kappa psi, and other details about his background didn't match other previously released information she'd given people. >> woodruff: you talked to her several times, you wrote, in your story. how is she explaining these discrepancies? >> she sticks by her story. she believes that the account of what she gave is the truth. i gave her multiple opportunities in interviews to tell me the real events as they had actually occurred that night. it's impossible to tell, from what we know how, what really did happen. it appears pretty clear that she faced some sort of trauma, i can't say for sure. but other details as they emerge are calling into questions other parts of her story. >> woodruff: now, you also talked with her friends, other people who knew her at the time this happened. what are they saying? >> her friends are devastated. i think a lot of people are, about everything. it's hard to know what to believe. it's pretty clear now the details related in the first article, you know, did not line up with stuff that's pretty easy to check out, such as the fact whether or not a party was held at that house that weekend. from now, it's about building trust. it's about building trust between her and other people around her and about the people who trusted her to -- for her to tell them the true story. >> woodruff: what about the fraternity? they were asked, i gather, by rolling stone starting months ago and it wasn't till just today they put out a statement saying, you know, as you said, that the date, there wasn't a social event that night, and so forth. do you have a better sense of their perspective in this? >> i've spoken with members of the fraternity throughout my reporting. we reached out to them from the very beginning because we wanted to make sure we got all sides of this story. they were hard-pressed. few people actually talked to us on the phone and if they did, they just said they didn't want to comment. obviously, they were under fire. they were under pressure. since then, people have already come forward to me saying they feel relief. they had even begun to doubt themselves. it's hard to say you know everything that goes on in a fraternity house in any weekend, but they now feel some sense of validity that their side was the truth from the very beginning. >> woodruff: what happens now at the university? are they investigating? we know from other reporting there were other rapes that reportedly had taken placer students have given accounts of that at the university. are those investigations continuing? what is the university saying going forward? >> it's pretty clear this article and other allegations from this resulted in some serious sort of soul searching here at the university of virginia for good reason. sexual assault is a serious problem on college campuses everywhere, and i think they, from the very beginning, said they needed to address it. regardless of the facts of this specific incident, i think the need for them to address this issue on the campus still exists. >> woodruff: you also talked to other women who said they were sexual assaulted at the university of virginia, some of them expressing concern that the unraveling of this story is going to have an effect on how seriously people take sexual assault on campus. what are they saying? >> they're saying, again, it's about trust on the campus. in order for victims and survivors of sexual assault to feel comfortable to come forward, they need to feel they're in an environment where they will be welcomed, where their story will be treated as credible. obviously, you know, in instances where sexual assault allegations don't hold up to the facts, you know, that, in part, discredits other people who want to come forward. at the same time, you know, they are all about moving forward and encouraging others to come forward with their stories because it's so crucial to address this national issue on college campuses. >> woodruff: taylor rees shapiro with "the washington post," we thank you. >> thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. the u.s. economy added more than 320,000 jobs in november the most in three years, and average hourly wages rose as well. and nationwide protests continued over the killings of black men by police. crowds turned out again in new york and other major cities. on the newshour online right now, tiny, prehistoric scratches left on the fossil of a seashell may mark the beginning of art history. a study published this week found that the markings were between 430,000 and 540,000 years old, making it older than any art created by humans or neanderthals. also, margaret warner explores why knock-offs of some western reality tv hits like "the apprentice" flopped in russia, while others, like "survivor" were wildly successful. all that and more is on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. >> woodruff: and a reminder about some upcoming programs from our pbs colleagues. gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week" which airs later this evening. here's a preview: >> ifill: we'll examine the unusual cross currents on display in america this week, touching on the law, national security and the politics and peril involved in accomplishing change. that's tonight on "washington week." judy? >> woodruff: on pbs newshour weekend saturday, the complicated world of your digital assets. what happens to your banking, email, and other online accounts after you die? and we'll be back, right here, on monday. music legend al green on soul, as a singer, and a preacher. that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff, have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your life and become you're own chief life officer. carnegie corporation of new york. a foundation created to do what andrew carnegie called "real and permanent good." celebrating 100 years of philanthropy at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and friends of the newshour. >> 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 report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. funded in part by -- thestreet.com and action alerts plus where jim cramer and fellow portfolio manager stephanie link share their investment strategies, stock picks and market insights. you can learn more at thestreet.com/nbr. blockbuster gains. employers were hiring last month adding more workers to their payrolls than they have in years putting 2014 on track for the labor market's best 12 months since 1999. new records and as the dow closes in on 18,000, our guest tonight still finds value in this market. and battle against bacteria. meet the entrepreneur shining a light, a bright one, on the growing problem in the health