And institutions accountable and exposing injustice. I feel we are not doing that enough we are too driven by social media which is important but it has come to dominate a lot of decisions about coverage when we ought to spend more time digging and providing new information to the viewers. Why did you leave the business . It had been more than 30 years and i think change is a good thing. It was really a matter of i either change now if i were going to make a change or continue probably through the next election. I decided i wanted to take a pause and spend a little time playing golf, making a few speeches and then decide what i want to do next. Have you come to any conclusion of what you might want to do next . No. I was in the process of moving and ending 33 years at nbc, and i want to take time when i really am not under any pressure and particular out what might be out there. My decisions about projects will be determined by the principles i mentioned earlier. I care about Holding People and institutions accountable and exposing injustice. But im open to doing something entirely fresh that i may not have thought of. What was life like growing up in joplin, missouri . It was a little like the cleaver family. We had a wonderful life. It was webb city, 6,700 people next to joplin. I have four very smart younger sisters. My dad was a lawyer. My mom graduated in journalism but gave it up to raise the five of us which was more than a fulltime job. We had an ideal childhood. We went to a pretty good school. We were encouraged to do whatever we wanted to do. I went to the university of missouri to college. I think i had a pretty happy, pretty normal childhood. You started in print journalism where . B and a publications. When i went to college my dad wanted me to take a broadcasting course because i was in news ed and i refused, i said no, im going to be a serious journalist. So i went to washington, i was determined to get my first job in washington, d. C. You can imagine all the ohs that say come back when you get experience. I found b. And a and they hired me to report on their Daily Reporter executives and daily tax report. I had one hour in economics and never seen a tax return. But i managed to persuade them i would be perfect for the job and they hired me. That is how i learned washington was covering taxes an economics. I think the first time i met you you were with the washington star. It was from there to nbc. How did that happen . I think that the reason it happened was that there was a News Conference during the carterreagan president ial race in september of 1980. And i asked a somewhat sassy question at the end of the News Conference and the president basically tried it blow me off. And just instinctively i stood there and reasked the question at which point president carter denied he had ever said what he had said and had said on tape. That question led the evening news that night and after that is when the networks became interested. What was your first job with nbc . When the washington star folded nbc hired me in spite of my audition. I was a glorified mic stand. They called me a correspondent but i really didnt know much about tv so they had to teach me to do the packages. I was so bad that when my spot came on the air i didnt want to be in the same room with anyone because i had enough sense to know that my work was not as good, as professional, as everyone elses and i didnt want people telling me i had done a good job when i had not. Fortunately they assigned me a lot of great producers who taught me how to do television. The attitude then was it was easier to take a strong print reporter and teach them broadcasting than it was to take a local reporter who was a great broadcaster and try to teach them Good Journalism on a national level. We had you on a program here in 1990 the first available video we could find. What is that, 24 years ago. Here you are talking about voters lack of choices. [video clip] i think one reason voters were not able to more fully vent their anger on a congressional level they were not presented with real choices. As was said again and again, on a congressional level we do not have real elections any more. 85 or 86 of house members and half of senators running for reelection either had no opponent or who had an opponent who was so miserably under financed he didnt have a prayer so you have options between choosing between someone they are frustrated with or somebody they never heard of or was a joke chose not to vote or stick with the incumbent. Anything changed . Not much. I think that is what a lot of incumbents are hoping this year. There are not real choices because it is so much a matter of funding as the redistricting where house districts increasingly are either republican or safely democratic and there are very few swing districts. What do you most remember covering congress . [laughing] and is there a change . I think there is. When i started you had russell long, wilbur mills, dan rostenkowski, howard baker. People who were giants in their own way. A couple of them got themselves into trouble. But overall these were all very intelligent and they knew how to craft legislation and how to do a deal and they all worked with whoever the president was. Whether it was their party or the other party. Yes, there were politics but they found a way to come together and make decisions for the good of the country. Today you just dont see that. First of all, i think the quality of members of congress, house and senate, in terms of intelligence and work ethic, has diminished. There are still great people and i shouldnt malign there are wonderful members but they are a minority. Increasingly people are driven by the politics and their own selfsurvival. I think that the hardest work they do is raising money. They are not crafting deals, it is making speeches and positioning themselves to get reelected. We you were on capitol hill how many years did you spend up there by the way . I would say at least 15 overall. Who gave you the hardest time . Who gave me the hardest time . I actually dont remember one. Jay rockefeller gave me a hard time during hillarys Health Care Bill because he was the point person for healthcare when the clintons were trying to get their Health Care Plan through congress. And, as you know, Hillary Clinton was taking the lead on that. So, he was in he was the point person covering that and it was my job basically to punch holes, to ask provocative questions and he at times would be annoyed by that. Since then i should say i worked with senator rockefeller on any number of investigations. But i think at that point he was probably the one who was most irritated with me. The person who probably disliked me the most was robert tortella. Why . There were these finance hearings and he made this grand Opening Statement about he could remember likening this to some previous, i think i cant remember which set of hearings but he could remember the tv from the previous hearings that people were unfairly maligned. It turned out that he was about four days old when the other hearings were held so away interviewed a pediatrician to find out how much memory a child of that age would have and he didnt appreciate that. Over the years we did stories about his corruption, which is what caused him to leave the senate. When somebody has not liked your reporting, how have you felt it . Sometimes they are direct about it. Sometimes they call my bosses. Sometimes they scream and yell. Your reaction to any of that . Were you intimidated ever . I havent been. It is always nerveracking when you put a spot on the air, i always worry about the question i failed it ask. That is why in the most important spots i work with great producers and on all the conversations i make sure both the producer and i are having the same conversation, are hearing the same conversation and if there are key sources we go over them to make sure we dont make a mistake. But every time i put a big story on the i worry about the question i fail to ask or the implication i left in the piece that might not be accurate. Here you are in 1992. [video clip] the networks no longer control what people in america see on Television News of president ial campaigns. I thought bill clintons problems with the coverage of the jennifer flowers allegations was a classic case. He would not have had to go on 60 minutes if the networks treatment of that issue controlled what the American People saw. What happened is because of technology. All of this stuff is getting fed bulk all around the country. Our news channel operation routinely fed commercials out of New Hampshire all over the country, it got incorporated in local spots. Whether we like it or not, the people a lot of people around the country were seeing some of these ads. That is 22 years ago. You set the networks no longer control the message that went out. Should they have controlled it . I dont think they should able to control it but i think the question was prompted that why did we provide such coverage or why do we cover an issue. A lot of times these days if an issue is big enough it is not a matter of whether you do or dont. It is out there. So, if it is false i feel like we almost have a responsibility to go on the air to say this story you are seeing all over the country is false like we did when the issue arose about whether the president was actually born in hawaii. At some point it was so out there that we did a story basically Fact Checking it and taking apart the arguments. I think that it is true even more today that the networks didnt control the news flow, and certainly this white house has gone to Great Lengths to every president tries to work around the media and to go directly to the people. But this white house, i think, has been even more sophisticated about it in their control of the pictures and interviews the president grants. They have relevance done, from their point of view, a successful job of in many cases circumventing the filter. How well is the public informed today compared to we you started this business . I think the public is much less informed. When i started in the business away basically had three broadcast networks and many more newspapers. And a huge portion of the country watched the evening news. So, there was a common experience. There was information. I would also say the newscasts in those days tended to be more substantive or fact filled. It focused more there were fewer features and it was more about the big news of the day. Also at that time the public didnt have all of these other things competing for their attention. You have the internet, most women now are working, not home any more. So when they do get home people dont have the kind of disposable time they used to have to inform themselves. So, a person who wants to be informed, the technology is out there, whether the internet, tv, newspapers, it is there. But i think that before the common experience of watching the evening news, it was part of the daily routine for families. And, therefore, just through that as a whole they got more information. Let me show you an excerpt from Brian Williams show you were on, this is in february and just want to show you the early part of it and we will talk about it and ask you what is going on here this particular subject over five minutes was devoted to on the evening news show. [video clip] later tonight following your late local news in fact a new era will begin at 30 rock in new york where lucky members of the audience filed in for the taping of episode one of the tonight show starring jimmy fallon. After a hugely successful run in Los Angeles Jay leno has passed the baton to jimmy and before we left new york jimmy sat down with us in his old studio to talk about the debut, what it means and what those of us in the audience can expect to see. Im excited and it is like it is all starting to sink in and becoming really. It is going to happen. What would that story have been 30 years ago on nbc . Would that have made it . I think so, actually. The tonight show is an institution and jay leno had been there decades over time and it is a big deal. I think it is a bigger deal now because truthfully there is more selfpromotion of our own networks by the news division. We call it synchronicity. But i think that would have gotten coverage. Should it . Sure. At the end of the broadcast that is a legitimate story, i think. A lot of people watch the evening news. The tonight show has been an American Institution and therefore it is entirely legitimate to do that story. It is a matter of placement and how much time you give it. Can you remember when an editor said go do this story and you said not a chance . There have been times i probably would not have said it that way. I probably would have gone back and done some reporting and then perhaps tried to argue my way out of a story or why we shouldnt do a story. I never absolutely refused an assignment. There were times when i encouraged people to get others to do the assignment. Im usually a team player. One time i was given an assignment and peewee herman was getting an award at the Hasty Pudding Club in harvard and i have never been a peewee herman fan. Is this before or after the incident in florida . I think it was before but there had been some previous rumbling about it. But i also didnt think was funny. So, i did a piece, is was somewhat snarky. I didnt want to do it but i didnt refuse it but it didnt make the today show. What about the reverse where you had a piece you wanted to do, you had an investigative piece and the network said no deal . Do you have 10 hours . It is hard to get investigations on the air. First of all, it is hard to you have to they have to be of National Interest it show that there with be broad enough appeal. They take time in terms of presenting them. A lot of important stories that is one of the great things about the magazine shows is most investigations that one with do fit better in a magazine show because then you can bring people in. You introduce the characters and you talk about what is going on and you can have both the emotion and facts. It is hard to compress a lot of investigations for television and that always is a challenge. And then you have to compete against breaking news. So, people may say go do it and it never gets on because of other news and because it becomes dated. It may never get on because you get 90 of the way and you cant get through the final 10 . What is the longest investigative report you worked on that didnt get on the air . Something i worked on six months, but that is because we couldnt get the last 10 . Can you tell us what it was . No. Why not . Because it would malign someone. Can you give us some idea what the 10 was . There was a lot of circumstantial evidence. There was not something that definitively connected the final dot from a source that one had enough credibility in to do that. Can you give us an example of how much effort was put into it up to that point . Did you do a lot of interviews . Did you have to travel . Was there a lot of expense involved . This did not have a lot of expense. There were some interviews but it was not a terribly expensive thing. Here you are in 1993. One of the reasons it has gotten as far as it has has been the administrations handling of it. Had the administration not had to change its story along the way a number of times on foster and whitewater had there not been resistance it a special council and continued resistance to making public the document i think the documents relating to whitewater i think has raised suspicions that there is something that the president and mrs. Clinton want hidden. It is horribly complex story. It involves characters of, whose credibility can be easily questioned. There are an unbelievable number of missing records, records that are key to determining what happened. And you look at this one thing you find if you look at it, you find a pattern of incestuous relationships between politicians and bankers in the state of arkansas. What do you remember about whitewater, which is almost 21 years ago . Did you cover it enough or not . I think we covered it enough. There were some incredible characters involved in whitewater and it was whitewater also became you know, produced stories about the Rose Law Firm that hillary was part of and the issue came up about how she made so much money on her investment in cattle futures. During the clinton years it was like one scandal morphed into another and they kept on giving in terms in you are a investigative report there was always something to look into. What do you remember about the Clinton Administration about the daytoday activities . I dont recall the Clinton Administration being that helpful. Why not . I was usually covering things they didnt want covered. So, i dont necessarily blame them for not providing a lot of information. I had too many people actually out and out lie to me in that Administration Even about whether the white house had just received a subpoena for the president to testify by the special prosecutor or the independent counsel. But it was a very combative anyone who covered the Clinton Administration will remember it was a very combative period with the press. Initially not so much but you had the rotc issue early in his campaign, then you had the jennifer flowers issue early in his campaign, which he denied any relationship but the minute you heard her on the tape you knew that was not necessarily truth. How did he survive it . Isnt it amazing. It is amazing. You look now and bill clinton is the most popular political figure in the country. He has amazing personal skills. When you look back particularly with the economy the way it is now, the economy was very good during that period. When it became politically necessary he found a way to compromise with newt gingrich, of all people, and get deals done on welfare reform and balancing the budget. He promoted trade, got some trade agreements, which i think helped the economy. So you look back and put aside some issues of veracity and other really important characteristics but still his record as a whole stands up pretty well in many cases. I think that when people see a dysfunctional washington, it makes him look better in retrospect. A lot of young people dont remember the bad. In fact, i saw tweet once about we need to elect the clintons to restore honesty in governme