Reporter trying to build my career and i coronerred you in a local newsroom in albuquerque to quiz you then but your career and so for me to just continue the conversation is great. Ill just pick up where i left off 25 years ago. I remember that. I remember that very clearly and we worked opposite each other. You were at nbc cover the trial of tim tim mcveigh in denver. Thats right, and went on actually to marry after the trial was over one of the lead prosecutors. So Oklahoma City and that horrible event is something that stayed with me but also in a pleasant way in the aftermath of all of it. Scott, let me start with journalism. This book, truth worth telling is an example of a wonderful career in journalism and journalism done the right way, with a sense of purpose and a sense of meaning. So, i jump right to the idea of where you think this state of journalism is today, and you write so jarringly in your book the dividing line that matters now is the one between journalism and junk. That is what is crucial right now. Guest i it seems to me, david, never before in Human History has more information been available to more people and thats a great thing. But its also true that for the first time, never in our history has more Bad Information been available to more people. So much of what we see on the internet is cynically cast by foreign hostile governments, by cynical politicians to bend and change american opinion. I really ask myself the question, what is the fastest way to destroy a democracy. Is it war . Is it terrorism . Is it another Great Depression . I dont income so. I think the fastest way to destroy a democracy is to poison the information. Thats exactly what were seeing right now. We have moved in my view, from the Information Age to the disInformation Age and that is exactly where people like you and i come inch thats what journalism was invented for, was to be an antidote to gossip, and so much we see online is just simple gossip. Host its gossip, the influence of social media, where its really the amplyification of opinion and yet here we also are sit eight stride reality in the News Business where theres such great interest, such high level of engagement and we see traditional new sources ail though ironically more in print, i would argue, than in broadcast doubling down on their commitment to Investigative Journalism and good oldfashioned accountability journalism. Do you agree . Guest i do. You know, somebody stopped me on the street and said, oh, this must be a terrible time to be a reporter. And i said, no. This is a great time. This is the best time to be a reporter, because with all the criticism that has been focused on us, particularly by the administration, the American People are now watching us, and this is a wonderful opportunity for us to show the American People what we do, how we do it and what our principles are. Host all of that is true, and people are engaged, but you have as i have had, the very traditional path, which well get into, into the ranks of journalism, what has been difficult is someone who is not an opinion journalist, who calls it straight, reports it straight, is that people like you are increasingly seen more skeptically by those who condemn an independent media as being something of a few facade, a charade, theres no such thing. How have you dealt with that . Guest i think the bias is almost always in the eye of the beholder, not in the journalism but by the people who are watching it. Youve done and ive done interview we president s, for example in which the mail comes in 50poo, you dirty d. C. Democrat, tried to get the present and cooperate do it and the next letter is you dirty republican, you tried to secure the about and warrant able to. The same interview but the viewer are different. What worries me today is i fear that the American People are withdrawing into what i called citadels of confirming information,y theyre choosing media that tells them that what they already believe is right. And thats just no way to run a democracy. You cant run a democracy that way. Compromise is the only way to move forward, and so we have to listen to one another. We cant wall ourselves off in these digital citadels of confirming information, and so thats the message of this book, it is something that i feel is the biggest threat to our country, is this combination of poisoned information and the American People withdrawing into opinion media instead of coming on to the mainstream. I hear so many people talk about the Mainstream Media, the Mainstream Media. Thats where i want to be. I want to be in the mainstream. Dont want to be on some tributary off to the left or the right. The mainstream is where the American People are, and im proud of the Mainstream Media and i hope it remains robust because our democracy depends on it. Host let me pick up on that, scott, the notion of the Mainstream Media which i agree, its funny on a couple of levels i roon yankee on a couple of ironic on a couple of lives, mainstream is considered a pejorative firm, would include outfits that never intended to be mainstream like fox news. Dont get much more mainstream than that in terms of being at the heart of what people are watching and consuming and yet its seen as a pejorative. Theres no question that journalists bear some responsibility for what has been a crisis of qvc. Crisis of confidence. You speak around the country, and people tend to view us more skeptically, and i take your point. That is from where they sit. Its this point of view, but whether hit missteps large crisises in journalism, or the nature of the coverage of, say the 2016 race, giving trump too much attention, or missing in effect what was the trump election; that were missing some things things things and ig confidence. How do you assess it . Guest well, first of all, its a good thing that the public is skeptical of media. Think they should be skeptical of media. They should be very skeptical of government. Skepticism but not sip cynicism. We should be vary a very aware in this internet aim were in very aware of what were reading and what were seeing and be skeptical about those things. Thats a healthy thing in my view. I worry, david, that the viewers sees a lot of journalists, particularly in television, who are more interested in celebrity than being credible. I good nash my teeth when i see a real reporter in a movie. One night theyre giving you the president ial election numbers and the next night theyre in a movie report something alien invasion from space. Wore a great deal about that because no audience member is going to confuse which is real and which is fake. Thats not the point if the point is, what is that reporters motivation . Are they more interested in being a celebrity than credible . And if so, what are they willing to do in order to be a celebrity . I worry about that. Journalism is Public Service, as you well know, and it also has nothing whatever to do with being popular. If youre doing journalism correctly youre more likely to be unpopular because youre telling people unpopular truths but the truth nonetheless. So issue think there have been many factors of that have eroded confidence in the media, but consider this. James madison, in 1800, wrote that freedom of the press is the right that guarantees all the others. Madison believed and put freedom of the press in the first amendment. He believed if all of us he used the word press in an expansive way. If all of us could say what we want to say, write what we want to write, read what way want to read, all of our other rights would be protected. Madison believed that freedom of speech, freedom of the press was just that important. I would argue to you that there is no democracy without journalism because the people have to have independent, reliable information. The founders gave us the power over the government. So the only way we can exercise that power is with information, and so even though the audience has become skeptical of the media, i would like the audience to remember how integral we for the functioning of the democracy. Host we both cover the white house. You covered bill clintons second term. Called all eight years of president bush. Gosh, how would you approach covering the white house now . Theres a level of toxicity on that beat and we comfort big issues, war and peace, scandal, but the level of toxicity now is different because we have a president who so disingenuously budget in many ways effectively dismisses the news media and journalists covering him as enemies of the people. What is sadder than him saying it is theres a reservoir of people in the country who believe it. Guest well, there is some factor of the country that believes that because the president says it and thats of course very, very regrettable because of all the things i said but the founders and madison and there cannot be a democracy without independent, freeflowing information for everyone to use. When i was anchoring the cbs evening news in the first months of the president s term, i was thinking that he would shift from Campaign Mode into governing mode, and that the falsehoods would stop. Of course that was naive in that moment. The falsehoods continued into the first days, weeks, months of his administration. So on the evening news, and other broadcasts, cnn as well, we started telling people the president said this, its false, this is these are what the real facts are. And then the president describes us as the enemy of the American People. Ridiculous because we are the American People. Journalists are your neighbors, theyre the people who live in your town, write about your town. We bring vitality to the national conversation. We serve the public interests. We serve the public safety. And you just couldnt have a Great America without a great journalism function within the country. I went to the white house i was invited to the white house to have lunch, me and some other anchors, with the president , and i said, mr. President , the enemy of the American People rhetoric concerns me because im afraid it might incite violence and some deranged individual will sidewalk a tv station or newspaper and shoot the receptionist because were the enemy of the American People. And the president thought for a second and he said, you know i just dont worry about that. So i took him aside i was thinking he might have just been performing for the table and i took him aside after the lunch and said i really hope youll think about this and he said, okay, ill think about it. But nothing really changed am few weeks ago i got a call from the fbi, and they were telling me that the bomber who mailed the dozen or so bombs to various people that he felt were enemies of the president , had a file on me and my family and my home address. This is exactly what im talking about. Im concern that all of this not all but a lot of this political rhetoric on the right and on the left is getting way out of hand, and we need to think about public safety. All of this namecalling has just become way too much, and we need to think about the safety of men, women and children in this country, and the idea, the very idea of bombs going through our post offices and through the public mail is just a horror to me, and i think its because of this rhetoric that were hearing. Host it is chilling. The power platform, therefore in journalism, is really important. I speak for myself but i know so many others in our line of work. There isnt nip who doesnt look up on sunday night and watch 60 minutes and wish they could do that job and you have that job. I remember reading an associate producer years ago, worked for mike wallace and we sat at lunch and i got the first derivative on the don hewitt, the famed former exec consecutive producer of 60 minutes, his his lesson about what the mission of 60 minutes was, and he said to me, issues are for theologians and philosophers with tell stories. The power of story is what you do, its what you related in this book because the stories that you have told, the people you have met have form you as a journalist. Why is that the Building Block of your career thats the most meaningful to you . Guest well in some sense i learn it from don hewitt, as you were saying. Used to go into dons office and say, don, climate change, the big deal. We have to do a story and he would wave you off and he would say, thats an issue. Tell me a story. And what he meant by that was, if you find the narrow fascinating story that illuminates the issues of climate change, that is when you have it. It struck me, Stephen Spielberg write movie called dday. The directed a movie called saving private ryan. You needed everything you need to know about dday nat story. Didnt do a movie called the holocaust. He died a movie called schlinders list and you learned everything you needed to know about the holocaust in that personal story. Thats what we do at 60 minutes. Going into 52en in season. Say this humbly and with enormous gratitude, the most Successful Television program of any kind in history, and we are working like hell on it every week to make it as good as we possibly can. Host how does it work . Take people inside. How do you think about what you want to do, what stories you want to tell, and then how does it get there . Guest well, mechanically, i have about a dozen people who work with me, producers and associate producers like the one you were speaking of earlier, and we all get together and were going to do im going to do about 20 stories in the course of a season, and so the tension always is, what are those 20 stories going to be . We could do 200 stories buts we want to focus on the very best things we can do. Very often to me that comes down to Public Service, and we do some good here, maybe exposing corruption or the work, for example, my colleague, Bill Whittaker has done on opioids. An enormous Public Service. Can we illuminate a problem that most people arent aware of or just tell a fascinating story about someone who might be very inspiring to the country as well. So we go through those ideas, and then the producers go out and they start researching the story and interviewing people, and that is an important moment because we really only want to interview people who are great storytellers themselves. And so sometimes a producer will come back and say, we tried, we just cant find the right people to put in this story to make it a 60 minutes story and so well discard that one and move on to the next. People think that Bill Whittaker and i and leslie stahl and steve croft are all in the same office and working together but actually its very stovepiped. Each of us has our own team, and i have no idea what leslie stahl or steve croft are doing. I see their stories for the very first time on sunday night at 7 00 eastern time. So im always surprised and delight when i see those. But as you know, david, is a like to tell young people and im constantly telling my staff of, they just roll their eyes but i say theres no such thing as good writing. Only good rewriting, and so i think the audience would be amazed at how many times we write, edit, rewrite, edit, rewrited and justice did the stories before they see him. A typical story we shoot, if its not on a pressing deadline, will go through 12 iterations of it. Cut the entire thing, watch it. Pick the things that are working well. Throw out the bits that arent working women, rewrite it again and again and again. Check facts again and again and again. I think the audience would be amazed at the Fact Checking effort at cnn or at cbs or any of the other major news organizations. We really sweat bullets over these things and nothing of this is cavalier, as you well know. I wish the audience understood that better and its really up to us to give them a better look into what were doing. But your question was, mechanically, how do we put six six sick together and theres the answer. Host ill be selfindulgent because i admire your work ben when you talk about impact on an audience, people feel not just hear and see but the understand something, it comes from some of the craftsmanship of the story telling that is specific to our medium that we love, which is television. And i could go through many stories. Didnt need the book for this butout write about them. One story i remember in particular i know people who worked with you, who and part of your reputation is that you are as a story producer, you think a lot in the field and youre very precise in the field but what because youre a photographer as well what you hot and how ultimately the story comes together. Always remember a piece you dade for the evening news about the destruction of what was left of the muir a building in Oklahoma City. You had multiple cameras set up to capture the implosion of the building but that wasnt the story. The story was the impact on those who watched immigrant. Talk howl a it. Talk about how a day like that comes going youre using all of your tools in the basket to make an impression to tell a story. Guest in that particular case, it occurred to me that everyone was focusing on the building, but the building was a symbol of what had been, what had been lost. The enormous burden on the families in Oklahoma City, everyone, as you remember, everyone knew someone who had been impacted by the terrible act of terrorism, and so i wanted to turn the camera around, if you will, away from the building and search the hearts and mind of the people who were watching the building be destroyed. Ultimately in that implosion. It just seems to me that every story is about the people, and the way theyre reacting to something. The emotions theyre feeling, the way that they think but the things that are happening in the world today. It reminds me of an anecdote in the book. I was in paris, anchoring the evening news the day of the isis attack that killed 120 parissans a few years ago and