Underestimating isis in his intelligence agencies but did the media also fall short in covering these dire warnings. The nonstop coverage of the ebola virus dominating the news. At this hour Health Officials trying to track down everybody that might have been exposed to ebola in the United States. Were talking endlessly about ebola the last few days. Do we need to . Are we reaching the point where the Mainstream Media are scaring people . Plus when the miami harold released the fling with donna rice . Did that usher in the media . This is media buzz. This began with a series of Washington Post scoops proving that the secret service was misleading the public. The white house being hit by high powered bullets three years ago. They overpowered a nation and made it to the east room and the Washington Examiner reporting that an armed felon was allowed to get on an atlanta elevator with the president. After the week of unemotional testimony on the hill the p pundants kept asking how can she keep her job. The door was unlocked at the time of the entry. I dont think the security plan was properly executed and thats why im conducting a robust investigation. Do you think she should lose her job . Yeah, i dont think she can survive this. I have to say that Julia Pearson who testified today in front of the house she has to go. The white house spokesman defended the emotiodirector at briefly. Are you telling me this morning the president of the United States and first lady have confidence in Julia Pearson to run an agency thats supposed to protect their daughters. Yes. That was just a few hours later. Joining us now to analyze the medias role, cheryl atkinson, steve hays Senior Writer for the Weekly Standard and Fox News Contributor and Michael Colum r columnist for the daily beast. Did it make it impossible for her to survive in the secret service . It is naive to think that alone caused the decision. I would say the media felt it had a green light to make the criticism because it was not a criticism of the administration per say. It was more of a defense of president obama and they felt like that was a criticism it was fair to make. Whenever single guests that comes on says should she go. Why does she have a job . Does it become impossible for the media world to talk about anything else . It contributes to the flood of coverage that we saw. The media uncovered so many things that the president and his own advisors didnt know. The secret service hadnt even levelled with the white house. It was very clear in the initial story about the fence jumper the secret service had mislead the American People or at least allowed someone to mislead the American People and i think at that point the media is going to pile on because journalists like nothing worse than putting out a story without the facts. What about that real spectacle where just a few hours later the president felt new leadership was needed. Really weird and really strange and the typical ritual that any white house goes through with any party and the press person holds fire until the decision is made back behind the scenes but Peter Johnson was right in the clip you played. She so you have resigned out of honor long before this was forced on her and the white house, the white house should have, you know, compelled that behavior out of her, let us say, earlier than it did. Yeah, famously he doesnt like to fire anyone and not quickly. In this case he didnt have a choice. Now they drove the story with the exclusives. With your investigative background talk about why sources within an agency would go to a reporter rather than complain to their bosses. In my experience the last thing they want to do is go to a reporter. Most of them dont like reporters. Most of them by the time theyre that desperate for whatever they think is the truth to be told they have rung the bells inside of the agency. It can be risky to go to the press. Absolutely but they feel like theyre at their witts end and theyre willing to put it all out there. One source quoted an agent by name. She was afraid to tell her bosses about the fact that all of these bullets hit the white house. Secret service couldnt figure it out but that made it into the press. What about the gender question. Julia pearson stepped down. She got the job because she was a woman after the prostitution and drinking scandal. Is that fair to introduce gender . Its fair to ask that question. There arent that many women and not men. I dont get wrapped up too much of that. Some doors opened for me because im a woman and some doors probably shut for me but most of us it evens out. What about the postgame spin. Julie pearson spoke to Bloomberg News and said the media have made it clear this is what they expected. She wanted to make herself the victim. She was basically taking the fall and doing the honorable thing all be it a little bit belated but i dont think thats a solid argument. Theres not many people likely to agree with her. The string of problems that is secret service has had both before she came into office and after doomed her and the fact that she came in suggesting that she was there to change the culture and plainly the culture didnt change at ultimately. What was shocking to me is once the door is hitting you on the way out then the leaks start so there was an unnamed official quoted as saying she wanted to have a more friendly approach to security kind of like disneyworld where she worked as a costume character in high school. That struck me as not being terribly agenerous because shes already leaving. You dont know if thats something she pushed or if its an offhand comment she made to somebody at one time. But it certainly didnt help her. You ask why whistleblowers come forward. They have those that persist between administration to administration and cultures that persist and i doubt this is something raised in the past couple of months or incidents we heard about. Theres probably a high level of frustration among a lot of officials. Things like this may be happening for a long time and it finally boiled over. As washington feeding frenzies go and weve all seen a lot of them this is one of your more legitimate ones. We would all agree on that. We cannot tolerate these kinds of activities and these kind of things happening. This doesnt get you fired what would you pay to lose your job in the administration. But heres what bothers me. Understandably, legitimately, justify bli were upset to learn this guy jumped the fence. He had a knife. He had guns in his car. He didnt make it just inside the door. He made it all the way to the east room and then the incident in the elevator which is unfathomable and now weve all moved on and the underlying problems havent been solved by the resignation and its the same thing we saw with the va scandal where we declared the story to be over. I dont think she has and as long as shes on the case were going to keep getting these stories. Shes done an amazing job. But there is this tendency to not stick with bureaucratic problems because its less sexy than is so and so going to lose his or her job. I think interest falls off quickly where as it shouldnt in many cases. The medias appetite goes from hot to cold and i think theres plenty of air time to cover all the different stories as well as the follow up on big stories like this. So i hope we keep at it. Okay. Lets switch now to isis because i want to play some sound showing this is of course what president obama said on 60 minutes and the reaction to it particularly in the White House Briefing room. How did they end up where they are in control of so much territory . Yeah. Was that a complete surprise to you . Well, i think our head of the Intelligence Community jim clapper acknowledged that i think they underestimated what had been taking place in syria. This is one of your key people on iraq who was raising this alarm november of last year. Did this message get to the president . Did he believe it . Did he not hear it . What happened . The Administration Says the president was not blaming James Clapper. And the media says of course he was. Who is right . Of course hes blaming James Clapper. Its very unusual for him to come forward and lay blame at somebody by name like that. I can only think that fellow democrats or public pressure polls told him there has to be a mea culpa and either James Clapper agreed to be the bunching bag or found himself the punching bag but he did and a lot of people i speak to dont think he is probably to blame for all of the things that the president seems to be blaming him for. But there was a punching bag the New York Times story next day unnamed intelligence officials quoted one of them said some of us were pushing the reporting on the chaos in syria in the past but the white house didnt Pay Attention to it. It wasnt a big priority. Is that good reporting or is there an aspect here where the media can be used by unnamed sources. What . The media used . Absolutely thats happening but i think in this case it had additional validity because you have seen so many Public Officials make this case beforehand. You had the head of the Defense Intelligence agency say in congressional testimony this isis problem is a growing problem we have to get in front of it and that didnt happen. So you had sort of on the Public Record a series of officials over a long period of time saying this is going to be a crisis unless we dont confront it so when the president said and you have the president dismissing earlier saying this is the Junior Varsity. This is the Junior Varsity so by the time the president tried to shift blame to James Clapper it was much less believable for reporters covering the story on a regular basis. Michael, you personally believe the president should have acted and armed the Syrian Rebels two years ago but is it fair to say that the president ignored these warnings as opposed to made a decision which maybe wasnt the right decision to not escalate u. S. Military involvement. I dont think we know enough to say that but what we can certainly say fairly is he wanted the sere juan problem to go away and he didnt want anything to do with it and he saw i think he anticipated it might have been his and he was just really very reluctant to get involved with it. Maybe that made him reluctant to Pay Attention to the intelligence he should have paid and theres the question of Public Opinion and congress didnt want any part of it and he backed away but the public didnt want it either. If 60 or 70 of the public is against bombing as he was considering doing the bombing in august of 2013 when the stories of the chemical gassing were coming out congress would not have approved. The public didnt approve so thats something hes paying attention to Public Opinion. We cant know what might have happened but its interesting and i want to talk more. Let me get a break. Send me a tweet about our show. Well read some messages in a moment. More on the media debate of isis and the saturation cover of the ebola virus and later did the gary heart scandal turn the media into the sex police . Mr. Cleans grandmother was stronger than people twice her size. And that strength inspired his liquid muscle cleaner. It lifts tough dirt so you do less scrubbing. And its nozzle stops by itself so less is wasted. Sure made grandma proud. Mr. Clean liquid muscle. Once president obama appeared to blame intelligence officials for underestimating the terrorists in iraq and syria they began digging out sound bites from the last year of Administration Officials warning about the terrorists. Tonight a paper trail is emerging about warnings of the growing threat of isis as far back as last winter. Earlier this year they announced a campaign of terror. Theres no question that isil is a group growing roots in syria and iraq. Its important to focus on where the violence is coming from. Its coming from al qaeda and its affiliates. But we are confident they will not succeed. Our media buzz Research Team did some digging and found that those clip hearsay virtually no coverage in major media out lets. Wheres the media in all of this . Heres my cynical viewpoint. It would have been on the front page had the administration wanted it to be on the front page. The media waits for the administration to dictate the agenda and coverage. Why do they do that . Easier . Safer . A complicated set of reasons but it has to do with easier, laziness, support for the administration. Support in general for the powers that be. Wanting to tow the line but i guarantee you that if there had been headlines or the administration wanted concerns about terrorism to be on the front burner quite the opposite happened and i see this whole question about isis as another point in the continuum that the administration apparently wanted to down play concerns about terrorism buy and large. But would the benefit of hindsight if the situation was so dire and the terrorists are growing in their ability to murder people and grab land, did the media fall down on the job . I think so. What were seeing now is a man festation of a debate taking place behind the scenes in the Intelligence Community for years now. The Administration Made the argument leading up to the 2012 election and aftermath that al qaeda was on the run or it was decimated or destroyed and you had folks in the Intelligence Community mostly at the Defense Intelligence agency or cia and elsewhere saying precisely the opposite. No, this threat is growing. Al qaeda is expanding and they control more territory than ever and what you see is that rear its head in the form of this debate over isis. A personal story two years ago i was told some of the same things president obama just said about how terrorists were using social media to exploit where these uprisings happened and so on and i proposed a story that would look at the regional impact to look in the big picture because my sources were saying these things were connected. What happened . The cbs managers were not interested. So i firmly believe had the white house put that on the front burner and suggested a story like that or let us we would have. When the terrorists seized falluja in january. There were a couple. More on fox and cnn. That was an opportunity and it was covered as an iraq story as opposed to any threat to the United States. Exactly. It was in degree and kind. It was really different from what ultimately happened in mosul and this is not to defend the media from falling down on the job, quite the contrary but its fair to say the mosul situation where the iraqi army dropped their weapons and ran and mosul being close to baghdad and is that was the event that made everybody wake up and until then without the administration putting it on the agenda it just wasnt going to bubble up to the top. I think one reason is that iraq and syria were seen as distant. Depressing story. Not good for ratings so it didnt bubble up until it seemed like a threat to the United States of america. Thank you for joining us this sunday. Coming up with ebola dominating the airways have the media moved from reporter to fear mongering . And the secret Service Scandal and doing combat at the white house. Ah come on lets hide in the attic. No. In the basement. Why cant we just get in the running car . Are you crazy . Lets hide behind the chainsaws. Smart. Yeah. Ok. If youre in a horror movie, you make poor decisions. Its what you do. This was a good idea. Shhhh. Be quiet. Im being quiet. Youre breathing on me if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. Its what you do. Head for the cemetery the ebola story spread across the media like a frightening virus. Residents locked down in the Texas Department where the man with the first case of the disease diagnosed in the United States is staying. We are covering it all. We begin in dallas where ebola has the city on edge this morning as we learn more about the man infected with the virus. Ebola here in the United States. Tonight theres growing fears it could spread. It touched our extended family. A photo journalist working with dr. Nancy snyderman and her team in liberia tested positive for ebola. Joining us now is director of the school media and Public Affairs at the George Washington university. Is this saturation coverage of ebola contributing to a sense of fear in the public . To some extent justified and to some extent not. A headline grabbed me, passenger collapses and dies getting off flight. But this story is all about fear and fear sells. I was watching cnn the other day and they did not come off the ebola story for one minute. They have plenty of company here and i do think we should point out the news organizations most of them are trying to be responsible but the coverage and hour by hour updates and news conferences can convey a sense that something terrible has happened. Theres a real story here. Its a mystery. The best line i saw was in the Washington Post today. This is a biological and psychological plague and fear can spread faster than the