governor? some media dilemmas to ponder. hank williams jr.'s offensive comments about president obama. should monday night football have given the singer the boot? those wall street protests now spreading across the country. has the press been too slow to recognize their importance? plus, the passing of steve jobs. the visionary who was so brilliant at manipulating a news business that served as his cheering section. i'm howard kurtz, and this is reliable sources. ♪ back in may, i wrote a "newsweek" headline, "is sarah palin over?" it seemed there was no way the fox commentator was going to mount a white house campaign. it was just as clear when reporters were chasing the bus trips she took over the summer. but the press somehow kept up the pretense until this week when palin pulled the plug with a statement and a radio interview, not like chris christie, at a news conference. >> to tell you the truth, i made my announcement today in the format that i did because that was his seven millionth no. and i didn't want to go through all of that. i wanted to, you know, just kind of put the marker down and say, no, i'm not running. not have the big press conference it. it not make a big darn deal about it because this isn't about me. and it's not about chris christie. >> but it is about you when you run for president, even when you decide against running, unless your goal is to avoid reporters. joining us now here in washington, nia malika-hernandez, national political reporter for the "washington post." robert costa, reporter for "national review." and bill press, host of radio syndicated "bill press show." why do so many journalist participate in the pretense that maybe, maybe sarah palin might run for president next year? >> i want to tell you the secret about us. we are not a disinterested party in politics. we want it to be exciting. we want colorful candidates. and we have -- >> the entertainment value, you're saying? >> partly that. look, we have columns to write. i have three hours of talk radio to fill every day, right? we have tv shows to anchor and to be guests on. and sarah palin keeps it interesting. so we're disappointed. >> you get points for candor. he apparently loves to needle the press. it is columnists and pundits and talk show host who kept her in the headlines until now. >> i disagree that it was reporter driven. i was one of those following her for weeks in iowa. she had a big bus tour, making speeches, premiering a documentary. she gave a major speech in september. >> but who cares if she's not running? then she doesn't get the press -- >> unlike chris christie whoa had many on-the-record denials, palin never did. we're following a former v.p. contender, going around making speeches, going to eat fried butter at the state fair. this seemed pretty presidential to me. >> lots of people eat fried butter. let me get to nia -- i remember when mitt romney announced his candidacy in new hampshire. she went on the bus tour -- all the reporter there rushed to her. she was on the front page. how can it not be reporter driven? it was urltly media driven. >> it was media driven, but i sort of agree with robert in the sense that she was making moves that looked like she might run for president. she had the glossy video out of iowa around the ames scuffle that looked very presidential -- >> did she put together -- >> she had a grassroots organization on the ground, conservatives for palin. peter sington, running an iowa operation for sick monsix month. >> you must have been disappointed -- >> i wasn't disappointed. i'm just a reporter. >> you compare sarah palin to what mitt romney put together or what rick perry belatedly is putting together -- she had no organization, no national team. she had some grassroots followers. camp followers who follow the butt, bought her books. that doesn't make a campaign. mitt romney's been in this for five years. you have to look at the infrastructure. >> in september at the labor day rally, huge crowds out there urging her to run. not the kind of crowds that mitt romney has gotten, frankly, or even rick perry. so in some ways we were covering that. that excitement, that desire for a different candidate among republicans. we're jumping between herman cain and -- >> she is an exciting and charismatic political figure, also a divisive one. gave no indication that she was going to run. >> sarah did sent out a letter, her political action committee sent it out this month looking for donations. that's what made a lot of people -- >> people are always -- you know who's not happy with sarah palin, a lot of people at fox news. fox paying her $1 million a year and she makes the announcement on mark levin's radio show, not fox? >> you got to wonder about the relationship with roger ailes and that moves. if they were paying her for anything, it seems they would be paying her for an exclusive when she makes the decision not to run. >> you would think. there was a real split in the conservative punditry raenks about whether shaarah palin shod run. many said in 2008 she was unqualified to be vice president, saying she's not qualified to be president. the polls were not encouraging as the year went on. what explains the sharp difference of opinion on the right? >> i think when she left her gubernatorial position in alaska, conservative pundits said she should have stayed in, beefed up on issues, getting ready for 2012. even though we said she was never going to run, never gave clear signals. mitt romney and rick perry's peep were worried because she plays an outsider role. doesn't matter what national review or weekly standards are thinking. she could jump in like a third-party candidate in a primary and shake things up. the divide was there because people didn't like that she quit her job and became a reality tv star. in a political way she was a major figure. >> i wonder now that she's closed the curtain on the speculation -- lou sound like you're happy to keep speculating, maybe she'll change her mind. >> it does bring -- >> now that she's done that, does she remain an important political figure? certainly she can raise money for the party, things like that. or is she really going to become a wealthy cultural figure? >> i mean, it could be both. she's clearly going to be wealthy. she's clearly going to maintain her celebrity, i think. you know, in that statement where she said she wasn't going to run, she said she would continue to drive the conversation around, you know, debt and deficit spending and just taxes and all sorts of thing. what's interesting, though, is she hasn't really been driving that conversation. she's not in the field. she hasn't been running. it's about on the hill, romney and obama and the candidates -- >> i couldn't agree more. the idea, right, that she is going to drive a conversation on any issue in the republican party is just pure myth. i don't know whether todd believes that. she's not driving -- let me tell you, rand paul does not feel that he has to consult the oracle of con silla before he makes a stand on the debt cre ceili ceiling. >> i think if she gave speeches she could have influenced the debate, one that lots of people thought she might run. >> fair enough. >> she took another shot -- really, the place in society that she was running against and delighted in painting herself as a victim was the press. take a look at her interview with greta van sustern on fox. >> when you consider his straeth strength, he's going to have candidates and 0% of the media in his back pocket. >> talking about barack obama. now, you could make an argument that was true in 2008 when barack obama got incredibly favorable coverage. but now? >> i'll tell you another secret about us, right? this is beat up the press day, i guess. we love to beat people up. one we get them up, we love to tear them down. >> particularly when polls are down. >> exactly. then you pile on. >> why is it that palin can't resist taking those slaps at the president? does she have a point? 90% of the press are in obama's pocket? >> i think she's a little too hard on the press. becomes almost annoying as a reporter to constantly hear the same refrain from her about the media. going back to bill's point about what role she'll play, it's like spiro agnew. she's going to rally against the press. i think in 2012 she's not going to be hugely influential but in senate and house races she'll jump in and shake things up that way. >> for all of palin's dissatisfaction from the press, she's gotten unfair coverage, particularly her family. i'm not saying she never has a legitimate beef there. she's also largely avoided interviews, using her fox platform when she's not often challenged. that make me wonder how much impact she will have from this point on except as somebody who is almost more in the entertainment realm. >> yeah, it's true. she talk good not wanting to do a sort of chris christie-style press conference. i mean, she wanted to do it in her own way. in some ways, you think she didn't want to do a press conference because she didn't want to do a press conference and answer all of these questions. surprise, surprise. it will be interesting to see what she does. again, i think she in some ways has an outside view of her power in this party. you noticed when she dropped out, it was only rick perry who came out to see, you know, she's a great friend. she's still a major part this party and very important -- >> you set me up for the next segment. let me tease it now. when we come back, chris christie confirms what most of us knew -- that he won't run for president either. we'll look at that frenzy. and is the press going to pounce on mitt romney for being a mormon? 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[ male announcer ] werther's original caramel chocolate. what comfort tastes like. it was an exercise in journalistic self-indulgence as the media posted the prospects that chris christie might jump into the presidential race despite a year of impassioned denials. when he made the announcement he couldn't help but poke the press corps and local respondents in trenton. and in his jersey way, criticizing reporting and punditry. >> let me dispel that because i've seen wild reporting about this. mary pat and the kids were completely behind me running if that's what i wanted to do. you worry a lot more than i do, charlie. you -- really, we've got to get you some help. you're obviously overwrought. i have to point out to all of you who are new here that lisa is getting very, very good because she anticipated my answer when i began to interrupt her. she's now lost the moment for us. >> robert, you did a lot of reporting on christie reconsidering his decision. seemed very evident to me given all the statements about not feeling it in his gut, that there was no way he was going jump in. >> i agree. for many weeks, i couldn't agree more. i interviewed tom kaine sr., former governor, right before christie made his reagan speech. he's told me on the record as someone part of christie's early circle, it's real, closer than it's ever been. that made everything spiral forward. that christie really was seriously reconsidering his suicide pact and all this about not running. so i believed him, i went to trenton and spoke to advisers. i believed from my reporting that he was closer than he led on in the press conference. >> he does say he never got out no. what explains the journalistic expectation with candidates who aren't running as opposed to the eight or nine perfectly viable candidates who are running for the nomination? >> i think the perfect example was that cnn carried mitt romney's foreign policy speech, but none of the other networks really carried it. but they did carry chris christie's. everybody carried that. he was clearly enjoying himself. >> if you ever needed proof, bill -- i'll get back to you in a second -- that reporters really wanted christie to run, look at them last night talking to mitt romney. >> governor chris christie announced he would not seek the republican nomination. have you considered calling him and trying to convince him to run? >> why would i do that? >> he's a great candidate. we were all going to vote for him, right? >> "saturday night live." >> yeah. love it. i love it. >> i got to say that i think the chris christie announcement overshadows the sarah palin announcement. he's the real deal. am i right? he's got a job. he's colorful. got a good candidate -- >> come back to my question about why is there such a sense of letdown in the press corps? >> because we have woven a narrative, true or not, that mitt romney is too boring to be the republican presidential candidate and, therefore, can't win against up against barack obama. >> too boring? >> yeah, too boring, too straight. not a hair out of place. and there's this feeling about him running -- he's overlooking desperately for anybody else. >> does that reflect dissatisfaction on the part of republican voters, or boredom on the part of the press corps that doesn't find him to be an exciting storyline? >> i believe it's some of both but mostly dissatisfaction on the part of reporters. jon stewart said this primary is like "american idol" in reverse. they keep adding people rather than taking one away. >> it was interesting to see the joking relationship he enjoys with the press corps. sometimes he be can belittling to reporters, as well. >> i was next to mark halpern, he was calling him by name. all the national reporters knew him like they were cousins. it was amazing. i not the reporters would have loved it because he's candid. mitt romney would never point at reporter like christie dein trenton. we'll miss that. going back, we were covering a story in the polls. there's room for someone to get in. and we had evidence from behind the scenes that he was reconsidering. >> maybe christie will change his mind. he said -- as the coverage swelled about a potential christie candidacy, there was columns written about his weight, was he too fat to be president, some of this i thought was over the top. he addressed this in trenton this week. take a look. >> you know, to say that because you're overweight are you, therefore, undisciplined -- you know, i don't think undisciplined people get to achieve great positions in our society. so that kind of stuff is just ignorant. and the people who wrote it are ignort ignorant people. >> he pushed hard. >> he did push hard. what reporters were saying when they talk good chris christie's weight, was that running for president in as in some ways trying to elect a movie star. we elect people who look a certain way, have a certain weight. voting is an aspirational act where you vote for somebody who you think in some ways is better than you, even though we say we want the guy next door, we usually elect the harvard guy, yale guy. the guy with a great last name. >> and great hair. not too many bald presidents. it seems like a sideshow -- >> we did -- >> somebody agrees with me. >> this is an idea about milk, it should not be about weight. the media focuses on superficialits. and christie was right, the commentators are clowns for talking about his weight. it should be about ideas and politics, not anything else. >> it should be about ideas, i agree. but the man is overweight. it's a very strenuous job to run for president. and i would say -- wait, wait. i would say -- because i've been around politics a long time, i've seen a lot of people running for president. i would say that i agree off the table except that he talked about it with diane sawyer in an interview over a year ago. he said his problem is weight -- if he talks about, it damn it, we can talk about it. >> you're not agreeing we were clowns? the press corps? i'll throw this in at the last minute because at the values voters conference this week, a number of presidential candidates came to speak, rick perry was introduced by a major baptist leader from dallas, robert jeffers, who took a shot at mitt romney and mormonism. he said among other things mormonism is a cult and not christianity. this got coverage yesterday. romney spoke. he did not direct lly address those remarks. he talked about that without talking about being a mormon. of course that needs to be covered s. it now like it was in 2007 and 2008 going to be a major theme of the press conference? "politico" had the headline, "mit's mormon issue returns." how long is it returning for? >> i think in 2007, romney came out with the speech where he talk good mormonism, he talk good his church and talked about not being beho dsbeholden to hi church. when he gets questions about his faith, he refers them to his church. he says, i'm not here to speak about my faith or for my faith, and he refers people to his -- the web site of mormonism. i think -- >> the press, as you know, has the ability to treat something as a one-day story or five-week story. i am wondering whether or not we are going to collectively do what we did last time and keep saying -- it's not that there's evidence, the x percentage of evangelicals won't vote for mormon. are we going to start pounding the drum pause romney's being the front-runner and we need something new to talk about? >> i think not and would hope not. 50 years after jfk and some of the -- some will haevangelicals questioned his catholicism, people questioning mitt romney's mormonism. i don't think r the media will buy into it. >> take kennedy, one of romney's great rivals in the 1994 senate race. he said we've moved on as a country, the religion issues died with my brother, jack. i think that's true. this is like christie's weight. why are we focusing on religion? it should not be the same focus. because some nut job commentator, i don't care what his religious position is, makes it an issue. >> he's not a -- >> and perry and all these candidates on the republican side should be calling this out. it should go back like with christie's weight. focus on the ideas and politics. again, i hope the media doesn't put mormonism on the cover of every magazine. romney deserves better. look at his health care plan, whether you agree or not, look at his foreign policy and other issues. that's what's important. i would be -- unfortunate for the country and the debate if we continue to follow the religion debate like we follow other minutia. >> i think the election of barack obama told -- told the country, the press, about diversity. that america is much more diverse and accepting than we may have been 10, four, five years ago. >> first of a different kind. before we go, you mentioned rick perry. is the story about the rock now over? i'm talking here, of course, about the texas hunting camp, associated with his family, the "washington post" story last sunday saying that a racially offensive name for the camp with the "n" word appeared there. perry himself said that, a, he didn't have anything to do with it. b, his father painted it over some 30 or 25 years ago. the "post" found seven people, most of whom were not on the record, saying they saw it more recently. how important is a story was that, and is it over? >> i think it was an important story for much of last week. will be -- we'll see if it carries on. he addressed it again, like you said, and said it was something that his family took care of. there's a debate on tuesday sponsored by the "washington post" and bloomberg. >> bloomberg. >> it will be interesting to see if it comes up there. it's about the economy, that debate. we'll see if it comes up again. >> rick perry was never personally tied to. i thought perhaps -- >> the stories i read in the "post," he was at the ranch and bringing people to the ranch when he was a state legislator, agricultural commissioner and governor. and according to some, the word was still there. here's the problem -- i don't think it will be a big issue. the problem was that so often happens, the way he answered it. the way he responded saying this was inappropriate. has no place in modern time. it has no place ever. and he should have just, i think, condemned it, said i'm sorry i was ever associated with those times, and moved on. >> and a guy, the "washington post" pointed out, followup story, that appointed the first black supreme court judge and we are out of time. >> he can disengage, but i don't think he did it sufficiently. >> thanks for joining us this morning. coming up in the second part of "reliable sources," those occupy wall street protests. have the media been too slow and too indifferent in covering that story? plus, espn gets rid of singer hank williams for his offensive remarks about president obama. was that the right call? and later, a look at steve jobs, brilliant visionary and master media manipulator. a netw. excuse me? my grandfather was born in this village. 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[ male announcer ] it's the at&t network. and what's possible in here is almost impossible to say. we now turn our lens, our critical lens on a series of media dilemmas. we begin with a story that was barely on the media's radar until the last week. occupy wall street began as a small and unfocused protest at the nation's financial center. the coverage has grown as a number of demonstrators increased, and the movement has spread to other cities. joining us to talk about this and other issues in los angeles, sharon waxman, editor-in-chief of therap.com. and in washington, eric wepple, reporter and media critic for the "washington post." eric, i got a facebook message saying the reason i didn't talk about this on last week's program was my corporate overlords prohibited it. i wasn't sure it was that big a deal. were the media too slow to pick up on the sfloifts. >> right. i argue that they weren't. that a protest needs to prove itself. >> there are protests all the time. >> right. these protesters, happened to their credit, to be savvy on social networks. they're able to build their own protests. the media can come in. i don't see a huge problem the way keith olberman did and others did with the media blackout. i didn't see a huge problem with the protest, proves itself, generates headlines, doing thing that turns some heads. then the media can jump in. i think that's the system working, not the system broken. >> sharon when we come backman, i've read various manifestows that purport to describe what the protesters want. they're against corporate greed and corrupt milk ruining -- setting the policies of the nation. i think people are confuse good who is behind this, how organized is it, and what is the agenda of occupy wall street? >> yeah, i don't actually get that at all. i've heard that even from our own reporter who feel this way. this is an organic movement of people generally dissatisfied and finally taking to the streets to talk about the issues that are impacting their lives. why they can't out of the woodwork at this particular time when we're dealing with a recession, coming out about a slow emergeens from recession, a possible double-dip recession for years now is a mystery. you know, it's almost like you look at the -- at the arab spring in tunisia and how it spread to egypt. those movements didn't have leaders either. it really was a legitimate expression of discontent on the part of the people in those countries. i think this is similar in that way. it's not organized but is authentic. for that reason the media needs to pay close attention to it. >> i think that's starting to happen. as you mentioned, keith olberman, at current tv and ed shultz at msnbc playing up the protests, criticizing the coverage or lackthere woflackth. more contrast to -- bill riley saying these are far left and anarchists. some may be but still. >> look, whenever you have i believe this is characteristic of left wing protests, you see the protesters and they have the signs. one just for movie-goers and -- everyone has their own -- >> save the whales, world peace. >> it's easy, low hanging fruits for people like othat to make fun. it's disgraceful. >> why disgraceful? >> i think it's disgraceful because you can always find someone in a crowd of 1,000, 2,000, 3,000, 4,000 people to -- to mutilate. you can -- and to mock. and so that's really low hanging fruit. i think it's crazy. >> sharon? >> i find it -- i actually find it interesting that fox has taken the position it has because they -- it could just as easily co-opt the protesters as a symbol of how obama is failing. >> absolutely. >> i don't agree that had is a left-wing issue. these are people who are hurting in an economic -- a long swing of the economic pendulum that has really hurt the middle class. you know, that we've been reporting about for many year. so the right could just as easily adopt these people and embrace them as their own. but instead they're sort of looking at them as the anarchist -- such a weird word i keep hearing. >> it's striking that fox was more sympathetic a couple of years ago to the tea party movement two years ago, i should say. then it was the liberal media accused of picking out a few protester with crazy sign or yelling at town hall meetings. let me turn to the flap involving anderson cooper's syndicated daytime television show, which is carried or distributed by time-warner, parent company of this network. and there was an incident -- we'll play a clip from the "today" show -- involving a teenager guest, who wanted to be on, who filmed himself on some skateboard. let's look at nbc's coverage. >> matt, good morning to you. the show was supposed to focus on teenage minds and risky behavior, but things went terribly wrong when a teenager on a skateboard was badly injured. >> let me put a statement from the "anderson cooper daytime show, it says, "as part of our routine process we ask guest for video footage and photos. we did not provide the family with a camera." high was saddened to hear about this and deepest concern for the teenager. there were reports he was in a coma. we don't know what the state of his health is now. my question -- can the show be blamed if it wasn't asking for the skateboard stunt and didn't provide the cameras? is this fair criticism? >> i think that what the "today" show did was way over the top. they brought in an ethicist and said this is crazy do, no harm thing with the "today" show. i thought it was insane. i think what they asked was the kid to do his thing. they didn't ask him to do anything unethical. they didn't ask him to do anything illegal. they asked the kid to skateboard. did he push it because he knew he was going to be on the show? perhaps. but as david dobson, the "national geographic" showed, that's the way teens are inclined to be anyway. and there are 26,000 kids that check in to emergency rooms every year over skateboard injuries. i don't want to put this on anderson cooper. a comfortable stance to be making -- >> i don't agree with that. >> go ahead. >> i don't actually agree with that. i mean, i think that you can't discount the impact that the power of television has on people's behavior. we've seen it throughout reality television, and a talk show is just one more example of that. weather front the show provided -- >> people do all kinds of crazy thing in order to get on television. the question has to be -- >> well, that's absolutely true. but -- >> did the producers encourage this? >> inviting that. right. are they inviting that by saying, "go do your crazy thing," and you know that you'll be on a show about risky behavior. so you're going to try to fill the bill. >> do we know that the producer told the, "go do your these thing," we do not. >> that's what i read. they told him to "go do your crazy thing." >> the person who did the reporting did not hear the producer's instructions to the kid. those details matter. i wouldbu argue -- >> i need a break. we hope the teenager is okay. i think we agree. i will not be doing any skateboarding now that i've heard the statistics. next, monday night football dumps hank williams jr. over the controversial political remarks on the news. hank williams jr. doesn't work for espn, but for years he's provided the theme music for monday night football. that is until this week when the sports network dropped the song over comment by the singer on "fox and friends." the subject was president obama playing golf a couple months back with house speaker john boehner. >> what did you not like about it? it seems to be a pivotal moment for you. >> come on. come on. that would be like hitler playing golf with netanyahu. >> sharon waxman, did espn overreact here by getting rid of hank williams? >> well, when you invite atilla the hun over to give you sophisticated political analysis, this is kind of what you get. so i mean, espn had -- you know, they didn't have a whole lot of choice, i don't think, in the matter. they needed to distance themselves. things started to really snowball, and people were making fun of -- of, you know, hank williams and, you know, the thing kind of started to spin out of control. i wasn't surprised to see them do. it the whole thing seems like this is what you're going to get if you invite hank williams to give you his political view and don't be surprised. >> espn said it was disappointed in the comments. let me put up a statement by williams. he said, "some of us have strong opinions and are misunderstood. my analogy was, treatment, you think, but it was to make a point. it was how stupid it was to me how ludicrous the pairing was." >> one they split ways, hank said he took his song off. but espn -- once it came out, he put a statement up -- >> you can't fire me, i quit. >> right. >> my first amendment rights have been dupont circle. >> he said this is the first amendment issue, once again, it proved that hank williams really shouldn't talk. he should just sing. he shouldn't write because -- shouldn't post things to the web. i agree with sharon, that, you know, you deal with hank williams, i think espn just said, i think they decided it wasn't worth it anymore. and the song was tired, and i -- i'm tired of that song. i don't know. sharon, i thought she made a good point. >> espn was actually carefully calibrating this because initial at the took the song off for last monday's game. then later in the week as the reaction built, then williams said his first amendment right had been tramped, you have no first amendment right to appear on television, it pulled the plug altogether. you feel like this of a controversy? >> what's the cost really? >> what's the cost? >> well, really, what's the cost to espn? in other words, they feel like they need to distance themselves from somebody who's becoming -- on who's casting the wrong kind of energy and attention on their show. they have that association. so the cost to them is very low. i don't think that there is a million -- millions of fans out there waiting to defend hank williams and obama-hitler. >> in the half minute we have left, i mean, i wish everybody would just get rid of these hitler analogies. like the fox anchors didn't say, how could you say that, that's outrageous. eric? >> the fox anchors didn't say -- >> didn't react -- >> they didn't react very -- they didn't seem to register the outrageous to begin with. that's the way things go. you think about it, say, boy, that was really dumb. so no, i think that the espn behaved perfectly fine here. >> we've reached consensus that the remarks at least were really dumb. eric, sharon, thank you very much for talking with us this morning. after the break, jeff jarvis on the overwhelming media reaction to the death of steve jobs who always seemed to get his company gushing press coverage. supported nearly 3 million steady jobs across our country... ... scientists, technicians, engineers, machinists... ... adding nearly 400 billion dollars to our economy... we're at work providing power to almost a quarter of our homes and businesses... ... and giving us cleaner rides to work and school... and tomorrow, we could do even more. cleaner, domestic, abundant and creating jobs now. we're america's natural gas. the smarter power, today. learn more at anga.us. 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>> it's hard to be too hyperbolic about steve jobs -- >> because? >> to consider that he is our gutenberg, our galileo, our da vinci, our instein, our edison. and we can find over-the-top metaphors work for him because he changed technology, he made it accessible to so many people. he enabled everyone to create things. he changed business and how it operates not just technology but music and media. he changed retail, he changed entertainment, he enabled a culture -- he didn't invent computer, he didn't invent the internet, but he did make them so easy to use that we are all creators. he's a big deal. >> now of course it's apple that did these things, but steve jobs is apple. or the creative force behind apple to a large extent. you know, when the media -- we just went through this not that long ago when he stepped down as chairman. we knew he was sick. obviously, we didn't know quite how ill he was. but he was not the world's most pleasant guy to work for. in fact, he was something of a tyrant. it's interesting that as we bid farewell to steve jobs, and this were incredible tributes and you delivered one, it doesn't mean that he was necessarily the world's most pleasant human being. >> not at all. we need to have at some point the full picture of the man. walter isaacson has the biography coming out next month. he had cooperated with. i hope it will be that full picture. you know, we have a traditional in america. i was on "this week in tech" last night talking about this with somebody from england. and he was strug bing this. saying, he was also difficult, he was a problem and did difficult things. that's the british view of an obituary. you try to give an honest appraisal. in the u.s. i think we're more about this is a moment for tribute. so do we go over the top -- >> wait, wait, american journalism isn't about giving an honest appraisal even when somebody dies? >> o bit wears. i think in obituaries we tend to go with kid gloves and say at first, look at all the good things. then we come back and rethink it. >> is that a mistake? >> no, i really don't think it is. but it is highly cultural, right? it is very much like, oh, that sounds like it's in bad taste. last night i tweeted that the book about jobs was up to 93 on amazon. somebody yelled that that was poor taste. it was a fact, no big deal. that's how attuned we are at the this moment of sanctity after someone dies. >> jobs was very difficult for the press to deal with. for example, during the years when he was battling cancer, he didn't want to talk about it. the company was secretive about it. and yet he was the ceo of this major international corporation. that always bothered me. >> i wrote another book, ton plug it, called "what would google do," and i wrote that apple was the grand exception to every rule that google does, ws the grand exception to every rule. it's closed, secretive, not collaborative and all these things. there's one reason why. steve jobs. he was a genius. he was a visionary. he was a generous genius but, but a controlling genius. if his stuff hadn't been good, it wouldn't have worked. >> there's another reason steve jobs and apple could get away with this. clearly one of the great visionaries of our time, one of the great businessmen of our time, don't want to take anything away from him. but apple and jobs had this huge cheering section in the press. and so if another company would have gotten absolutely barbecued for this kind of secrecy, for not putting out material information about the helle of the chief executive officer, for cloaking every product launch in secrecy, which of course built up the mystique and we all got to then celebrate what a great new thing had just come out. it was an exception in the media to the way this company among all other companies was treated. >> you're absolutely right about that. it's the fan boy. if you criticize apple, the fan boys will come after you. there is a cull there. but again, it only works because things are so good. when jobs left apple, my son last night said you remember going through my closet and founding an old black power book laptop and how much i hated it. i went over to windows. but i came back when steve jobs came back. they are just that good. you're absolutely right. there's the paradox of apple. they're loved for every reason that would be attacked for any other company. >> let me come back to the standards that journalists apply. i think part of it was the journalists in the tech field who cover this kind of thing, every other gadget, they wanted access. and jobs did build up relationships with certain journalists and "time" magazine as i recall got the first advanced look at the ipad. of course that ended up on the cover. so they were very good at playing the press and they were pretty shrewd about this. >> he was a master manipulator. and the irony here is that we're in an age of scarcity where anything can be said by anyone anywhere. he held to a skargs ti of information that made it more precious. we all kind of want to be that way today, but we can't pull it off. >> the irony we saw this week, the big buildup, apple upgrades a product about the new iphone, supposed to be called the iphone 5, instead the iphone 4s and there was a great sense of lettown of the product launch, one day before his death, a great sense of letdown ut wasn't gee whiz a revolutionary product. >> it was also revealing there was kind of a pall over this presentation and we understand better why. what the press will be doing now is probably going the other way, oh, my god, without jobs, the company could be nothing. we'll see how that is. >> if steve jobs and his company were treated differently than any other company on the planet that i can think of by the media, by journalists usually cynical about these things, basically because of, a, the manipulation and the secrecy we just talked about, and, b, because he made incredible products in the ipad and ipod and the iphone and going back to the mac computer. you find of feel like it's okay for us to have -- collectively, talk act every single journalist in the country, to have given him that break because he deserved it, because he succeeded in the marketplace? >> what did he do wrong? right? we're at a point now, i think occupied wall street, the demonstrations going on downtown in new york are about a lack of institutional trust in government, in banks, in media, in all kinds of things. and so you see an institution that is all in all trusted, a rare entity right now, and apple is all in all trusted. it has not violated that trust since he's been back in a bad way. the proof in the pudding about journalism in a company is did we miss all the bad things they did at banks? yes, we did. what have we missed at apple? i don't think there's anything awful that we missed there as reporters. >> did the media contribute to jobs' success and apple's success by providing endless free publicity and hype for each new product or product improvement? >> you bet they did. but he could have been like google and spent nothing on marketing, but instead he spent a fortune on marketing building up this brand, this mystique. he's a paradox to his death. >> to his death. >> to his death. jeff jarvis, thank you. still to come, final thoughts on steve jobs, the towering media figure we only thought we knew. this one works. ooh, the price sure doesn't. i'm tired of shopping around. [ sigh ] too bad you're not buying car insurance. like that's easy. oh, it is. progressive direct showed me their rates and the rates of their competitors. i saved hundreds when switching. we could use hundreds. yeah. wake up and smell the savings. out there with a better way. now, that's progressive. ♪ >> the gushing, often emotional coverage that followed his death prompted the website gawker to run the piece titled "steve jobs is not god," suggesting those who didn't know him personally should calm down. here's what's so strange, we feel like we knew him because he was on so many magazine covers and we carried around his products in our pockets. the reality is we knew so little about this secretive man, the fact he was adopted, his struggles with his health, what he thought about the world beyond apple. in an oprah fied age of too much information, he contributed almost nothing and reporters so enamored of all things apple let him get away with it. walter isaacson, the former cnn president and time managing editor conducted close to 50 interviews for jobs for a biography now being rushed out. jobs explained why he pulled back the curtain during isa isaacson's last visit during the last interview. i wanted my kids to know me. i wasn't always there for him. i wanted them to understand why i did what i did. perhaps the rest of u