Transcripts For CSPAN QA 20160314 : vimarsana.com

What was your first journalistic experience . Susan i remember being 10 years old and handing out copies of the newspaper that my parents founded, the legal times, at the Aba Convention in washington. And probably ever since then. Brian how long did they own legal times . Susan they started in 1977 and their Company Owned it until 1986. Brian who is the first person who tie you would journalism is all about . Funny. You know, it was there was a famous teacher at the high school i went to. Tom lyons was the supervisor of the newspaper at andover. He was also george w. Bushs favorite teacher in high school. Many years later he was still around, a very, very older statesmen at the school, and not only was he a great leader in journalism but also in the role of a free press. He taught constitutional law as well. My junior year in high school. It was incredible experience. Brian your husband is with us today. Peter baker. Before i go to peter baker, what were the circumstances where you met him . Susan people used to say i got my job through the Washington Post. I was lucky enough to get a job at the Washington Post and to find and meet my husband. Say that Monica Lewinsky was the thing that brought us together. So there was some good at least they came out of that side of. I was an editor at the Washington Post and i would oversee investigative reporting for the national staff. I started in january 1998 one week before the monica story broke. Peter was a White House Reporter covering president clinton. That is how we met. Brian we have some video from 1998. Actually, right after you started. February 6. This is your husband, peter baker, when he worked at the post. The president gets home from his deposition on january 17, having just spent six hours with lawyers from pollen jones and going through all this reported sexual encounters with lawyers repeating questions. The one that stuck in his mind was Monica Lawrence go. Monica lewinsky. He gets home at night and because of betty currie and asks her to come into the office the next day. So they can talk about it. That sunday in the privacy of the white house and they went through his testimony and he tried to see if his memory matched her memory. Prosecutors are very interested in that because her version was somewhat different in that he says i was never out of earshot. He and lewinsky were never essentially alone, he claims. Betty kerry said yes but later told investigators that in fact she had been the outer office on a number of occasions. Brian what are you thinking . Peter my taste in ties hasnt gotten any better. That was a long time ago. The issues were so extraordinary. Never repeated since, thank goodness. Were young journalists trying to figure out what the story was. Was it about politics . Was it about accountability . It was a really extraordinary time. It was a stew of all these things. Brian what do you think is the residual of that time. On our politics right now . Peter it was part of a continuing than washington that became increasingly corrosive over time. We had a hard time figuring out what are the right boundaries. The ways even hold the president accountable. When does become partisan . You can trace back to all sorts of events in the previous 10 or 20 years. And then extended through today. You see an evolution of how politics has grown harsher and harsher in washington. Brian you were able to find your spouse at the Washington Post. Peter she was my boss at the time. We were spending a lot of hours together. Late at night. For about 13 months the story was allconsuming. One day we discovered completely by accident friend al kamen that we lived on the same block on the same street. We didnt even know it. We never saw each other they are because we spent our time at the office. That told us there was Something Real here. Monica lewinsky brought us together. I grew up here in washington outside fairfax virginia. I went to Public Schools all the way through. My High School Journalism teacher was a man named stewart held was very influential in encouraging me. Susan technically president clinton might say that was not the controlling legal authority. There are many bosses in a big newsroom. I have been really lucky. To be able to have professional and personal partnerships over more than 15 years is a very unusual thing. He was terrible on deadlines. And he is terrible now. What is the last possible moment you can turn in a story . There are a lot of procrastinators who gravitate toward journalism because only the force of a gun to the head will get things done. Of like those Old Newspaper deadlines, what is happened in those 15 years is the absolute proliferation and explosion, we are all wire service 24hour deadline people. He was one of the very first people to write a web story for the Washington Post. We wanted to have a midday update on impeachment. Just 15 years you go from the print paper and waking up in the morning to a fresh set of news and headlines. Now this rolling world in which the New York Times and the Washington Post and politico are all filing all the time and we expect sophisticated not just commodity news versions but a complicated breaking stories almost instantaneously of them occurring. In our living memory of covering the scandal he was the very first guy to even write a web story for the Washington Post. Brian you are going to jerusalem together. Peter tuesday his departure. R 11yearold son will go with me later. Susan is going to finish out the election with politico. She will join us a couple of months after that. Brian what is your thinking about being the bureau chief of the New York Times in jerusalem . Peter susan and i were Bureau Chiefs together in moscow. We have never spent any time in israel. We are looking forward to learning a lot. It could be a real adventure. Part of the world that has so much history and so much of a vital part of todays issues and we spent a lot of time writing about in washington but weve never lived there. Brian you are stepping down as the editor of politico. Susan i will be changing roles and continuing at politico in a roll around helping to lead our editorial growth and innovation. Continuing to expand internationally. We Just Launched politico europe. We are looking at creating and launching new things. I started the political magazine. It has been a really exciting new platform for us. Ambitious longform reporting. The war of ideas. You cant own the washington conversation unless you are part of the debate over ideas and policies. How it connects. That approach is something that can work in europe and other big markets of the world. Both of us have spent our careers focusing on that intersection between washington and the world. One of the things that we learned from our tour in russia which coincided with president putins first term in office. It was after 9 11 so we ended up in afghanistan and iraq. We came back here to the washington of george w. Bushs second term in office. That sense of washington isnt just the capital of the United States, it is the capital of the world, that nexus through which things flow. We are very insular here. Kind of a small village at times. You have to renew your intellectual capital. To really understand the stories and issues. I will be writing a weekly column on foreign affairs. It will appear in politico and politico europe. I am excited about doing that. Also be working on longer form magazine pieces. Probably for the New York Times. Brian many folks hit what you do. Hate what you do. I dont think i can say it any stronger. They dont like the media. What do you say to them when you meet up with someone who is hostile to the New York Times and what you do . Peter you get a lot of emails or communications from readers that are unhappy. The ones that are truly scatological are over the top in terms of hatred. Those, i do not usually you too. Those that are angry, even if they are hostile, if you write them back and say i understand why you are saying that. Heres my thinking about why i wrote the article that way. If you give a thoughtful response that doesnt seem defensive but actually accepts that there is some legitimacy to peoples points of view and we are open to criticism, they almost always say they shouldnt have been so mean. They look at us as an institution. And, when they see us as individuals who can have a conversation with them, it becomes a healthier thing. Brian lets go back to 1992. This is you when you were at roll call. Susan it was the original newspaper of capitol hill. Before there was politico or the hill. It was founded in the 1950s. By a former hill staffer. In 1986 it was purchased by arthur levitt, at the time the head of the american stock exchange, and i think, if you remember, he had this great insight along with jim glassman that rather than just being a Real Community newspaper you could be serving one of the most important audiences in the world. The members of congress and the universe of capitol hill. With original news that goes deep on those subjects, the process and the politics that really mattered. It was always a really Smart Business proposition. The Washington Post had a monopoly market. But of course, people were paying huge premiums to reach all those readers of the Washington Post. In the suburbs and all over. How about to undercut them and just reach this specific, circuited influential audience. And of course, that has given rise to this all industry of targeted ideas and Issue Advocacy advertising. I was unwittingly stumbling into that. I became an intern at roll call in the summer of 1987. I was 18yearsold. Headnote i was at harvard. My dad read an article in the Washington Post about this very interesting media experiment. And, i didnt know these folks at all. I sent them a letter in those days. I think you did that in those olden days. I ended up with this really incredible experience. I came back to work there after i graduated in 1990. In 1992 i was probably the managing editor of roll call. I had this incredible window into washington. As it was transforming. The first postcold war election. Election of bill clinton. And, you know, this the beginning of the transformation of the media. What we did at roll call back then was very much a kind of preinternet kind of publication. Brian everything you to do can be seen on the internet. Lets watch this little clip of you in a roll call editorial meeting. Jim glassman and Morton Kondracke are there. Susan everyone has done their generic story on women candidates. What we should do is a story more specifically about which women. Where are they coming from . How many . And then, the flipside is the results of redistricting and how many new blacks and hispanics are going to be in the Democratic Caucus as a result. Right. The people that we know are coming as freshmen are almost exclusively minorities. Susan these new districts are ones that it is all most inconceivable that they could elect republicans. Brian 20 years earlier you would probably see no women in that room. What was the change like . Susan rollcall was a great place to go after college for any journalist male or female. It was a great window into covering National Politics. At a very young age. Not going that older route of a distant far out suburb newspaper and then a slightly closer in newspaper. Maybe someday getting downtown. We were very privileged to be able to jump right in under jim glassman. To cover National Politics and learned a lot of awful lot. It was kind of insulated from the society at large. It was a startup. Very young. Not very conscious of gender breakdowns. In 1992 there was the anita hill hearings. Looking back on my very young just out of college self and where women are in journalism today, i think i wouldve been disappointed and surprised at how much we are still having many of the same conversations. That is not to say that there hasnt been a certain amount of progress and many first woman barriers have been broken. The first woman editor of the New York Times, jill abramson, or the year of the woman we were talking about their in congress. Many many more women in congress today. Still only 20 though. The percentage of women ceos is still in the single digits. I think i wouldve been surprised. A much more uniform marched on progress. Maybe that is what you always have a sense of. It is interesting to see the debate this year over Hillary Clinton and what seems to be a generational divide between older women who have a sense of the barriers still existing for women in professions whether it is politics or journalism and a new group of voters these millennial voters, who seem to be bridling at the idea that you should vote for a woman just because of her gender. It is surprising. It is a small number. It is small and political journals and i will say that having been the editor of Foreign Policy magazines before i moved over to politico there are even fewer women in Foreign Policy circles and International Affairs circles than there are in political journalism. Brian how do you view it . Peter susan has been very blessed by having a lot of opportunities and she has made the most of them. Watching her up close has been inspirational for me. She has ended up being the editor of roll call. She was the editor of Foreign Policy. She is the editor of politico. But she is right, not enough women have ended up at that level in journalism. I have worked for women over the years. At the very top levels there is still a glass ceiling. There are different expectations, conscious or unconscious of what is allowed in the course of being an editor. I have worked for some male editors who are pretty tough guys and that was celebrated. And, you know, women, i still think, have a tougher time with that. Brian what year did you leave the Washington Post . Peter i went to the New York Times in 2008 and susan worked for Donald Graham and ultimately helped him by Foreign Policy magazine. Brian you werent very happy with the way susan was treated . Peter that is true. There had been a conflict in the newsroom. I felt that the leadership of the time didnt handle it well. I thought they were very i did not think they were as supportive or loyal to someone who had worked so hard and done so much and accomplished so much as susan did. Brian you said you would still be at the post if it hadnt been for that . Peter yes. I grew up with the post. At my house, we had the Washington Post and the washington star every day. When the washington star died, i got the times. I remember riding my bicycle seven miles to get the First Edition of the washington times. Washington journalism mattered to me. My dream was a waste to work for the Washington Post. Susan there are lots of different answers to what was the conflict. I learned a lot. I was the National Editor of the post at the time. These papers were not where they are today in terms of figuring out to the very uncomfortable digital transitions. Our friends and colleagues had just left you found politico. We were trying to reinvent political coverage. It was a special challenge for me to manage such a large staff of many very accomplished veterans. All of them extremely anxious about what this new era of transformation was going to be like. Not incidentally i would say, the longtime editor of the post was replaced right after that. Brian leonard downie. Susan yes. Think the paper went through a big series of changes that needed to happen. It has been great to see its recovery over the last couple of years. The new owner and an infusion of new blood and new ideas. Brian the two of you were selling a book in 2007. Here is an interview i think at the press club. [video clip] susan very early on in Vladimir Putins tenure we met with one of his top Political Consultants and he said the goal was to and the revolution. What he meant was the revolution that toppled the soviet union back in 1991. Peter the west has to be open eyes and clear id about what russia is. Bromance was fooling ourselves into thinking ourselves that we would be a democratic figure. He doesnt want to be that. Brian when you look back at the four years you spent in russia what comes to mind . Peter that was a period of great transition and tumbled. Everybody thought we were coming in when people were getting boring. Yeltsin had stood up to the kremlin. Who was supposed to represent stability. It was a period of enormous change where Vladimir Putin began to turn things back. Weturned out to be something did not want him to be. Bryan and, what did you think . Susan we found out how invaluable it is to go out there and do reporting on the ground, be openminded, trust your instinct. We didnt come to it after decades of entrenched ideological positions one way the other about the soviet union and what the new russia should be. What we found was a resurgent nationalism. And this fascinating figure of Vladimir Putin who really came out of the kgb, and was determined to perhaps it uses some of the tools of the west, and who had really been misread in some ways by people in washington and elsewhere in the west who wanted to believe in this onward trajectory of democratization in a western style way that really did not prove to be the russian trajectory. And so, for us, this was a revelatory experience and renewal in the face of the idea of going out there and judging for yourself and being openminded and reporting on the ground. People talk in a very cliched way about the value of being a foreign correspondent. Going out there and engaging with the world. For us that really was the case. I think that it changed and deepened our understanding of the world. It changed our trajectory as and made us better, deeper journalists when we came back here to washington. Brian when you two were working together, were you both euro chiefs in washington . Washington . Iefs in how did you do it . How did you stay not at each others throats . Peter we wrote this book that we were promoting in that video. We did that while she was pregnant with our first and only child. We had this great story where we were back in washington and finishing up the book and we were coming home from dinner and she said i think the time is coming. And im like, what are you like,g about, and she is i think the baby is coming. And we were out most of the night polishing these chapters. She finally went upstairs and went to sleep and i said i sent off those last two chapters to the publisher. And she said, that is good because i am having contractions. Susan cole and we were on cspan just the day before. We were at an event at the wilson center. We were presenting about russia. We agreed to do this and now i was nine months pregnant. And they were like, oh, by the way, we forgot to tell you but cspan is there. Who wants to do that . Somewhere in your archive is the day that our son was born. Brian how does Vladimir Putin look here now. This is 2007 when you wrote the book, what year did you leave moscow . Susan we left at the end of 2005. The trajectory of putin is surprising in the way that we didnt expect most russia watchers were shocked when he invaded crimea. The arc of putin is surprising. This war in ukraine was probably surprising, but the overall march of putin is a which is now a real phenomenon, it looks like he now may be the longestserving leader of russia since stalin. To have been there at the beginning is to have seen the germs of all of these things. Theses love of all of press ops, riding a horse bearchested will all of those things, was the foundational timeframe we happen to be. In many ways there was such a break from the 1990s story of russia, that there is more continuity with the story that we first stumbled into in 2000 through today. Brian were you able to interview him . Susan we were just talking about that. I was actually lucky enough, if that is the right word, to have been at the very first interview that Vladimir Putin gave to americans correspondence american correspondents in late pring. He was a very unknown figure. He was a very unknown figure. He was a former kgb guy, he was littleknown, he had no what experience with western journalists. We were invited to a roundtable at the kremlin library. They kept us waiting for hours, so this interview did not end up taking place until 11 00 p. M. At night. She asked. Ask what question she asked. Usan i remember i was three quarters of the way around the table. And putin gives very long answers. Especially when he was new and insecure in the job, he was very eager to show us that he had mastered this briefing books. He was spouting walks of facts and figures, and figures can at every question gave a very long detailed answer with statistics lmost right out of how the bureaus report on the farm crops kind of thing. We got three quarters of the way around the table to me, and no one had asked about the ongoing war in chechnya. There were many serious allegations of human rights violations, of terrible situations for the civilian population as russia targeted this breakaway province of its country. This was the war that has brought food and power Vladimir Putin to power. No one had asked the question. I was the newcomer, the youngest person the, and i was the one who got to ask him about chechnya and human rights. He did remember me after that. [laughter] brian is he speaking english . Susan he understands english, and by now i think he prb speaks it. But he does translation in his formal setting. Brian i want to give you a chance to answer, but i want to show you Vladimir Putin at the end of last year, at an anniversary celebration of the startup of russia today, the Television Networks. Hes speaking, this is in moscow. Lets watch this, and then i want you to talk about the impact of this on the country. Our courageous advantage is that we allowed to to show yourselves. We are not making you do anything, you are free in your work. The opportunity to have fun, to enjoy your work. We can see the result of it. The result is awesome, great. I want to say happy anniversary, this is a great today, 10 years. You have managed to achieve a lot of things. All of that, i want to repeat myself. Six information channels have been created, and also global video agency. Oday, russia is great. Russia today is a great tv channel. We are at number one unit is channel on youtube. Brian so when you watch that, as an American Public television station that carries a here in the station, what is your action to him talking about the fun they will have . Peter it is a statefunded television operation that is meant to translate to the west basically the kremlins point of view. Their view is because cnn, cspan, and Washington Post are not giving them a fair shake, hey have to counter. It is an information war. What i remember is the first story recovered when we got to russia. It was time putins takeover at mtv, the only independent network in russia. His whole rise to power was orchestrated through television. He understood that television mattered in russia as a way to maintain power, and to control the airwaves. Ske so he took over basically mtv. It was a formative event of his early presidency. It showed a lot of what would come. So this is an extension of that. Tv matters in controlling olitics. Brian how much information is blocked in russia, if any . Susan you can is only internet in russia, is not like china, theres no great firewall, at least yet. They are extremely successful in the manipulation of the information environment. The one and only independent Television Network that russia ever had was the very first thing that Vladimir Putin and his team, took over, understanding the importance of that. This is almost the only thing that binds this vast country of 11 different time zones. It is hard to remember, here in the United States, back to the era when people sat at home and watched network news every night on one of three stations. But in russia, that has ersisted as a habit. There are a network of websites that aggressively cover news in russia, or even the outside by various exiles and dissident types. So you can get access to information. But the information environment has been thoroughly manipulated. It has been fascinating to watch some of the coverage of the war in ukraine began, especially over the last year. People have written fascinating and disturbing accounts of the , if you have just listened to the news in russia, what do you hear. You hear an alternate actual reality. Whether it is remembering the downing of the malaysian airplane, that is all a western conspiracy, russia had nothing to do with this, of course there are no Russian Troops in ukraine, despite all the documentation. The war in syria, their intervention, there is a starkly alternate reality that is presented. But of course this is a very powerful and sophisticated tool in many ways. It is not new. If you look at the historical accounts of how the soviet union kept power, or maintained new influence in Eastern Europe after world war ii, a great book that just came out a few years ago, that could be read as a guide to the kind of approach and sophisticated information operations, as they would call it in russia. It is the tools have changed and become so much more sophisticated. People should not think that just because theres the surface appearance of a Robust Network of websites, that people are not operating in a ery propaganda atmosphere. Brian in 2015, in march from you play a role in a story that caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Lets watch this, and you can explain more of it. Journalists and columnists, not any of the reporters who cover him, he said he was going to announce the isis ampaign. He invited some Foreign Policy people from various ministrations. I called all the people to try to guess what he was saying, and what was on his mind. The off the record restrictions not apply to me, so i cannot be held to a rule i do not agree to. It is our job to find out what he is thinking. Mexico of congress had gone in and talked to about this, i would call them and maybe they would tell me what he said as well. Brian give us the context. Eter the president of the United States communicates in lots of different ways and one of the ways is he has off the record meetings sometimes. Less so with the reporters, or with people who are opinion shapers. People who are influential writers. Sometimes he does it in a lot of people. E brought in about 17 people and you know, my job as a reporter is to your what he is thinking and what he is doing, and saying. I called all the people in the room, and got enough information about what he is had said to report it out thethere was a little kerfuffle, good word. But the people in the room could not write about it under the ground rules that they had agreed to move but i was not part of that, and i did not have an agreement with anybody to not write about it. It is my job to report out as best i can. Brian the editor of the New York Times as saying i do not think that anything the president has to say should be offlimits to the readers of the New York Times i would not have a News Reporter in that room. Please explain what that is all about . For the person that doesnt think about this business that often. Peter a lot of people do not make the distinction that a newspaper like the New York Times has multiple pieces. There is the opinion page, and those were people say your liberal or conservative, because the judge your opinion page. Well, column niferts are free to do what they want. By dean runs the newsroom. The newsroom is reporters who are taking a neutral, no sides approach to things. I am not taking sides. I think dean feels pretty strongly hat to have an off the record meeting with the president compromises the reporter. The president of the United States, how could you hold us back from the readers . Is better for us not to participate in those kinds of meetings, because then we are not compromised. Were not limited. Brian you were called in, and the president said unelected id like to talk to you but off the record, what would do you . Susan i did attended off the record meeting once. Peter not one that i reported on. Thats definitely true. It was in my capacity as a writer for political politico magazine. I reported International Affairs, a precursor to what i hoped to do when we are in jerusalem. I did attend a session like that i were to agree with peter and with others that that is not an appropriate role for a reporter. I think that it is a part of a very conservativ of the a very concerted part of the president s strategy of getting the message out without being publicly accountable for every word and every phrasing of what he is saying. Of course there is a long tradition of that, and we all know that president kennedy was, you foe, hanging out in georgetown with ben bradley. And going all the way back, tedy roosevelt wowed and dazzled reporters with his extensive access to them. That stuff did not all my gives make its way into the press. I think we have seen the evolution and this last 15 years of the media. One of the very regrettable things in washington is that it becomes a more partisan tmosphere. The media has also become more partisan. We used to have our three networks as our national newspapers. Washington post, New York Times and wall street journal as our kind of national newspapers. Now we have millions of different platforms, a comingling of opinion and ideas, and certainly much more division between iran and a red america and a blue america and the media that it likes. And one of the great things about the New York Times, one of the things that attracted me to polit. Dwindling re a island of public space in which oth sides have to contend. That independence of journalistic inquiry is really valuable at a time when it is when it is dwindling fast for any other platforms. Peter from time to time, the president will be on air force one after a long trip and he comes back to talk to the reportersoff the record. I have been there, and i cannot get off the plane, so ive been part of off the record sessions in that sense because you cannot control it. I do not want to make us up to be holier than though, but i but n thmplet thou, there say concern for dean and for us about how you do that. I am concerned it becomes a substitute for on the record encounters. If the president get interviews to the White House Press with any kind of frequency, he took our questions that his predecessors did, that would be one thing. Then you could see something off the record from time to time to share additional insights. The problem is it has become a substitute for the in which he does not interact with the White House Press who cover day in and day out on a regular basis. Politico magazine you did a huge piece on the Obama Administration. What do you think history will say about the Obama Administration 50 years from now . Susan that is the famous question. President obama sent to david remnick, i just want to get my paragraph right. We want historians to write overall this paragraph that we all know the first part of that paragraph. He broke. Barriers, he made history by becoming the first africanamerican president of the United States. Furthermore, he not only was the first black president , he was a twoterm president. This is an administration that has not been marred by ethical scandals, or because our or cloud over his judgment or decisions probably broadly speaking. In other words, hes going to be judged as someone of integrity, more or less. Now, how will some of his policy decisions go . We were seriously debate everything from strategic assumptions, two other things to how his record will in the orld is up in the air. What will the iran deal looked 10 years from now . We are just getting the beginning of the answer on if that is a start right through, or a new unraveling. Were not talking about the famous line during the opening. Asked him, what do you think about the french revolution and i he said, well, the jury is still out. Hopefully well get it third before that. Brian how many years have you covered the Obama White House . Peter since the beginning. I came in with him. I covered the second term of president clinton, the second term of president bush, and everything from the beginning of president obama to now. Seven years, i guess. We are writing a biography of the former secretary of state james baker. Oddly never done, given what an extraordinary life he has had. He had his hand in every major thing that happened and what it or a generation. He represents an archetype in washington that does not exist anymore. Someone whos fiercely partisan, and then sat down and rewrote the tax code and settle other wars. He is an interesting figure. Brian how much access is he giving you . Peter he has sat down with us a number of times. Weve done a lot of good for a lot of interviews with people with him. We do not have enough time to work on the book, but it is a fascinating subject. Brian is there different role in your husband is playing for you on this book . Were dealing with another once in a generation historic president ial election. I would say that we are really lucky to be able to collaborate together, and i will pick it up after the election the how far we have got in with it, and keep running. Brian what is the difference in the way you approach journalism . Peter in some ways, we are the James Carville and mary matalin of german of journalism. Im a reporter, shes an editor. People often think of her because of her editing of compliments, but they forget she was covering tora bora in afghanistan. She went into iraq daily american troops within but without an embedded unit. Just on her own. She covered the theater siege in moscow and so forth. But for the most part, what susans temperament and great vision in terms of editing is something i do not have an do not spend time on. Ive stuck very closely to the grunt side of the equation. Brian how about you . Susan i do not entirely agree with his characterization. Peter is a great journalist, an extremely modest. He taught me an awful lot about ournalism, and does have the insteeskts a great editor. He just chooses not to go in that direction. Peter if you getting an editor, in is so rare, you have to marry them. Susan we are incredibly lucky to be able to Work Together and complement each other. When we wrote kremlin rising, it was interesting to see the different ways in which we approached the writing. For example, he was very fast, and he we divided up the chapters that he wrote very quickly, much more quickly than i did. It was his first draft of these chapters where i was taking more time and somewhat more finished product, which, given that i also was pregnant with our son, and was on the back end of this project, not able to do as much, it made me feel good that my chapters were further along, because then he has a process of going through and stitching the book together and rewriting more intensively. We did have a different style and how we approached the writing side of this, but i think what we had in common that is really exciting is that we both love the story. Almost any story. I think we have obviously had a shared passion for trying to understand washington in this postcold war world. This has been the are of our careers, and i think the thing that stitches some of these disparate greases together, it experiences together. But it is definitely true that peter, although he often is the person who deals with your stuff in the computer stuff in our house, is less interested in the kind of broad questions surrounding the digital reinvention of journalism, which is an energizing and exciting subject for me over the last decade, as i have seen a new set of possibilities for journalism open up. In some ways, he is the last newspaper guy. Peter i do what they tell me to do, but i just want to write story. If they want me to do it in 140 characters to i will do it 140 characters at a time. Brian if you look at your trip, how long will you stay in jerusalem . Peter a threeyear to her. Tour. Brian what do you want to do . Peter i am looking to get beyond the simple stories about the conflict and help washington readers understand srael on the ground. We on the stand here in washington, jews, arabs, agent hatreds, the wall, the occupied territories, this, that. There are so many very passionate people about this. They feel strongly about one side or the other, and its hard to find anything that atisfies both. I want to broaden the story, deepen the story, see what we can do about helping people understand what it looks like on the ground, how it actually plays out the on the very basic construct we have. I hope we continue. Brian what is one thing you want to do . Susan peter tells people that we decided to go to israel because we were tile tired of all the partisan fighting here in washington. Peter a place where everybody gets along so well. Susan for me, is a great story. It is always a great story, as an important story. There has been no part of the world has been more consequential for american Foreign Policy than middle east ver the last 40, 50 years. And not to have that experience on the ground in a more deployed than we did in the iraq war would be missing out on something, especially right now. The conflagration around israel is really extraordinary. It was always a sense of this is an island, it is its own story, but now look what is happening in egypt. Look at whats happening in syria. Leb onan lebanon. All the countries surrounding israel, jordan, which obviously is basically physically geographically connected most closely. 25 of the territory sorry, 25 of the population is refugees overwhelmed from the Syrian Civil War unfolding on its orders. This is an extraordinary moment both in terms of the middle east and in terms of the politics of israel. Talk to people here in washington as we have been doing. You have a mounting frustration. On the one hand this is a super Close Relationships and partnerships with the United States and israel have had, and do have. On the other hand the people who deal with the most closely are extremely frustrated. Not just because of the bad personal relationship between president obama and promise Prime Minister netanyahu, but there is a real sense that are we at a pivot point . We might be at a juncture where the things we know about chiller are not working anymore. There is a growing sense of there is no real peace process, so what will come next . Brian how old is your boy, and what is his name . His name is theo. Hes 11 years old and hes a great kid. Brian what is he thinking about moving to jerusalem . He is excited about it. E is an energetic explorer and curious about the world. Brian where will he go to school . Susan there is an International School there, we visited a couple of weeks ago. That will be part of the huge learning experience for him. This is a place with kids from ll over. 30 turnover a year as diplomats come and go and n. G. O. People come and go. In the seventh grade there are going to be Something Like two seventh grade kids and him, from all over the world the brian i understand it right, youre not jewish . No. Brian in light of the but a lot of the New York Times reporters have been over the yearsany fallout from that, good or bad . Peter for a lot of years the times wouldnt send a jewish eporter. The ed werder back in the 1970s said we have to send somebody. I will send a jewish reporter. He said he would send david schindler. They said yeah, but hes a protestant. I think it can become cases, because people make assumptions thousand that. About you because of at that and they probably p ought not to. We go in without that kind of background. At the bureau chief, i do not have a stake in this one way or nother hopefully we can report in oldfashioned Good Journalism rules. Brian peter baker, it has been longtime correspondent for the New York Times at the whoice. Charleston south. Susan glass, the editor politico, they both go to jerusalem. We are out of time. Thank you very much. For free transcripts or to give us your comments about this Program Visit us at q a. Org. Q a programs are also available at cspan podcast. If you enjoyed this weeks q a interview with it in glass and peter baker with Susan Glasser and peter baker, here are others you may enjoy. You can watch these any, or search our entire Media Library at cspan. Org. Cspans washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up monday morning, the senior fellow for the ethics and Public Policy center, a ormer Senior Adviser for the 2012 romney president ial campaign will join us. Chances of a brokered convention, and who among the candidates he will support for the nomination. Then documentary film maker ken burns will be with us tacking about his latest pbs documentary project about jackie robinson, the man who was first to break baseballs color very are and who went on to become a leader in the civil rights movement. Plus, the Supreme Court correspondent for wall street journal will be with us by phone to discuss the latest in the search for Supreme Court nominee. Be sure to what washington journal at 7 00 p. M. Eastern on monday morning. Join the discussion. . During this weeks question time, british Prime Minister David Cameron told members he would not resign if u. K. Decides to leave the european union. The practiced are also discussed jobs, the british economy, and reports of abuse of Syrian Refugees staying in resettlement housing. This is 35 minutes. Ce over a yee it was working well thats why weve extended it across the government. Order. Questions to the Prime Minister