sure he can't win? as the penn state tragedy unfolds, is stwitelevision let something defend themselves in brief interviews that don't say much? >> in retrospect, i -- you know, i shouldn't have showered with those kids, so -- >> that's it? >> yeah, that's what hits me the most. >> plus, we'll talk to the young pennsylvania newspaper reporter who broke the story. and nbc hires chelsea clinton as a correspondent while msnbc brings megan mccain on board. is a famous last name now more important than knowing anything about journalism? i'm howard kurtz, and this is "reliable sources." the coverage of the penn state tragedy now focusing squarely on the cover-up. how much have we really learned from these relatively brief encounters with tv reporters? take jerry sandusky, the former assistant football coach accused of raping several boys. nbc's bob costas says he was about to interview sandusky's lawyer, joseph amandola, when he got an unusual offer. >> no more than 10, 15 minutes before the krarmcameras were to, he says, what if i can get sandusky on the phone. i'm thinking, i wonder from your standpoint, whether that's the smartest thing to do. but at the same time, sure, if you want to do it, let's get him on the phone. >> and that's what happened with sandusky denying the allegations. >> well, in retrospect, i -- you know, i shouldn't have showered with those kids. you know, so -- >> that's it? >> yeah. that's what hits me the most. >> are you a pedophile? >> no. >> are you sexually attracted to young boys, to underage boys? >> am i sexually attracted to underage boys -- >> yes. >> sexually attracted, you know, i enjoy young people. >> cbs touted its exclusive with mike mcqueary, the graduate student who says he witnessed a 10-year-old boy being raped in the showers. but mcqueary didn't have much to say. >> describe your emotions right now. >> all over the place. just kind of -- shaken. >> crazy? >> crazy. that this process has to play out. i just don't have anything else to say. >> joining us to examine the coverage this gut-wrenching story, in new york, marisa guthrie, columnist for "the hollywood reporter." eric degans, critic for "the st. petersburg times." in washington, david zerwick, for "the baltimore sun." this is a sensational, sad, and sickening story. television is organized around the big get, even if the people who are gotten don't have that much to say. >> you're right, howie. that's part of the problem. we judge tv journalism by -- i don't even like the term "get." i really don't. but i would have to disagree in this respect. i thought bob costas' interview was important. i don't agree about the cbs news. i think that was just a couple of words. but costas did illicit something in there, and he did it with really some superb interviewing. he pushed just enough without sort of hectoring sandusky. and the admissions -- at first sandusky said no, i'm innocent. then he said, innocent of everything, in a good way. sandusky said, well, i touched a leg, i did this -- it's not what you thought you saw. that was really good. i think costas' interview was important coming when it is, and it's not just the get. i think he did more than that in his -- in his execution of it. >> by contrast, cbs hyped this exclusive interview with mike mcqueary, the graduate student who says he now -- later said he went to the police, turned out the police never talked to him. what did we learn from that exchange? >> we learned that he feels like he's in an emotional maelstrom. we learned stuff that we could easily have guessed. i think cbs certainly overhyped and overpromised with this interview. it was technically his first words to a news reporter since all of this broke, but he didn't really say anything. and i agree with david, these are two separate cases here. as this broke, what the public wanted was somebody to go to sandusky and say, what happened here? what's your side of this story? you know, are you a pedophile? costas asked all the questions that we wanted to have asked, and the answers were telling even though he didn't necessarily deliver a lot of details. he did admit that she showered with boys. he did admit that he touched a leg here and there. and he admitted enough that he might be convicted of crimes based on what he said in that interview. i think that was an excellent job. >> well, since we're talking about that, marisa guthrie, when sandusky said, yes, i showered with young boys and we were engaged in horseplay, his word, horseplay. how does a journalist stop himself from saying "that's ridiculous"? >> yeah, it's really -- i think it would be really hard. i think -- david is right, bob costas really prosecuted this interview extremely well. and bob has said subsequently since doing the interview that, a, he didn't have time to prepare for it. b, he did not want to let his outrage or his own personal feelings interfere. he wanted the interview to stand for itself. he wanted sandusky's words to stand for themselves. and i think he was very, very effective in that. >> overall, david zurawik, do you think that television news is adding much light to this complicated and tragic story, or basically a lot of heat? >> you know, howie, in some ways there are so many moving parts of it. you know, for example, i watched the penn state football game, the first game they played without paterno. and watching those players come out on the field arm in arm, walking instead of running behind paterno, was an incredibly emotional experience that made me understand part of the emotion in -- at penn state and i wouldn't have. so there's different parts of it -- >> that's not journalism. that's turning the camera on the game. >> putting the camera on is journalism in a way, howie, and i think it is. also, you know, for local news tried to cover the "riots." if they were riots. i think it qualifies as a riot. >> right. >> so there's a lot of different parts of it. they did it. and i think it's too easy to say, oh, it's a sensational story. tv's doing a bad job because we often say that. i think tv is really trying to cover this. i'll tell you something about penn state. there's a terrific documentary called "the paper" about the campus paper there, howie. and one of the things is they can never get the president of the university or anybody connected with the football program to talk to them. so i think it's a hard story because of the darkness in the administration and the football program to tell. and we sort of have to peel it back piece by piece. >> so much of the early coverage focused on joe paterno, the legendary coach, of course, now fired. now the spotlight more on jerry sandusky. let me briefly play a couple of lawyers for alleged victims in this case who have been taking to the airwaves. >> my client was sexually assaulted by mr. sandusky in the early '90s. and he was sexually assaulted on the grounds at penn state university. >> emotions of the survivors and their families right now are really a retraumatization, a mixture of despair, confusion, and fury. >> marisa guthrie, is there any way that jerry sandusky can get fair treatment from the media when he is so widely presumed to be guilt? >> well, perhaps that was amandalo's strategy in even having him on television with bob caostas. you have to wonder why he let his client do that. that may be part of it. but i don't think anyone is presuming that -- the grand jury report was so graphic and disturbing that no one is giving this guy a presumption of innocence. maybe that's the strategy in having him make the phone call to bob costas. that was certainly damning, i don't think we'll see any other interviews from him. and the other principal players in this scandal, mcqueary and joe paterno, have certainly been advised by their lawyers ton give interviews. >> right. now you have a story about a cover-up which n which the key players don't want to talk. that's always challenging for the media. but as we saw with those lawyers, i mean, the problem for the media, it seems to me, is that a number of alleged victims are surfacing, but understandably and appropriately, they don't want to go public with their names. so we are left to deal with allegations from anonymous sources, perhaps as channelled through their attorneys. >> yeah. i would say -- distinction i would dow is not television versus print. the distinction i would draw in terms of coverage is outside national media versus some of the people on the ground and have sources inside this very insular, connected community. you're going to talk to a reporter from "the patriot news" newspaper in harrisburg who's done a great job of breaking stories and getting behind that wall, and breaking the silence and getting people to come forward. she had a -- a great story with a sister of one of the victims. she did not name the sister and did not name the alleged victim. we got a sense of what it was like to be a family of someone who may have been assaulted by this person. i think those stories are there, but they're hard to get. and you have to have sources on the ground. it's very hard for someone like a arman ketayan to get coverage. >> and there's moral outrage that the grown-ups in charge didn't do what they should have done. i think journalist are wrestling with not letting their opinions overly intrude into coverage but not wanting to seem indifferent. eric, you set me up nicely to the tease. we'll talk to the reporter from harrisburg who broke the penn state story. next, nbc brings on chelsea clinton as a correspondent. anyone got a problem with that? 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[ laughter ] >> that wasn't very long ago, i have to tell you. >> my father still refers to the internet as the world wide web. [ laughter] >> eric, do you see a problem with nbc hiring chelsea deloitte -- chelsea clinton doing these "making a difference" broadcasts? >> at the nepotism company? not at all. i think it sends an odd message when you have a team of great journalists, people who have been in the business for a very long time, and you leapfrog one person ahead of all of those people and give them a prime reporting position essentially because they're related to two of the most famous people in the world. i -- she may have skills. i think one of the things that nbc should have learned from trying to develop tiki barbour for the "today" show, a football player that they tried to turn into a broadcast journalist before our eyes, is that that is very hard. and you really need to let people apprentice. you need to let them develop -- >> you're saying chelsea should start in the minor leagues, at some station? tampa? marisa -- >> no, no, but there's a place to put her in the nbc news family where she doesn't have to do high-profile report her first time in front of the camera. >> it's not a partisan thing, nbc's "today" hired jenna bush a couple of years ago. >> no, no, it's not a partisan thing. and they have megan mccain. it's an insider thing. they want to effect that they are inside without actually hiring an insider, a real insider with some baggage. so they hire the children of washington insiders. and that's what i think is so cynical about this. is that this is also the network that, you know, suspended a reporter for accusing hillary clinton of pumpi ipimping out h daughter during a campaign and now they've hired her. i find it a little cynical actually. >> there's another dimension. at a time when young people who have played by the rules, gallon college, worked hard, camping out in american cities because the system has failed them in some ways, in terms of providing them jobs, to send to another member -- to take another member of the -- of that elite -- the 1% and give them one of those jobs is really a dispiriting message. in terms of cynicism, i can't think of a more serious message. it's upsetting that they would be that insensitive to what's going on in this country with the lack of jobs right now in doing this. >> i was per tushed that nbc wouldn't make the latest journalist available for interviews by other journalists. i talked to a spokesman in bill clinton's office that said chelsea clinton see this as a vehicle to extend her work about making a difference. she doesn't want to be another barbara walters. once her piece is on the air she may do interviews. giving an open invitation to come on the program to talk about her transition to at least part-time journalism. let me turn to the cbs morning show, a failure for 30 years. i was at a news conference this week in new york. marisa, you were there, as well. the two new -- two of new -- excuse me, three trotted out. two were new. let's check my mathd. here's a look at that. >> just great stories out there. and they're about politics, and they're about culture, and they're it sports. and the boundaries of those stories are not always as we have thought. >> i had a tattoo of 50 cent on my arm the other day. i thought, i better not do that for this today. my son said, god, mom, you can't do that when you go to cbs. i go, i don't know. they have a great send of humor at cbs. we are not your typical stuffy program. >> marisa, can charlie rose and gayle king help make cbs competitive in the morning? >> well, cbs certainly thinks they can. look, this is a sort of odd couple pairing. it is -- totally in line with what the new executive producer of that program did at msnbc with "morning joe." chris licht, correct. i think that they are zigging where everybody is zagging, and that has been what jeff faiger and the chairman of the news division since last february have been doing with all of their choices. they figure why not, they've been in third place for decades, why not try something different. charlie does bring this intellectual, intellectually elite veneer to the whole morning proceedings. that's something that's been certainly abincent a lot of the morning shows. >> eric, we're running short on time. these are two talented broadcasters. but skeptics say a 69-year-old guy and oprah's best friend? >> yeah, i got to wonder about this. but marisa's right, they have changed the name of the morning show five times since the '80s. they had a huge aa ray of people -- array of people, everybody from merritt yet hartley to the latest people on the show. so they might as well try something. reminds me when msnbc was in the dumps not long ago, and they tried a lot of people including jesse ventura until they landed on this guy named keith olbermann and found their groove. you never know. >> eric, cbs executives saying it's going to be smarter, newsier, less tabloid, no dressing up in costumes as compared to today "gma." could they be right? >> they could. but for all of charlie rose's veneer of intellectualism, george stephanopoulos isn't a sch schlump. this is a smart guys and he's interviewing kate gosselin after a couple months -- so morning television pulls you to its own level. i don't know if charlie rose is the right guy. gayle king has promise. >> she was entertaining before the news conference. before we go, this was the final week for regis philbin, 80 years old, signing off after 38 years on the air in the mornings. take a look. >> regis, we realized, my god, sitting under our nose, here is the guy. and this man -- is it like 7,000 shows? >> 17,000. >> 17,000 -- [ applause ] >> sealed with a kiss. eric deggans, marisa guthrie, david, thanks for coming on the show. what should a journal dogfight when a candidate seems unfin formed? and the press ratchets up the heat as newt gingrich soars in the polls. the young newspaper reporter who broke the penn state sexual abuse scandal in march. why did it take eight months for the national press to wake up? a refrigerator has never been hacked. an online virus has never attacked a corkboard. ♪ give your customers the added feeling of security a printed statement or receipt provides... ...with mail. it's good for your business. ♪ and even better for your customers. ♪ for safe and secure ways to stay connected, visit usps.com/mail delivering mail, medicine and packages. yet they're closing thousands of offices, slashing service, and want to lay off over 100,000 workers. the postal service is recording financial losses, but not for reasons you might think. the problem ? a burden no other agency or company bears. a 2006 law that drains 5 billion a year from post-office revenue while the postal service is forced to overpay billions more into federal accounts. congress created this problem, and congress can fix it. there are times, you have to admit, when journalists try to trap presidential candidates into admitting they don't know something. like who's the president of uzbeki-beki-bekistan as herman cain puts it? what about sizable gaps in knowledge. this exchange develop cain and an executive board didn't revol around that -- >> did you agree with president obama on libya or not? >> okay, libya. just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing before i say yes, i agree -- or no, i didn't agree. i do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reasons -- no, that's a different one. >> joining us to examine the latest twists in the campaign coverage, harry washington, malika hernandez, national political reporter for the "washington post." david shuster, chief substitute anchor for current tv's "countdown witholberma olbermann," and neil acosta, writer for "the political review." you write about the appeal of herman cain, rick perry. is the press reluctant to say on cain, some issues sometimes this guy doesn't seem to know what he's talking about? >> i think it's always the% doesn't have to say that because we can see it demonstrated -- >> in this videotape? >> yes, in this videotape. he talks about this i