Say, what would my father say . What would he think of all of this . Obviously i cannot call him up well i guess i could whatever it hasnt worked so far. [laughter] we tend to get into a flurry of texts or emails with me my siblings and we come up with their own point of view of will, that is what doug would say. Or that is what that would say. But most often he would be rolling over in his grave. I think it has been a long time since you this kind of tension between the media and the administration. But coming back here today it actually makes me reflect on a time when i was here and what was the upper school. At that point the tension was between the media and the Vice President. And none of you remember that. And, for me at that age, i was 12, maybe . It had very distinct impression. I knew that there was a black list and my fathers name was on it. And you know, there was a lot of pressure on cbs with the pentagon and it seems, i do know i can be wrong jeff, i would love to hear your point of view. But it has not been like that until now. And now it feels quite different. With that, i mexico determines over to lisa from the library. She will formally introduce jeff. Im really looking forward to what you have to say and i promise i will share back. [applause] thank you, sarah. Thank you to you and your family and all those that had the foresight within 20 years ago to endow this lecture to this community. We are just so pleased to have you all here. Especially on this miserable afternoon. I should stop and let you know who i am. For those of you that do not know me i am lisa oldham, executive director at the canaan library. Earlier this year we contacted jeff and asked him if he would, if you dream in the calendar to be a speaker this fall but not only he had been pleased to do that but he had a book coming out around the same time. We were delighted obviously to have him left not to come and speak at the launch of this really important work. Jeff has been at cbs for 35 years. Including several years as chairman of cbs news and the last 13 as executive producer of 60 minutes. One the highest quality i think we will all agree of Investigative Journalism in the united states. Among other accolades, they have one anybody and other awards. And jeff was awarded recently and worth of the highest journalistic honor and broadcast news. Slightly out of order here. I wanted to also thank, before i pass the baton, the Country School. Who at the very last minute, enabled us to accommodate what was going to be 400 people today. Obviously the weather and some issues caused some people to miss it. But we are getting really used you in the library, having a waitlist for things. When he saw the witness was up around 200 people that wanted to come to this lecture, beyond the 200 already registered for the room, we pulled out all the stops and Country School, were very gracious at last minute let us come in. Thank you to those who helped make that happen. [applause] we are all looking a way forward to the day when we will not have to shipped venues and sent out 400 emails on the eve of an event to let you know we change the venue where we can have these types of events at the library. So, without too much further, i want to know that cspan is here recording today. And when we have questions and answers at the end, please do wait for the microphone and speak very clearly and directly into the microphone so that it can be heard when the recording is rebroadcast on cspan. I cannot say when that will be. I do not have the information yet but we will be sure to let you all know. And so, without further ado, i would like to invite jeff fager to the podium. [applause] thank you. That is very nice. It is nice to be here. So nice to be here, so many friends. 200 of the hecklers that are here. [laughter] you stay quiet today. [laughter] it is funny because i was thinking of coming to the Country School. It reminds me of andy rooney. Because his kids when here. I miss him so much he would talk about a classic cbs, he had some runins with your debt. But andy was so much off the other way he was on air. I write about him the book because he is one of those largerthanlife characters. Its funny because i think about and tell the story when people asked me what was he like. The story of being with him at a party. At the super bowl several years ago. He had makers on the rocks. If it wasnt at the bar then he would say, they never have the liquor you want [laughter] andy and i were talking. I saw a friend of mine and i said andy, this is my friend bruce. And i said bruce come on over. Bruce is the cfo of the Cbs Television network. He signs your paycheck. He signs your paycheck. And andy said without a beat, well, nobodys perfect and he walked away. [laughter] he just walked away he loves being andy rooney on and off the air. Im sure the Country School remembers him well. You know, it is an honor to do this talk. I have done this a couple of times. Because it was so special and is so special in my mind, and is the minds of people who care about what cbs should be because that was dick. I want to talk about him and the situation because im sure people want to hear about it. I just have a couple of stories about this that are worth repeating. But you know he represents to me integrity. He is really the bridge between past and present for me. As is don hewitt. It is just very different people. But dick salant, the network was founded by Edward Morrow and fred friendly, the producer. And they really were the driving force behind cbs news. They started the organization with world war ii coverage. There was no real cbs is before that. Dick salant can president and early 60s for the first time. He was president twice. A total of 16 years. Near the end of that. , he had put together what we know as the book of standards and practices. Which really put into writing, everything not friendly and morrow created at cbs news. I think that is such an important really, in terms of broadcast news, beginning radio is oneofakind. And dick salant is responsible for that. I joined cbs news in 1982. Which is only about four years after it came out. I had to read it as a condition of signing my contract to work at cbs news which was interesting. I sure as hell hope it is still the case. That is how important dick salant is for those of us that have been there for many years. Mr. Dick salant is when he was referred to as. Well after he was gone. But i want to talk a little bit about what he faced, sir mentioned there was a 60 minutes interview that mike wallace conducted that was as good as it gets. Right before, in january, before he became Vice President before nixon took over and it is a fascinating interview. But i think really the most intense pressure that came to cbs news aside from the pentagon pressures which was a difficult time that dick salant rode out. It was an interim. Where morley covered vietnam and show the soldier setting fire and light is to vietnam. And boy, were they upset upset with cbs news, upset with how we were covering the news and the war and upset with morley safer. And he said what is he a communist . And then they said no, sir. Good old morley safer i miss him so much. So many of the people in this book that i worked with for years are now gone. All of the people that started in 60 minutes. But i want to talk about the history because interesting. It really is about don hewitt as well as the others. It would not have happened if dick salant did not give it the green light. He said yes to the idea of 60 minutes. He said no first and then he said yes. But, that was a four year gap. He gave it the goahead. I want to talk about a minute. Don hewitt joined cbs news after the worker has a corresponding with stars and stripes. He really wasnt dying to be a reporter. He liked the action of this New Invention television. Some said he should get into television and this time i said what a vision . He was nowhere. The people at cbs news were not interested in television all. They were the kings of radio and they were everything. And don hewitt joined and boy were they different from them he was a kid from new rochelle. A bit of a showman. He was just crazy about this New Invention. They were elegant, battle tested, storytellers. Firstclass storytellers. And morrow gathered this group as many of you know in london, and they were incredible gentleman correspondence. That is how don always referred to them. He had television to himself. And he was more on the production side. As in directing. Take one, take two. Then he was on the editorial side. But he learned the editorial side of those greats at cbs news. He learned about journalism from that. And eventually, he became the director of the first Nixon Kennedy debates. Which were pretty fascinating. Because it was really a breakthrough moment for television. That was a turning point. Nixon did not want to wear makeup. And don suggested he should wear makeup. And don always said that cost him the election. All of the polls show that on the radio, broadcast of the debate that nixon won. Andy got clobbered on the Television Side by the tanned senator from massachusetts. Don became, after that, the First Executive producer of the cbs evening news with Walter Cronkite a halfhour. That was the biggest job at the time. Morrow was participating, so was friendly and dick salant was president. And don was this was it. But as soon as friendly became president , he called don hewitt into the office in 1964 or early 65 and he thought he was too much a showman for the flagship broadcast of cbs news. At first he told don you have your own unit. And we like to really do great things with it. And he called his wife and said i have been promoted. And he she said no don, you have been fired. And then he realized and said, oh my gosh it was the most humiliating and awful defeat in his life. And whats next, he went to do documentaries. When he called hourlong snoozers. He did not understand why does television have to be boring. And so he came up with this idea which he presented earlier but perfected it a bit. It took documentaries, cut them down to 15 minutes each and put them into one broadcast. And he showed it to everybody who would listen until they start to hide from him. That is the kind of guy he was. So intense and so full of life. Finally, he and a friend convinced dick salant to say, yes. Lets try this 60 minutes thing. They went on the air 50 years ago this september. And it finished almost dead last. It got through the year the because it got pretty good reviews and one other thing which is that don and dick salant said it should be single anchor. One person. Harry, dignified anchor, host. So different from where we are today. But he was convinced that dick salant and don hewitt that they should give mike wallace a try. Well, that is the most interesting marriage i think in our history of cbs news. Because to me, they are the lennon and mccartney of television. Don hewitt and mike wallace. Their personalities were so big. Their abilities, in terms of editing and storytelling and in terms of his vision. And mike, terms of his approach to the interview which was direct and tough and inyourface. The mike wallace interview coming in the back of the first broadcast and it is the same mike wallace. He did tone it down a touch. He never toned it down around the office. Mike wallace was a rascal through and through, a rascal. The most lovable one. I am sorry that he is not here because i love to talk about mike. His daughter is not read the book. But she promises to when she gets up the nerve. She misses him so much as i do. But he and the office of hours of 60 minutes has been in the same place now for 43 or 44 years. It was in everybodys face. And rather than tell a lot of stories, if you gained a few pounds he would be the first to tell you. He did not like your story from the night before he would say that too. I remember the time he walked into my Friends Office josh howard. I did not work with mike. I was on morley steam. We look to the people i worked with mike with respect and a little bit of pity. Because mike expected that he came before the family. And usually when they would be out on the story he would say is this really worth doing . Almost all the time. It was just so good and you just wanted to be around him at the same time. I remember he went to josh howards office and said i would like to do a story on Willie Nelson. And josh said, okay. I will put the idea into don and i will get going on it. But im curious, all the stories that we do there, they are hard stories. Why would you all of a sudden want to do a story on Willie Nelson . And i said Willie Nelson . I said winnie and nelson as in mandela. Heard of him . And my favorite line of all time excuse me, i didnt realize i just wandered into the toy department. [laughter] then from down the hall good luck with your next career move he loved josh howard that produced so many of his stories over a long period of time. You know, the most important part of the broadcast as i look back on it, don hewitt was so humiliated by what was around the evening news. 60 minutes was nothing. It was difficult and he convinced a lot of Difficult People that were on the show to come to work on 60 minutes. It was new, the reports are exciting, he was an exciting figure. But, the evening news was it. And don hewitt spent the rest of his career and 35 years running 60 minutes. Trying to prove to those journalists that he understood good journalism. They had been paying attention. That he knew what they stood for. Particularly . He did not like one bit. And fred did not like him which is why he fired him. But don hewitt, until his last days, always said, i learned more from fred friendly than anybody else in my life. And he did. And so many of those things are part of i think, what makes 60 minutes special today. Because we have changed, we have evolved significantly over the years. Almost every decade. And it is different now and i will get into that a little bit. But the fundamentals have not changed. The things that don learned from fred friendly, the things that friendly cared about, the things that dick salant cared about. These are things that we practice to this day. And they are all about different aspects of what we do. And i think they are a huge part of why we are so successful. I do not want to talk about numbers, though i care about them. This past sunday we were the most watched nonsports show of the week. I mean, i think that says something. That that many people, 13 and a halfmillion that night, were willing to give up an hour and watch 60 minutes. More than any other program on all of television that week. Except one football game. And some of those things, which are simple, are directly from fred friendly. Such as, we never underestimate the audience. Yet, at the same time we know that we know more about a story than they do. We never talk down to the viewer. We always assume they know more. And most people do. Most broadcasters. We care so much about how to tell a story. We pour ourselves into it. It has always been intense and always will be intense. Ill never forget the time i was at end don hewitt viewing. As my fifth or sixth story and is all about communist and capitalist. The story was over, the light came on and don looked at me and said where do you want it kid . Right between the eyes for and that is how come you know it was not personal. It was a great learning experience for me. Because don proceeded to help me and steve make it a much better story. And that is how we collaborated. It is a huge part of what we do. And here is the most important thing. This is what stands out to me to this day more than anything else. We never, ever do Audience Research to determine what stories to cover. Ever now that, especially in this day and age, says a lot. Because we do not know what the viewer is going to want. The onus is on us to make the story so compelling that you just have to watch it. It is one of my favorite complements on a monday morning. You hear someone say, you know, i really didnt think i was going to like that story. And i ended up liking it i think that is what its really about. It is, it separates us out to this day. Theres Something Else in Television News called, minute by minute. Which literally measures the audience permanent. There is a phrase which says, if it does not rate in that minute by minute we do not want it. It means that the marketing is making the decision about what is important and we feel that our job is to cover whats important. And make it interesting. And there is a big difference there. It is a great source of pride. Just for a moment, i would talk about the science that they use. It is nothing different from a testing, a focus group. Where they will say, would you rather see a story about the war in afghanistan or a story about gas prices . And almost inevitably, they will say would rather see the gas prices story. What i find interesting about that is that we did not do stories about the war in afghanistan. We did stories about soldiers fighting, brothers fighting by each other. There is about the enemy. Stories about friendly fire, tactics, generals. We tell stories, we do not cover issues. It is another fundamental from the very early days of cbs news. Which has lasted these 75 80 years. It is so old school and get i think we proved every week, that it works. I want to talk a little bit about the current situation. Because it is challenging for everybody in the News Business. We actually, this was on cnn this morning. They were asking me why hasnt the president done an interview with 60 minutes . And the truth is, i do not know why. There have been a little occasions where we are in discussions and it did not happen. Andy has not done a 60 minutes interview which is tough but fair interview. I actually said, and i anticipate that it will. But we have quite a bit of experience with the president. He goes back to history that we did in the year 2000. I was in charge of that story. I will never forget it. 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. He literally thought we took a cutaway picture and reduced the size of the crowd. And i said don ultimately did not. We will always be fair. That was the 2000 when he was running for president in a, just a exploratory campaign. It was a press conference. There were probably 20 reporters there which is actually a lot for an exploratory so anyway, i got to know him better over the years and i pitched that we would do last spring, his first interview. An indepth interview on the issues with both candidates in september. And the president elect interview should you get elected. He said yes to all three. As it turns out, ellery did two. They were not happy about the Vice President interview which they that we were asking about the trustworthiness which we thought was appropriate to ask. And did not ever want to do another interview. Which to me, was not appropriate. We choose the correspondence. That was too bad because i think that kept us from doing a story about the issues. An hour on the issues which we have done in the previous three general elections. With great success. As it turned out, we ended up doing the president elect interview with president trump. Which is incredibly challenging. At a time when as you all know, we all know, the country was so divided. Very difficult moment. A very difficult interview to prepare for. We do this on a friday at trump tower. I remember at the end of this, it was absolutely exhausting on monday or tuesday, or wednesday. I think we are going out i had and a half an hour to not at home in my cell phone was ringing. And it was the president elect. And i said mr. Trump, hi. He said how big was that audience . Did we break any records . [laughter] gosh the president elect interview with president elect obama had 25 million values and you had 22 million viewers. It was without a Football League and he like that. Anyway, this is an intense time. I know that, we know what don hewitt gentler we know what dick salant would say. I also believe it is the most invigorating time for the press. We did a very important story two weeks ago with the Washington Post. They, etc. Invigorate, the editor i think is the best editor in america. He has not money from jeff bezos and they are doing an amazing job. We did a collaboration with them on the story they you have seen about the Opioid Crisis. And about how the dea has been this is probably the worst drug crisis in our history. And we have reached a maximum of 60,000 in one year. We all know it, will know somebody in our community and so, to me, and there are so many of the stories. The News Business is and should be invigorating. There is so much to report on. Part of what makes it interesting, they are not looking at this as a big negative. They are looking this is an opportunity to see what someone does when they challenge conventional wisdom of how washington works. And i find that interesting. There are a lot of very interesting stories to do about each department. That i think was under all kinds of assumptions for many years. Im sure there is good in there and im sure there is bad in there. It is our job to find out the truth. And that is what we do. I am optimistic about these times. I know people are feeling very concerned that there is tension. But it is invigorating to me. I actually have a tape which is an interesting piece of tape that i wanted to see. We have not show this publicly. The actually gave us an honor at the emmys. For 50 years on television. The news enemies and we showed part of it. This is, we have been working for the past six months on a special anniversary hour. This is the cold open of the anniversary special. I think im actually responsible. Thank you. Thats great. [video] [inaudible] [video] [inaudible] [applause] thank you very much. I hope you enjoyed that. I love seeing it. I think that we can take questions. To me, your business depends on intended integrity. For special reasons, i remember a time when i thought it was the end with interviews and 94. Was that true . Has there been a greater threat since . You know, it is true. That was a bad moment for us. I think weve had really about, seven or eight really bad moments. That was probably the worst. The real threat they are, which was the company not wanting 60 minutes run a story that was incredible importance. In particular to the public. With cbs corporation. Out of control. It should not have been that way. I can tell you that that is not what anything close to what i face. My predecessor, don hewitt, 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. There was a fear that we would not come through it. I was actually running the cbs evening is of the times i was on the floor. But i remember it was a crisis. It was not a crisis of our doing. It was one of the best stories every put in the history of 60 minutes. It had so much, it was so important in terms of the public health. As i say, im proud that i did not get the kind of pressure. Dont run something, why are you doing this or why arent you . We are very independent that way in terms of the company. And who really respects the church and state. That to me, is one of the biggest fear that we have. Thank you so much for this most incredible afternoon. He talked about truth. At this point in time, journalism and journalists are under 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 ability to speak what is the truth. I said it is an invigorating time as well. And i do not see where anyone has been muzzled. And then cnn has a particularly difficult time right now because the copresident this thing about fitness is a problem that i have. I really really doing this problem have a problem with fake news. And it is not the kind that he is talking about. It is the kind that is spread around social media that is made up and neither made out to hurt a candidate for up to hurt a cause. Were made up to make money. Incredible statistics we have from reporting fake news after the election, the state of michigan, the voters in the state of michigan more than 50 percent more than 50 percent of their news was fake. To me that is a stunning development. Our program now is not really with the president accusing real journalists of bad news. Which i think is a lot of you know sort of, sportsmanship and gameplaying. Our problem is actual fake news. We have real faith news. It is out there. And it is social media. And those companies have a responsibility. I think they need to be held accountable. Facebook needs to be held accountable. I think were probably going into a new era with a lot of people questioning facebook about how business is done. Thank you pretty interesting and fun presentation. Perhaps my question is in your book. Which i intend to purchase. When you share with us your best and your worst day at 60 minutes . [laughter] [applause] my best day, i think was the day that i arrived, really. I had really, when i arrived at cbs news it was one year after Walter Cronkite had stepped down. It was still so much in the air. This is all about journalism. And not about the sort of typical practices in modern Television News. And candor into demographics which we do not do. What has happened with cbs news since then. When i got to 60 minutes time i thought the same thing. Just a dedication to journalism. 100 percent dedication to journalism. My worst day in terms of the job, we made a mistake on a story about benghazi. Which was, we believe someone that 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 worst nightmare. Mr. Bentley. Is this going to be a heckle . No, not at all. I promise. A simple question, how much authority do you give each of your correspondence . Are they responsible for the story and them come to you to give your blessing or does it come from somewhere else . That come from everywhere, dave. That is a good question. Our process involves people pitching stories from everywhere. I have a couple today. I did. I did. I will look at them. You never know where a target story is going to come from. But i will give you some, a lot of them did come from our correspondence and a lot of them come from the producers. We have about 75 reporters on our floor. At 60 minutes. Six or seven of them happened to be in the air. That is we look at it. But steve came into my example about one week ago. And he said, think we should go to puerto rico. We have been working on this stories about the financial problems that puerto rico is facing. For about six months. We can put that together with the real story about the horrible conditions on the ground and put something together. That will be next sunday. David martin is our pentagon correspondence. He is not fulltime with 60 minutes but he pitched me a story about one year ago. To try and get inside the two operations that monitor the Nuclear Missile program. And so, that is on tonight. There are some real revelations which you are going to have to go ahead and watch. [laughter] yes, i have a quick question. By the way, fitness is pretty scary. If two friends from Ivy League Universities who said hillary is very sick, she is covering up during the election. And another one was an intern was killed. It is very scary people that you like and respect suddenly spout fake news and they are authoritative about it. Pretty scary. I want to tell you how much i love the show and i want to ask you, i saw, like i see every week, i saw your show two weeks ago with the Opioid Crisis. It was brilliant and wonderful and covered every angle of the fda man testifying was just wonderful. And it was so authentic. Do you think the spike from last week, and this is my question, has to do with the fact that the previous weeks story was so monumental . As you know, donald trump withdrew the nomination i mean it was just so great. Taxable he withdrew the nomination of marina. Thank you, so much. It wasnt a spike last week that is how it has diversity we were number three to be before with the opioid stories. That was two parts on that story. And i think one of the most courageous woman ever had certainly the highest level was who really, that takes guts and courage to go on 60 minutes and the Washington Post and talk about something as significant and basically, if using the Drug Companies and conquests of caving. At the expense of americans who are dying. That is an amazing, stunning story. You know, i also want to say that, what i am proud of and again, this is in keeping with the dick salant, don hewitt, mike wallace, they would be proud to say that we start with a story about analyzing Missile Program in north korea. The second story is charlie rose interviewing cutter. Which by the way is in it incredibly serious crisis right now. Have blockaded qatar. You dont see that in another will be a big audience for a period. Okay, hold on i want to say or not doing a lot of these kinds of things but it is my town and i feel good about it. My uncle and my aunt are here. They live here in town. [applause] i know that there are several salants here. And also i have relatives here. It is so nice to see everyone. Thank you for your excellent work in television journalism. How do we clean up the edge in cable news . The edge you know, it is interesting. If you have a ideology and you work is 60 minutes you will not be there very long. There is no place for ideology in real journalism. So much of what they are doing in cable today is about panel discussions. And that is not real reporting, the way traditionally, we think of it. That said, there are a lot of fine people that work there. At fox and msnbc. Places where you thought there coming from a position. And it is a business decision also. We sell credibility. At 60 minutes. The view is too smart for that. As i said, if someone has an ideology, they will not last. Hi, on average, how long does it take from research to investigation to getting this in the can for any particular airing . Second, on average how many projects you have at any point in time . So, the average gestation of the story is about three months. Some of them take three days and some of them take three years. The opioid story was six months. North korea has been about one year in the making. We will do an interview with a newsmaker and turn it around on the same day. We are in there a lot of sundays because i really believe, and this is the one change that i have 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. Which are stories that can air any time. Dad do not feel is relevant. I think in the world today, we need to be relevant. We will turn stories around quite quickly. An idea i think the viewer can tell. We cover the wars that way. And i think it is important that we are on important stories and we adjust. The 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 started shooting until the day that we air it will be two weeks. We like to be nimble and would 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 that is going on right now . Is a more serious . It is serious. That is part of what we discovered in our reporting for the story tonight. I do not want to say too much but i think one of the things that they are is someone way in the back to the right. One of the things that came across was that there making fewer mistakes. And they can get further with their missile than we really think. And they are getting at. They figured something out. Its not just luster. I guess the question that Everyone Wants to know, is he irrational . And i have heard people that study him and spend all of the time setting him that say he is not. This is his way of going about detecting his country. But it is scary. It is real and i think i think that we have got, we give this example of the Opioid Crisis which is affecting americans right now with serious, in every community. We are making that a bigger priority for us. In terms of how we will cover it. Mr. Jeff fager, for all of the kids out there, how did you get started on this path . Were you the kid that made newspapers at home . You know, little newsletters or the High School Newspaper . How did you get from there to here . I deliver the patriot ledger. [laughter] you know, i went to college loving to write and learning to write in college. I always loved adventure and i thought news might be able to combine the two. I do not know but i do love storytelling. And that is really 90 percent of my day is. It is about storytelling, editing copy, it is about, we also there is no good thing of writing it is good rewriting. And i do a lot of that. But i got a job in the boston station, wbz. It was a lot of Little Things that i did that those able to get a real writing job. But now the highlight of the entire experience is meeting my wife. [laughter] [applause] i was such a punk i cannot imagine how that worked out. But i ended up coming to cbs news. It is funny, i was a producer of the 11 oclock 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. She came out to speak in the newsroom and at the end of her talk, summa said, would anybody mind taking diane sawyer to the airport . [laughter] i am not taking diane sawyer to the airport and i asked her, how to get to the network . She said they are about to start an overnight program. Two in the morning until six in the morning. You should apply for that. Which i did, and i got the job. So i owe it all to diane sawyer going to cbs news. She knows it [applause] mr. Jeff fager, i have two questions i would like to ask about cbs news or 60 minutes. Did anybody ever ask the question, who initiated the weiner investigation . That is the first one. The second one is, has anybody asked how can you improve obamacare on 60 minutes were cbs . Improve obamacare and what was the first one . Has anyone asked the question who initiated the weiner investigation about the emails . Sorry, no i do not know anything about that. I do know that we do work on healthcare issues and is actually a beat for us as well. It matters so much and i would hope that just knowing what i know about healthcare, and growing up in the house of a physician, that we have a massive problem that obamacare did not tackle. It is cost. The idea of how much we spend on healthcare is outrageous. And i do not understand obamacare took care of universal which i guess universally is a good thing but it also was a 2000 page bill. It was outrageous and everyone had their fingers in it. I just think that as reporters, the onus is on us to try and help People Better understand what is wrong and right with it. So we will be working on it. What is the status of scott paley . One of the finest journalists in t. V. Today. Yeah, i agree. Im happy to report that scott is fulltime at 60 minutes. I actually in the one that broke him into anchoring the cbs evening is for six years. I thought he did a great job but he never wanted to do that forever. The idea that he is traveling the world covering stories, i think is the best reporter of his era. Of his generation. It is absolutely a dream come true for an executive producer. [applause] thank you very much for a great presentation. Why dont you do a story about about . Real fake news. Is a big deal i noticed that sometimes, 60 minutes does just two subjects in a with the program. And i also noticed that sometimes, your subject is an update of a program that you did six months prior. Are these costcutting measures . And more broadly, can you confirm that 60 minutes contributes a prophet to cbs and that you have adequate finances . Did question, the answer is yes. We are doing incredibly well. And part of the business has always been that we do 100 stories per year. It is hard to do more. With the staff that we have and maintain quality. And we do not ever want to water it down. Our story budgets have never been caught. Never do we go through belttightening from time to time . Yes, we blow it sometimes but we have the healthiest budget of any news program in america and im proud of that. Cbs is proud of what we do with that budget. It is a source of great pride for our entire network. And i feel that and i hear it on a regular basis from the top all the way through the company. We have time for two more questions. Mr. Jeff fager. You have added a new correspondent in the last couple of these. Maybe like to tell us what this was behind putting Oprah Winfrey in there. Yes i love Oprah Winfrey. That is part of it. I just do. I love her. I actually wrote to her about six or seven years ago when she started her network. Mike wallace, morley safer, ed bradley and we are fortunate to have lesley stahl and steve kroft who are incredible prose. I think the chance to have opera do her thing, did great interviews with her audience at her following and now i think shes finding this interesting. Shes actually been very public about that and she enjoys it. You know, she found the experience to be humbling that she brought her story to us and we ripped it apart. Thats never happened to her. She is a dream for me and i hope to get more out of her than we expected. She cares about and she wants to do stories that have impacts. To me thats probably what we have in common the most. Jeff, do you need a ride to the airport . [laughter] [applause]. If you did not get a copy of the book, the bucs will be for sale up at the front and jeff will be signing. Please lineup on this side of the room and we will get you squared away. Thank you. Every weekend look to the brings you 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on cspan2. Keep watching for more television for serious readers