You like me are looking forward to hearing what a jackass to s say. I dont know how many times i wake up and see what my father would say what would he think of all of this. We tend to then get into a story of texts or emails we understand how we see this tension between the media and the administration. Attention is thathe tension is t between the media. There is a blacklist and my fathers name was on it and a lot of pressure on cbs with the selling of the pentagon and it seems and i could be wrong and it feels quite different. Thank you to the families and all the others who come to endow the lecture for the community. Earlier this year we contacted jeff and asked him if he had room in his schedule to meet with a speaker this fall and he said although we would he be pleased to do that. So we are delighted obviously to have him come and speak at the launch of this important work. For 35 years including several years as the chairman of the news in the last 13 at the producer of 60 minutes one of the highest quality i think we would agree of Investigative Journalism in the United States. It. We are getting really used to having weightless things but it was 200 people that wanted to come to the lecture. We pull out all the stops and was gracious at the last minute and thank you to those that helped make that happen. [applause] to send out emails on the day to let you all know we changed the menu. Cspan is here recording today if we ask questions and answers at the end wait for the microphone and speak very clearly and directly into the microphone so that it can be heard when the recording is broadcast on cspan. I cant tell you when it will be i do not have that information yet if he will let you know. I would like to invite jeff to the podium. [applause] the extra 200 or the colors. I was thinking about coming here and it reminds me i miss him so much and we would talk about a classic. Its funny, i think about and i told a story when people ask me what was it like, the story of being with him at a party, the super bowl several years ago and his makers on the rocks which he always had as it was available. He is responsible for all that money at cbs are. It is an honor to do this talk ive done a couple of times. I just have a couple of stories about it that are worth repeating. It is the new path between the past and present and such very different people. Was founded by edwin murano and it really was the driving force behind the cbs news. They started the organization. I think that is such an important legacy in terms of broadcast news. I joined in 1982. That is how important it is for those of us whove been there for many years. It is even well after hes gone but i want to talk a little bit about. It was as good as it gets with spiro agnew. It came to cbs news aside from the pressures at the pentagon papers. It was to the hudson vietnam and boy were they upset. I knew there was something wrong with them. [laughter] its about ed murrow and it wouldnt have happened if they didnt give it the green light. Hed been the merchant marine and really wasnt dying to be a reporter, he liked the new Attention Television and someone said you should get into television and at the time i said what and it was nowhere. The people at cbs news were not interested in television at all. They were elegant storytellers. They were incredible gentleman correspondence referred to them and so he had television to himself and he was more in the production side as an directing as he was on the editorial side but he learned the editorial side from those at cbs news from the Nixon Kennedy debate are fascinating because it was a breakthrough moment. The polls showed radio broadcast of the debate. The executive producer of the cbs news with Walter Cronkite had a half an hou halfanhour s the biggest job at the time. As fred became president , he called don hewitt into his office in 1964, early 65 and he thought he was too much of a showman and he told them you are going to have your own unit and we want you to do great things with that unit and he called his wife and said ive been promoted and she said no, youve been fired. Why does television have to be boring so he came up with this idea that he had presented earlier but he perfected it a bit. He took the three documentaries and cut them down and put them into one broadcast. It went on the air 50 years ago. And its finished almost dead last. And it got through that year because it got pretty good reviews. That is the most interesting because they are the lennon and mccartney television. On at and their personalities were so big, that ability is in terms of editing and storytelling and these visions and broadcast. Its the most lovable one and im sorry his daughter hasnt read the book as many of you know that she promises to when she gets up the nerve. It is the same place as it has been for now 43 or 44 years. If you gained a few pounds, he would be the first to tell you. If he didnt like your story from the night before committee would likely tell you. Mike expected that he came before their family. She was tossing the good and wanted to be around it at the same time. I remember he went into the office and said i would like to do a story on willie nelson. Im curious all the stories that we do are kind of hard stories. I said well he and nelson. And then my favorite line of all, excuse me i didnt realize that i just wandered into the toy department. Then a friend down the hall, good luck with your next career move. He produced so many of the the stories over a long period of time. The most important part of the broadcast as i look back on it and as i wrote on humi hewitt wo humiliated by the circumstances and Walter Cronkite 60 minutes was nothing. Theres parts of it that were exciting, but the evening news was there and don hewitt spent the rest of his career trying to prove. Ive learned more than anybody else in my life. We have changed and evolved significantly over the years. Almost every decade and it is different now and i will get into that a little bit. The same things they cared about and these are things we practiced to this day and thats why we are so successful. This past sunday we were the most watched nonsports show of the week. And some of those things which are simple are directly from a thread such apredators such as r underestimate the audience. Yet at the same time we know more about a story than they do. We never tal talked down to the viewer. We always assume they know more and more podcasts do you. We care so much about how we tell a story and it is intense, its always been and always will be. It was our second year on the job, probably my fifth or sixth story and it was all about communist poland going capitalist. Vaughn looked back at me and said where do you want to keep right between the eyes and it was a great learning experience for me because dawn proceeded to help us make it a better story and thats how we collaborate. It is a huge part of what we do. And heres the most important fact. This is what stands out to me this day more than anything else. Now that that especially in thy and age says a lot because we dont know what the viewer is going to want. It is on us to make the story so compelling that you just have to watch it. Its one of my compliments on a monday morning to hear someone say i didnt think i was going to like that story, and i ended up liking it and i think that is what it is about. It separates us and there is Something Else called minute by minute which literally measures the audience per minute and it says if it doesnt rate in that measurement, we dont want to be doing it. So that means the marketing that is making the decision about whats important and we feel our job is to cover what is important to make it interesting and its a great source of pride. Just for a moment to talk about the science they use, its nothing different from a testing group, focus group where they will say would you rather see a story about the war in afghanistan or gas prices and almost inevitably what i find interesting about that is the didnt do stories about the war in afghanistan, we did the stories about soldiers and printers and stories about the enemy. Its so old school and yet i think we have proved every single day that it works. I want to talk a little bit about the Current Situation because it is challenging for everybody in the News Business. Actually it was on the cnn they were asking me and the truth is i dont know why but thereve been a couple of occasions we were in discussions and it didnt happen. Its a tough but fair interview he dia day that kelly said and anticipate they will but weve had quite a bit of experience with the president and he goes back to a story that we did in the year 2000 and i was in charge of that story and i will never forget because he was so unhappy and he said to me you know, i cant believe what you did to me and it was about a familiar issue, crowd size. [laughter] he literally thought that we showed fewer people than were in the crowd. And i said we didnt. We were fair and we will always be fair, but that was the year 2000 when he was running for president in an exploratory campaign. The said yes to all three. Hillary did, two. The Clinton Campaign was not as happy with us about the Vice President interview and thought we had actually been unfair, can go a question about her trustworthiness, which we thought was appropriate to ask in these circumstances and did not ever want to do another interview with scott pelley, which to me was not appropriate. We choose the correspondents. So, that was too bad because i think that kept us from doing a story about the issues, a whole hour about the issues, which we had done in the previous three general elections with great success. We did the president elect interview with donald trump, which was incredibly challenging, at a time thats country was so divided, very difficult moment, and very difficult interview to prepare for. We did on a friday at trump tower, and leslie stahl, and i remember at the end being absolutely exhausted, and by monday or tuesday, or wednesday, i think we were going out, i went home, had a half hour to nap and my cell phone is wring ringing it and was the president elect. I said, mr. Trump, hi. He said, how big was that audience. Did we break any records . Oh, good. Actually the president elect interview with president elect obama had 25 Million Viewers and you had 22 Million Viewers. It was the best audience without a football leadin that we have had in 20 years. He like that. Anyway, it is an intense time, and i know that we know what he would be saying, the president of the United States calling the press the enemy of the people. I also believe its the most invigorating time for the press. We did a very important story two weeks ago with the Washington Post, and they talk about invigorator, marty baron, the bested for in america. Theyve got money from jeff bezos and theyre doing an amazing job. We did a collaboration with them on a store you may have seen about the opioid crisis. And about how the dea has been hobbled tracking counsel. Its probably the worst drug chrysler in our history, and it reached a maximum of Something Like 60,000 in one year dying. We all know it. We all know somebody in our community, and so to me there are so many other stories the News Business and is should be invigorating, and theres so much to report on. Part of what makes is interesting, to not its not news people are not looking at this as some big negative. Its an opportunity see what someone does when they challenge the conventional wisdom how washington works, and i find that interesting. To there are lot of interesting stories to do about each department that i think was under all kind assumptions for many years, and im sure theres good in there and im sure theres bad in there, and its our job to find out the truth. Thats what we do. So, im optimistic about these times, and i know people are feeling very concerned that theres tension, but to me it is invigorating. I actually have a tape which is an interesting piece of tape that it want you to see. We have not shown this publicly. They actually gave us an honor at the emmys and for 50 years on television, the news emmys and we showed part of it. We have been working the past six months on a special anniversary hour, which i think is going to air on december 3rd. And this is just dish think this is fun to watch. Its the very open, the cold open, of our anniversary special, and i think im actually responsible for playing it. Thank you. Thats not good audio. [inaudible] [inaudible] new Orleans New Orleans [inaudible] Dale Earnhardt [indiscernible] [indiscernible] [indiscernible] [applause] thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed that. I love seeing it. I think we can take questions. To me, your business depends on independence and integrity. I for special reasons remember i thought that was threatened when the jeff weigh began interviews in 1994 in has there been a greater threat since . It is true, that was bad moment for us went have had really about seven or eight really bad moments, and that was probably the worst. The real threat there, which was the company not wanting 60 minutes to run a story that was of incredible importance, particularly to the public health, was Cbs Corporation out of control. Just shouldnt have been that way. And i can tell you that that is not what anything close to what i face. My predecessor, don hewitt, had a much more Difficult Run for a long period of time, with a company that was not friendly to real journalism, and when that was not allowed on the air, it was bad enough in terms of journalism in america. It was worse for 60 minutes, and there are were some fears we would not come through it. Was actually rung the cbs evening news and i was not on the floor but it was a crisis. Not a crisis of our doing. That is one of the best stories ever reported in the history of 60 minutes. Had so much, so important in terms of the public health, and as i say, im proud that i dont get that kind of pressure, dont run something, why are you doing this story, why arent you . We are veer independent that way in terms of the company, who really respects church and state, and that to me is one of the biggest fears you would have is that a corporate into would get in the way of good journalism. Thank you for this incredible afternoon. You talk about truth. At this point in time, journalism and journalists are under an assault from the administration. How can or what can we the people do to reach out and to protect the First Amendment so that we do not wind up in a scenario where journalists no longer have the role to speak what is the truth . Well, as i said, i think that its an invigorating time as well, and i dont see where anybody has been muzzled. I think that cnn has a particularly difficult time right now because the president has targeted them, and this whole line about fake news is a problem i have because we really do actually in this country have a problem with fake news. Its not the kind that hes talking about. Its the kind that is spread around social media that is made up and either made up to hurt a candidate or made up to help a cause or made up to make money. Incredible statistics we learned from reporting on fake news after the leaks is that the state of michigan, voters in state of michigan, more than 50 of the news they consumed was fake. To me thats a stunning development. Our problem right now isnt really with the president accusing real journalists of fake news, which is think is a lot of sort of swordsmanship and game playing. Our problem is actual fake news. If thats the phrase. Real fake news. Its out there. And its social media and those companies have responsibility, and i think they need to be held accountable. Facebook needs to he held accountable and think well probably go into a new era with a lot of people questioning facebook about how business is done. Thank you for the interesting and fun presentation. Perhaps my question is in your book, which i intend to purchase, but could you share with us your best and your worst day at 60 minutes. [applause] my best day, i think was the day i arrived, really. I was i had really when i arrived at cbs news, it was still a year after Walter Cronkite stepped down, still so much in the air that this is all about journalism and not about the sort of typical practices in modern television news. Pandering to demographics, which we do not do, but happened at cbs news since then. When i got 60 minutes i felt that same thing. Just a dedication to journalism. 100 dedication to journalism. My worst day in terms of the job, we made mistake on a story about benghazi, which was, we believed someone who lied to us, and i think we should have been able to catch it, but mistakes in journalism, which are inevitable, are your worst moment and i think your worth nightmare. Mr. Bentley. Is this going to be a heckle . No, not at all. No heckle. Promise you. A simple question. How much authority do you give each of your correspondents . Are they responsible for the story and then come to you to give your blessing or does it come from somewhere else . They come from everywhere. Its a good question. Our process involves people pitching stories from everywhere. I got pitched a couple today. I did. And ill look at them. You never know where a terrific story is going to come from. But ill give you some a lot of them do come from the correspondents and a lot of them from from the producerred. We have 75 reporters on the floor at 60 minutes, and six or seven of them happen to be on the air is the way we like to look at it. But steve kroft came into my office about a week ago and he said, think we should go to puerto rico. Weve been working on the story about the financial problems that puerto rico is facing for about six months. We could put that together with the real story about the horrible conditions on the ground and put something together. That will be on next sunday. David martin is our pentagon correspondent. Not fulltimesive 60 minutes but pitched me a story a year ago to try to get inside the two operations in the United States that monitor north Korean Missiles. The Nuclear Missile program. And so that is on tonight, and there are some real revelations but you have to watch. I have a quick question. By the way the fake news is scary. Have two friends from Ivy League University i should say exfriend who say hat hillary is very sick, covering up and another one was an intern was killed. Its very scary when people you like and respect suspectly espouse fake news and theyre authoritative about it. Pretty scariment i love the show and i wanted to ask you, i saw, like i see every week, saw your show two weeks ago with the opioid crisis. It was brilliant and wonderful and covered every angle and the fda man testifying was just wonderful and authentic do you think the spike from last week this is my question has to do with the fact that the previous weeks story was so monumental. Trump withdrew the nomination for the it was just so great. So impactful. With drew his nomination of representative more moreno. Thank you very much. That wasnt a spike last week. We were number three the week before with the opioid story and that was two parts on that story, and i think one of the most courageous whistleblowers we have had, the highest level, joe, who really that takes guts, courage to go on 60 minutes and go in the Washington Post and talk about something as significant and basically accuse thing Drug Companies and congress of caving at the expense of americans who are dying. Thats an amazing, stunning story. I also want to say that what im proud of again, in keeping with this fred friendly, don hewitt, mike wallace, they would be proud to see that tonight we start with a story about analyzing the Missile Program in north korea. Our served story is charlie rose interviewing the amir of qatar, which is increased my serious crisis any middle east right now among our allies. They blockaded qatar and the amir is on 60 minutes. That combination alone, you dont find on Primetime Television anywhere, and i know that there will be a big audience for it. I just want to say im not doing a lot of these things but its my town and i feel good about it and my uncle and aunt are here who live near town. Don and sherry. I know there are several silant cousins, my cousin is here with her husband, dan. In addition soso many friends that are here, its nice to see my relatives. Mr. Fager, thank you for your excellent work in television journalism. How do we clean up the edge in cable news . The edge . You know, its interesting. If you have a ideology and you work at 60 minutes, youre not going to be there very long. Theres no place for ideology in real journalism. So much of what theyre doing in cable today is about panel discussions, and that is not real reporting the way traditionally we think of it. That said, theres a lot of fine people that work there at fox and msnbc where you feel like theres coming from a decision and its a business decision, too. We sell credibility at 60 minutes. As soon as we start to view viewer ares to smart for that and if someone was an an an ideology, they aint going to last. On average, how long from research to getting in the can for airing and on average how many projects in hopper at any point in time. The average gestation of a story is about three months. Some of them take three days and some of them take three years. The opioid story was six months. This north korea story has been about a year in the making. Well do an interview with a newsmaker and turn it around on the same day. Were in there a lot of sundays because i really believe this is the one change ive made to the program is that we need to be current every single sunday. We need to be responding to the news. For many years we were doing too many evergreen stories, stories that can air anytime, that dont feel as relevant, i think in this world today we need to be relevant. So, we will turn stories around quite quickly, and i dont think the viewer could tell. We covered the wars that way, and i think its important that were on important stories and that we adjust. This puerto rico story will be in the making for the past six or eight months because of the research into the finances, but from the day it started shooting until the day we air it will be two weeks. So we like to be nimble and we like to be able to tear something up that is a plan, that doesnt work with this weeks news. What is your take on the north Korean Missile crisis thats going on right now . Its getting more and more serious . Its serious, and i think thats part of what we discovered in our reporting for the story tonight. I dont want to say too much, but i think one of the things that is theres someone way in the back on the right one thing that came across to us is that theyre making fewer mistakes. And that they can get further with their missile than we really think. Theyre getting it theyve figured something out. Its not just bluster. I guess the question that everybody wants to know is, is he irrational . And for people who study him and spend all the time studying him, that say he is not, that this is his odd way of going about protecting his country. So its but its scary. Who isnt scared by it . I think its real. Think we have got i mean, we give this example of the opioid crisis, which is affecting americans right now with serious and every community. We are making that a bigger priority for news terms of how much were going to cover it. Mr. Fager, for all the kids out there, how did you get started on this path . Were you the kid who made newspapers at home . Little newsletters or the High School Newspaper . How did you get from there to here . I delivered the patriot ledger. I went through college loving to write, and learning to write in college, and i always loved adventure, and i thought news might be able to combine the two. Didnt know. But i do love storytelling and thats really what 90 of my day is. Its about storytelling, about editing copy. We always say theres no such thing as good writing. Theres only good rewriting, and i do a lot of rewriting. But i got a job in the boston station, wbz. I didnt know anybody it was a job sweeping floors and delivering lineups and moving sets around, and i parlayed that into righting for free at wbz radio in my free time. Did it for free and was able to get a real writing job but the highlight of the interexperience was entire experience was meeting my wife, melinda. I was such a punk. Couldnt imagine how that work out. Shes an older woman. I ended up coming to cbs news. Its funny. Was a producer of the 11 00 news in San Francisco and diane sawyer was the star of cbs news in 1981 and was either at the state department or the new anchor of the morning and about to go to 60 minutes and she came to speak at our newsroom. At the end of her talk someone said would anybody mind take diane sawyer to the airport . And i ended up taking diane saw youre the airport and i asked her, how do i get to the network . She said theyre about to start an overnight program from tech in the morning until 6 00 in morning, you should apply and i did and i got the job. So i owe it all to diane sawyer going to cbs news. She knows it. We have in the very back. Mr. Fager two questions id like to ask about cbs news or 60 minutes. Did anybody ever ask the question, who initialated the weiner investigation initiated the weiner investigation . The second one is, has anybody asked how can you improve obamacare . Cbs or 60 minutes. Im sorry. Obamacare and the first one. Anybody ask the question who initiated the weiner investigation about the emails sorry, no. I dont know anything about that. I do know that we do work on healthcare issues, and its actually a beat for us as well. It matters so much. And i would hope that just knowing what i know about health care and growing up in the house of a physician, weve got a massive probable tom that obamacare didnt tackle and its about cost and the idea of how much we spend on health care is outrageous, and i dont understand the obamacare took care of made it universal which i guess is a good thing, but it also is a 2,000 page bill. So, which is outrageous and everybody that their fingers in it. I just think that as reporters, the onus is on to us help People Better understand what is wrong and what is right with it. So well be working on it. Why does the status of scott pelley who is one of the finest journalists in tv today . Yeah. I agree. Im happy to report that scott pelley is fulltime 60 minutes. Im the one that roped him into anchoring the cbs evening news for six years, and i thought he did a great job, but he never wanted to do that forever, and the idea that he is traveling the world, covering stories as i think the best reporter of his era, of his e generation, is absolutely dream come true for an executive producer. [applause] thank you very much for great presentation. Id like to pitch another story to you. Why dont you do a story about real, real about . Real fake news. Real fake news. We did a story about fake news. I guess it depends on who is calling it fake news, whether its real or not. It is a big deal. Noticed that sometimes 60 minutes does just two subjects in a weekly program, and i notice also that sometimes your subject is an update of a program you did six months prior. Are these costcutting measures and, more broadly, can you confirm that 60 minutes contributes a profit to cbs and that you have adequate finances . Yes, its a good question. The answer is yes to both. Were doing incredibly well, and part of our business has always been that we do 100 stories a year. Its hard to do more. With the staff we have and maintain the quality. And we dont ever want to heart it down. Our story budgets have never been cut. Never. Do we go throw belt, tightening system yes, as we should. We blow it a little bit sometimes but we have the healthiest budget of any news program in america, and im proud of that, and cbs is proud of what we do with that budget. Its a source of great pride for our entire network, and i feel that and i hear it on a regular basis from the top through the company. We have time for two more questions. Okay. Mr. Foggy. Uhoh. No, you added a new correspondent in the last couple of weeks. Maybe you could tell us about having Oprah Winfrey in there. Thank you. I love Oprah Winfrey, thats part of it. I love her. Actually wrote to her about six or seven years ago, when she started to own her own network and i asked her if we should collaborate. Always felt it was hard to fill our correspondent ranks. Ive added scott pelley and Anderson Cooper and charlie rose and bill whittaker. We lost think about who we lost, mike wallace and morely saver and ed bradley and were luck you to have leslie stahl and steve kroft and i think the chance to have oprah do her thing, do great interviews for us with her audience and her following, and now she has a boss, which i think she is finding very interesting. Shes actually been very public about that, and she enjoys it. She found the experience to be humbling, that she brought her story into us and we ripped it apart, and thats never happened to her. She is a dream for me. Hope to get more out of her than we expected. She carolina about it and wants to do the scares about it and wants to do stories that have impact. Thats what we have in common the most. Jeff, do you need a ride to the airport . [laughter] [applause] if you didnt get a copy of your book, book wells be for sale from elm street book ted front and jeff will be signing. Give us just a few moments. Please line up on this side of the room and well get you square away. Thank you. Up next, on booktvs after words, Christopher Bedford examines Donald Trumps leadership as a businessman, politician, and president of the United States. He is interviewed by robert traynham, sirius xm radio host and political analyst. Why did you decide to write the book . Guest because people around me didnt get it. Journalists who often take themselves very seriously, think theyre super smart and understand the world. Were frequently underestimating donald trump, being surprise by things he did, and being incorrect in their predictions because of it. At the beginning, when he first started to run this round, i kind of assumed he would be like previous rounds where he made a splash, about to some publicity and not bee