(00:00:00) It is just a few seconds past 12 if I hadn't said that already. Investigative reporter Steve Emerson is our speaker today. He appeared recently at Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota and incidentally tape cassettes of this address are available from Carlton. I'll tell you the address to write to they don't want any telephone orders. I'll tell you the address to write to at the conclusion of the broadcast as we get close to 1 o'clock. Anyway, Steve Emerson is senior editor for us news and World Report the author of several books including his latest one the secret Warriors inside the covert operations of the Reagan Era. He is a former investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the title of the speech that you'll hear today is reporting versus reality how the news gets filtered here is Stephen Emerson. (00:00:54) Well, I'm going to talk to you tonight about and then we'll open up the questions and I'll add a couple of provocative Theses about how the Press reports the facts and the news and weather in You as the public gets a distorted view of it or whether you get a realistic view of it and why those distortions take place. The first question is is there a distortion and is there a bias the answer the question is? Yes, and no there is a distortion but there is no overall bias. The biases are more by but I dare say is ineptitude incompetence possible corruption laziness and general human error, but I don't see an overall bias directing the mistakes that occur in the media today. Let me briefly give you an overview of what the major constraints and distortions are there's the technological problem the immediacy of Television creates inordinate demands upon newspaper report upon a regular reporters to present 15 seconds of news consolidating what may be the most important event in the world and to present it in Of 30 40 or 50 words the immediacy of that of that of the video, which basically does not allow for any input of historical importance. I mean, you're covering a war and you can show the gun being fired and you can show somebody getting killed and there is a voice over of about 60 seconds to a hundred and twenty seconds. All you're allowed in that is to basically describe the events with very few with very limited ability to describe what led up to that what the historical significance is and what the meaning is for us National Security or for American politics in 19 in the 1960s the US military charged that the Press distorted Vietnam the Distortion being us cameras were out in Vietnam in the fields of Vietnam showing all the battlefields all the casualties the Americans getting killed. And that immediately was relayed back to the American public which had a devastating effect upon the popular opinion toward the war. In fact, the military has never quite forgiven the press and I'll talk about that more tomorrow for how it covered the Vietnam War on the other hand. The Press saw that the official words of the US government in terms of relaying of interpreting that war of as a major victory. And as a defeat for communism is an attempt to drive out the Communists at a southeast. Asia was nothing but a pack of lies and so they use the camera basically to show how the government was lying in retrospect and looking how the Press covered that War. I would say in general. It did a pretty good job. But in fact would I think the immediacy of video does today is to prevent any type of popular support for engaged hostilities for United States overseas? Once the American public has to Bear witness to day in and day out fighting of US forces. I think it will absolutely turn against that involvement and force the president and Congress to cut off all support for that engagement and I'll bring up the example of Grenada and how the government learned it's lesson and deliberately prevented the media from covering Grenada to as to fight its war on its own terms and not have to be encumbered by popular opinion. There's another constraint or I should say Distortion and that's the age-old problem of competitive pressures. Now that's a pressure that exists in all types of bureaucracies in all types of governments and all types of businesses. But in the news business, there's probably no worse pressure than the desire to get out of story and get it as quickly as possible and beating your competitor the Rivalry between NBC CBS and ABC is notorious the Rivalry between the Washington Post and the New York Times is notorious and the Rivalry between time Newsweek and US News is notorious and when one reporter gets wind of a story being worked on By a competitor, there's one automatically a knee-jerk instinctive reaction by the editors of that institution that they've got to beat their rival immediately and they may assign five reporters to the story and they may never nail it down officially or never nail down completely but that story will come out and I'll talk about how some of these mistakes that's competitive pressure led to Major errors in reporting on the Iran-Contra (00:05:37) crisis. (00:05:39) There's also another problem and that is the fundamental limitations of journalists, you know, we can't be experts all the time and we have a problem when we cover Foreign Affairs too often journalists may get stuck in one place such as let's say Egypt or let's say Lebanon and develop a situation called local itis it is the the develop too much of a sympathy towards the local coverage or the local people the indigenous population. They don't maintain that that measure of skepticism and so To combat this notion of local lightest reporters are shifted around they get terms of Duty every three or four years is sent over to cover new area. Well what happens in reporter who's in Lebanon, all of a sudden gets sent over to cover Korea doesn't speak any of the Oriental languages. He doesn't know the geography and yet he's immediately thrust into an alien area and forced to cover what our events and riots and upheavals and the political situation and he really has only had a 30-minute crash course on the flight over. And basically the way he gets to be an expert is by reporting and yet that reporting is supposedly reflective of his expertise already. So there's a little vicious cycle problem here and in fact journalists, and I don't and I daresay most editors don't know how to correct this problem at this point. They have started to develop new courses back in Washington least. I've seen this in some of the major institutions for journalists to learn the local language the local history and politics before they're sent over and that's something that's very encouraging its what Foreign Service officers do all the time and I think this is a very healthy development, but unfortunately, it's still in a very very limited area. There's another psychological factor involved in why certain information gets distorted and it's very easy to know this reason. It's the reason related to being a member of being accepted as a member of the club what you read in the newspapers and the magazines what you see may be reflective of what a reporter knows but it may only be reflective of 80% of what he knows. They may be 20% Withheld. It may be an embarrassment to a national figure that he doesn't write about there may be some type of corruption involved in an institution. He may not put that in his report why for various reasons one is if he's covering that institution. He may need to keep them on a Goodwill basis as a source so he doesn't want to burn them. So he makes the decision not to include that information in the report. On the other hand, there's a much more subtle and I think corrupting effect of being in Washington, which is where I'm based of trying to become accepted in the cocktail party circuit as being a member of the lofty journalism class which today in Washington is one of the superstore classes. The fact of the matter is journalists should be willing not to want to be accepted as part of the vaulted class as part of the the of the great, you know section of Washington who are wined and dined all the time who don't have to be invited to cocktail parties with Senators don't have to be invited to cocktail parties with cabinet members and yet there's a natural reaction bar reporters to be accepted as part of this class. And so naturally as a result of this relationships are engendered almost relationships that are simply professionally unacceptable and to close with institutions such as the state department defense department Capitol Hill Senators congressmen. You name it by many reporters who subsequently withhold negative information about the people they are close to her attached to Now you can look at my social calendar and you will find perhaps one or two major social engagements attached to the the state department or the defense department in Washington per year. It's because I'm generally disliked by most people in the defense department in the state department. If you look at another reporter for another magazine, I won't mention the name, but it starts with t you will find. Literally every day of the week is covered by some type of Affair or dinner at the state department or an ambassador's house and you will find that in effect this commentator for this other magazine has become basically an arm of the state department part of the invisible government in Washington. He decides what's what the print what not the print and in effect. He basically exercises censorship, but the censorship is much more serious in terms of its effects because he's denying to you the information that you and I have a right to know. And that's the power of journalists. One of the other points I want to mention tonight is the pressures put on journalists in the competitive age of Journalism. I mean ever since Watergate ever since the downfall of President Nixon and you know, the invoking of Woodward and Bernstein and the invoking of investigative journalism and Scoops and exclusives. There are just inordinate pressures by magazines and newspapers and television networks to come out with that single exclusive that's going to topple an institution topple a senator or maybe a president. And by and large, it's not such a bad idea. If you have the goods on someone to come out with something like that. I mean no, I'm all in favor of coming up with corruption. That's what I cover for my profession. I mean, I make a lifetime of uncovering corruption and wrongdoing of Institutions and individuals, but sometimes that pressure placed upon reporters is so dramatic that they stretch the facts by about 10% And so you will have unfair reporting or imbalance reporting come out against individuals or institutions because of the tremendous pressures by the editors to put a spin on something that is a local New Angle or to come out with some type of major exclusive and I'll specify examples for all of these problems. The first problem that I talked about was really how the immediacy of television and its effect on the military a military involvement engagement overseas. Now, what did the United States military due in October of 1983 when they're about to invade Grenada, they simply stop all the reporters from covering that event. They kept them on a ship and they did not allow any coverage of the fighting in Grenada for five days. Literally five days had elapsed before any reporter was allowed on the island of Grenada. The initial reports which came basically out of state out of defense department official spokesman operating from Grenada was that it was a huge Victoria success United States military has squash the entire, you know, Cuban up Cuban Force structure. We had saved the American students all over the island and it was a victory for democracy over communism. Well, that was only partly true because in subsequent years information has come out showing that the Grenada Invasion by US forces was one of the most tragically flawed invasions in the last eight years fully one-third to one-half of all casualties suffered by US forces. We're inflicted by friendly fire that is by our own fire when there were strikes needed air strikes needed to be ordered by ground commanders against local targets the radios that were being used were so outdated an Antiquated they couldn't communicate with the ships that have the airplanes and the bombers and as you know, or some of you may know telephone calls had to be made via the these are the AT&T back to Washington. Three directly fire from the ground. So that calls were made from Grenada to Washington and then from Washington back to the ships. And then from the ship's back to Washington and Washington back to Grenada. It was absurd and it was actually one of the commanders who had to make one of these telephone calls was told to put in something like 19 dollars worth of change, which he obviously wasn't carrying in his battle fatigues and know it was only because he had an AT&T calling card that he was able that. He was able to launch one of the strikes against the Cuban forces. None of this ever materialized for two years ever surfaced from the reports on Grenada. One of the major reasons for going into Grenada was to was to free the American medical students. But in fact when the when the Commander's went down to the parts of the island that house the American students for 48 hours. They were not they were unaware of the fact that there was a second Medical Campus with 1,500 other medical students who were totally left alone and had Cuban soldiers decided to wreck some type of Revenge. We would have had a major Calamity on our hands but for 48 hours, there was absolutely no Intelligence on the existence of this second Medical Campus and lastly and with tragic, but I guess, you know, I can tell it in a funny way. They the maps provided by the military. We're so outdated that they had a fly in maps made by the American Automobile Association of various parts of Grenada for the Commander's to track down the Cuban forces. This was portrayed at the time as the greatest us strike in the past eight years since actually Vietnam. And in fact, it was one of the worst debacles a classified session in Congress in 1986 by the commander a general who commanded some of the special forces that briefing so angered US senators that they immediately created a new special forces command a command equivalent in the entire us command structure in Europe because of the lack of coordination and the lack of fighting coordinated fighting structure to the entire operation. The military successfully fought that one but they didn't successfully fight the war they fought the Battle with the Press. They were able to manipulate the Press. Now since that time there has been an uneasy truce between the Pentagon press Corps and the military there has been an agreement that if there is to be any Invasion the u.s. Press will have first hand shooting that is a reporting capabilities guaranteed by the military, but I can assure you and I can get virtually guarantee you that if the United States is about to invade another Islander conduct some type of operation. You can be sure that the reporters are going to be stationed off some carrier twiddling their thumbs for the first 36 to 72 hours before they're allowed to even step on the island or the site where the u.s. Engagement is taking place. The fact of the matter is the military learned. It's lesson from Vietnam. This was a direct application of the middle of the Vietnam lesson not to allow television to for the immediacy of battle Let me move on to more interesting period in American history and that is the coverage of the Iran-Contra Affair. Now today if you mention the word Iran-Contra to an editor, they start the gag. They're sick and tired of it. And in fact editors aren't the only ones who are sick and tired of it. The American public I believe is sick and tired of it George Bush. I'm sorry, Michael Dukakis can raise your rencontrer until he's blue in the face and none of it rubs off on George Bush. And the reason that is is that there was such an orgy of excessive reporting on Iran-Contra in the past two years that the public literally is turned off to it now and you contrast this this orgy of reporting this literally overwhelming number of column inches. I remember reported that an Al a Content analysis of the number of stories done and he said and I remember listening he said there were more stories done on the Iran-Contra Affair then on the entire (00:18:12) Vietnam War. Journalist Steve Emerson (00:18:16) in Washington. I remember going down to attend a briefing at one of the house committee's that was given during the Iran-Contra hearings and there were literally 1800 reporters. They're scrambling to get reports and documents and I daresay 1800 or at least 1,500 stories were later filed now, there's nothing wrong with that. The problem was that in the period prior to October of 1986 for the three years prior to October of 1986. The number of stories that were done on the Iran-Contra Affair where figuratively you could be cat could be counted on the on your fingers of your hand. They were literally none. Why in part because the whole notion that we were selling arms to the Ayatollah and that Oliver North was running this this operation with network of companies and Switzerland and having General Secord who was not even an official employee of the US government working as a cutout with so far-fetched. The editors didn't want to chance their credibility, but the other more important reason which is really not stated by editors, but I will state at the quest of this never getting back to u.s. News & World Report is There was a reluctance to tackle the Reagan administration because of its tremendous popularity and the feeling that critical stories done. On Ronald Reagan were simply not popular with the American public and therefore editors literally killed or stop reporters from going out and Reporting critically on the Reagan Administration. Now I have to tell you that I have no favorites. I mean I if Michael Dukakis get selected, you know, I'll be doing just as much aggressive reporting on on National Security issues as I would if George Bush gets elected, although I have a feeling I'll have a lot more to write about of George Bush gets elected the fact of the matter is There was a general reluctance by reporters by editors by the news magazines by the television networks. They were basically told to lay off the Reagan Administration. I don't think it was done because of some type of conservative bias. Although some liberal columnist now contend that that there's a new book out which contends that I think it was simply done because of public opinion polls showing the popularity of this President and the notion that these critical stories weren't going to sell. And the fact of the matter is selling is what journalism is all about. You cannot divorce sales and dollars and figures and check books from the notion of Journalism and I tell you I wish I could because I go out to do a story and I don't really care one iota of whether it's going to be popular or not. I look at a story and I hope to God that it's going to important story that I have a national impact and that's the only thing I look at but you can be sure that I've got five editors above me who are measuring the dollars of every single issue and whether in fact US News is selling the issues in the West and Northwest and the southeast and whether in fact they should be adopting a new approach and whether I should be letting off on my hard-hitting stories That's a fact of life. And the fact is the editors don't get their entire way. I don't get my entire way. We have a nice equilibrium. I mean generally they know that I'm going to fight them if they really type try to exercise too much restraint fortunately for myself. I've arrived at a very good working relationship and I can basically write most stories without getting anyone getting any interference but this doesn't happen by and large at many other places. I know at CBS. I know several reporters who have been actively deterred in the last six months from doing critical stories on the Reagan Administration for fear that this simply would not sell well and that they were overburdening their public with critical stories on this administration's wrongdoing. I find that scandalous. The networks are perhaps feeling the pocketbook a little bit more seriously than the magazines and it all comes back to that. Now. If you ask me to give a report card, I'd still give a good report cards the networks and I give good report cards in the magazines. But if we had to analyze specific episodes in American history, there are some networks to get an f and there are some magazines that get an F. Let me give you a more personalized experience right now. In how news gets distorted and why it's not necessarily a product of biases or distortions or some type of external event that causes a distortion and have news gets represented the book. I wrote called secret Warriors inside the covert military operations of the Reagan Era essentially focuses on a group of elite Army Intelligence Officers who were subjected to an investigation beginning in late 1985. (00:23:36) For (00:23:36) running and conducting unauthorized covert operations. Eventually, they were prosecuted they were court-martialed court-martialed in secret and the first such Secret courts-martial in 25 years in the US Military and they were convicted and sentenced to jail terms. I proceeded when I first learned about the investigation in October of 1985 to call some of these officers up and I befriended them. I asked them to sit down with me to relay their experiences and I began to interview them methodically over eight months. I conducted hundreds of hours. If not thousands of hours of interviews with all the Intelligence Officers. It was an eye-opening experience. First of all was my first real exposure to the very compartment of world of military intelligence. I mean all along I had assumed that the CIA covered and carried out most of intelligence collection and most of the covert operations. In fact, what I learned was that the US Military and the wake of the failed Iran Rescue Mission in 1980 had essentially set up its own intelligence collection apparatus and its own covert Commando capability. So These Guys these kernels and lieutenant colonel's were in the Vanguard of conducting these operations operations all over the world from the Middle East to Lebanon to going into Panama and bugging the offices of General Noriega. The tracking the killers of the American Marines who died in October of 1983 in Lebanon. It's pretty heady stuff. They were being tried not reprimanded and thus the whole matter could have been close but tried in a courts-martial. Series of chords March so I befriended them and I began interviewing them one by one and I developed this tremendous sympathy for them for their response and their interpretation and they contended that they had been the subject of a massive Vendetta by the US Army. And they had been made scapegoats how that the US Army was covering up for generals who had conducted wrongdoing and only had wanted to prosecute kernels and Lieutenant Colonels and number two that the prosecution against these men reflected a traditional antipathy that the US Army had against Special Operations, and that antipathy goes back to Vietnam. And that these men really were totally innocent fully accountable for their operations had done no wrong doing we're simply the subject of a massive sense of Injustice and I believe them. I really believe them. In fact, I ended up writing a book proposal that was eventually accepted which basically outlaid how I was going to write a story a book of how these men were prosecuted unfairly and reveal the human drama associated with them as well as we feel the operations that they had carried out. Well, I wrote The Proposal the book was a proposal was accepted as a book. I then began working on the US Army to provide me copies of the court records these men were convicted and closed trials, but certainly not every single word should have been held classified. So I applied into the Freedom of Information Act. Four copies of the for (00:27:05) Steve Emerson from US News (00:27:07) immediately the US Army denied me access. They said this is subject to US National Security release of anything with damage US National Security. We're not releasing one page immediately when the government conjures up National Security as a blanket refusal to issue anything that automatically conjures up my suspicion that there's a cover-up. And in fact for the next four months. I proceeded to call the US Army every single day demanding access demanding copies of the records that they waited for my telephone call every day at 1:00 o'clock. It was a nice way of venting some of my aggression but they got the message and yet they consistently refused. Finally. I used was probably called The Bluff method. I threatened to file a lawsuit and appeal with us news lawyers the following To get an injunction to force them to release these documents since I knew they were violating the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act law because you can you can refuse to release some material. You cannot refuse to release everything. Well, whatever happened. I was very lucky because the next day I get a call from the US attorney saying that they're ready to settle not to have any lawsuit filed that they'll release the documents. And in fact, they began releasing the first of those documents that very day and over the next four months. They released to me 70,000 pages of court records. 70,000 pages. I had literally papered over my entire apartment in Washington and you couldn't walk any place without stepping on these papers. They were in the kitchen and the bedroom in the bathroom all over I'm a little piles in mind you they were not very easy to read because there were so many words phrases and paragraphs that have been blacked out for national security reasons. So I'm looking at these papers and I'm trying to figure out what's going on and I have an inkling because I basically had gotten one side of the major story or what I thought was the entire side. By interviewing these Lieutenant Colonels and Colonels for the previous eight months and over the next four months. It's slowly dawned on me that the Army had been correct and appropriate and Prosecuting these men and that I had made a terribly wrong conclusion. Based on what I thought was a solid intuitive judgment that these men were telling the truth that in fact these men weren't telling the truth. They were giving me this information. Some of the information of their other operations was truthful was a correct portrayal but most of it wasn't they had literally conducted a secret army within the army. They were running operations on behalf of the CIA unbeknownst the entire Army leadership. And it was done as part of what I concluded was the emergence of the Iran-Contra Network in 1983 and 1984. There were literally commercial cutouts. There were Swiss bank accounts. There were these ships that were obtained in the high seas to run operations and the US Army Chief of Staff the secretary of the Army and the vice chief of staff had no idea what was going on and when they found out about this they obviously were very upset and he decided they were going to investigate this matter fully and they embarked on these investigations which proved to be the most traumatic investigations ever conducted in the US Military. Now I eventually changed my mind. And in fact if you read the book and no purchases obligatory, you will find that. I'm not that charitable to these men. I start off being charitable, but you will find that I end up becoming very harsh in my conclusions that these guys were a danger to Society Running a secret organization within the Army unaccountable to No One except for a couple officials including Oliver North Now after writing the book, I basically had a time to catch my breath and I realized I came within this close of writing a book that was totally wrong. And I had eight months initially to prepare my thoughts to write the proposal and that was all set to write a book that exonerated these men and had it not been for the Army's final decision to release those documents. I would have written an entirely different book and to this day. I'm somewhat troubled by that. Now I had eight months and then a subsequent 14 months to finish writing that book. But what about a reporter who's on a day-to-day deadline or he's on a weekly deadlines or is on a two-week deadline me what built-in safeguards does he have to make sure he's not used and the fact of the matter is in National Security reporting this probably more disinformation in the pages of the newspapers today than in any other area of reporting. Because there's simply no way to corroborate the information you're getting it fundamentally comes down to an issue of trusting your source. The CIA isn't going to confirm an operation for you. They never comment. Defense department isn't going to ever comment. You go to another intelligence official he's going to give you some different information. If you can't get it confirmed with another official. What do you do? In the intelligence world you go with one official if you believe in them now. I've been very lucky. I was lucky with this book because I didn't write the wrong book. And most of the officials that I've spoken to since have given you have trusted me and I guess I've developed a rapport with a lot of people in the National Security Arena so that now I think I get more accurate information but hardly a day goes by when I don't read the pages when I see a story that is absolutely erroneous. And I know that because I know the people involved now, I don't really fault the reporter because he really is totally dependent upon the source that he's speaking to but it's a terrible occupational hazard in this Arena. You know when the intelligence world has been compared to a Wilderness of mirrors and I think it's a correct metaphor. You really don't know what you're looking at. You look at something you look at it. And you realize this could be this information. This could be one aspect of the Army's Commando units attempts to discredit the Air Forces Commando units. You look at a piece of information and say maybe this is a war being fought by bureaucratic War being fought between the CIA and the defense intelligence agency. You fundamentally. We'll never know the answer except if you're wrong and someone contradicts you or proves you incorrect. In the reporting business in general reporters have a tendency to go for the quick hit and if it's one area that I question well would be reporters is it is to delay instant gratification. It's a sit with a story. It's like sitting with anything you've written sit with it for about 3 or 4 days and see if it all gels and try to get one more Source out of the network in the bureaucracy. If you've done your best and you can literally stay to yourself, you've done everything you can to get it right go with it. But if there's one more source to be turned to one more document to be looked at you've got to do it. I'd like to have lunch with a source, but I'd rather review a pile of documents any day over interviewing a source at lunch. It's not as glamorous. It's not as prestigious. It's a lot more laborious. It's a lot more boring in many respects. But at least it's lot more correct in terms of reporting when a document is issued on an operation or any type of National Security Arena issue. You can be sure there's a measure of authenticity to it. No one's going to put their name in writing to something unless something is at least verifiable on that piece of paper. That's the bottom line. So when I find a reporter like Bob Woodward saying he'd rather have lunch. I can disagree with him, but I can also take stains you personally that that is not the measure of what I think is to be totally responsible reporting. And the last thing I'll say tonight. And I didn't address everything and we can open it up soon as I finish. Is the issue of whether reporters are doing Justice to news to reality. I can remember growing up and being challenged by people saying who said to me you can't believe everything you read in the newspapers and I sure as hell responded Yes, I do. Well, I've come full circle. I don't believe everything I read in newspapers and maybe it's because I have an extra connection here. I can see firsthand how the materials being prepared but having said that. The fact of the matter is by and large newspapers and magazines and networks perform have invaluable service to this country. There is there are distortions. There are stories that in my mind represent the worst of American journalism and yet there are also stories that represent the best of American journalism the injustices and covered in the intelligence community. The story of how Salvador Allende was brutally uprooted and eventually killed in part because of us covert action. Going back to 1973 Richard Nixon's final demise even parts of the Iran-Contra Affair all due to Fantastic elements of us journalism real Enterprise reporting. And to my mind they really have served as a fourth arm of the government. Yes, there's a lot of problems in Distortion and I can criticize you know, I could probably stay up here and begin a filibuster of how bad the Press coverage has been in the campaigns and how I feel towards its coverage of bush and how I feel towards coverage of quail and Benson and Dukakis. but by and large I will give a lot of credit to the press and to the news organizations for how they've covered news in general. and when mistakes do occur and you see them it's incumbent upon you as members of the public to write letters immediately to the press and I encourage that all the time let the editors know where you think someone has been unfair that the editors know what you think coverage has been inaccurate we do listen we do read our mail. Steve Emerson senior editor for us news (00:38:21) and World Report speaking at Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota on the topic reporting versus reality how the news gets filtered Steve Emerson at Carlton and at the end of the broadcast here, I'll mention the address you can write to for a tape cassette of this if you would be interested. Well following his formal remarks Steve Emerson responded to questions from members of the audience. (00:38:45) The question is do reporters end up sensationalizing stories. Absolutely and I'll give you an example here, which you may not agree with but I sincerely hope when vice president well vice president designate quail. Was nominated during the convention in New Orleans there about 14,000 reporters. Just twiddling their thumbs doing nothing when he uttered those words before a CBS interview that he had made telephone calls. To the National Guard to get him into the guard. And thereby evaded or avoided serving in Vietnam. There was an immediate frenzy and for two weeks. After that there were thousands of stories all over the country about quail and the National Guard there has yet been one story that I have found that has advanced the story beyond the fact that he did use connections as he admitted himself telephone calls were made to get into the National Guard which he admitted serving in to avoid serving in Vietnam. They were literally thousands of stories and each time the Washington Post New York Times were my magazine US News portrayed the story. They try to put a different spin on it because they knew they didn't have the facts at hand to present to justify a news release. They just knew that they had developed all these information they devoted all these sources. To getting a story out. They didn't have a big story says they sensationalized it. I'm no friend of Dan Quayle. And I think there's a lot of other reporting to be done about him. But I think that represented really a low point inator in American journalism. Yeah, the question is how far would I go to protect the source if I was called into a courtroom and I was asked to reveal the name of a source. And if I didn't I would be going to jail. What would I do? Well, that issue has been faced by half a dozen journalists in the last eight years and I can I'm happy to say that most of them have decided to go to jail with one exception or there in California. When decided to release that information here in Minneapolis. There was a rather horrendous case recently where we were a magazine or a newspaper released the name of a source. I think there is no more serious violation of the tenets of Journalism than betraying the confidentiality confidentiality of a source and there have been times where I've gotten into tremendous fighting matches with my editors at US News / release of names of sources, and that's one issue. I would never back. Down on I can only hope that other reporters do that. You're the problem about generalizing about newspapers and magazines is that the institution itself is so varied the such a difference in quality in terms of effect. In terms of reach in terms of what standards are that it's hard for me to talk on behalf of other newspapers or other magazines and I personally operate by a to Source rule. There are other newspapers that go buy a One Source rule. There are magazines or there are television networks that will not are a story about individual people if it's potentially libelous. They simply won't they don't want to create a potential libel suit, I don't go into a story with any of those constraints eventually. It may get hammered down onto me by a libel lawyer at us news, but I try to avoid looking at that. I tried doing a story protecting my source getting the facts out as straight as I can and then presenting the copy to my editor and fighting for it. Heavy as the media been used by the presidential candidates against their will and why are they allowed themselves to be used to a certain extent? They are used to mean the campaigns today of the caucus and Bush are now totally dedicated to the twenty second sound bite on the evening news. That's all they are predicated on at this point. No more press conferences. No more background interviews. Now, it's totally dedicated to images and visuals. That is where the network news has allowed itself to be used by by the candidates. The problem is I don't see how they can get out from underneath that they have to cover a story. I would hate to see some type of conspiratorial decision by the Network's not to cover something. I mean, I don't think I don't believe in that I can only hope that the corrective balance here is with other reporters who report on how this orchestration is taking place. I mean you look at the news you look at the the visuals today. You see the Evening News you think you're getting a substance a measure of substance of the candidates I venture to say you're not and most of you probably think that it's a very unhealthy portrayal of the candidates. And in fact, we in the media think it's an unhealthy portrayal. I spoke to a this afternoon to a group young group of aspiring journalists here and I describe what my attitude would be if I was told to go cover. The in stay up all night watching the windows if some presidential candidate to see if he snuck out to have an affair and I said people today that I would say absolutely not I would never do that. That's not my role as a journalist to cover the sexual liaison of a candidate that reduces coverage to very trivial Pari and interests. It doesn't go into the issues of what a candidates back issue what he stands for Gary Hart may be thought of as a liar as a philanderer, but the fact of the matter is I'd rather see Gary Hart lose the election or the primary on the basis of his positions that on the basis of whether he was a philanderer not (00:44:54) a member of the audience at Carleton College pointed out that there seems to be a pattern on the evening television news the public expects pictures. So if there are no news cameras nearby events do not get mentioned Steve Emerson. I was asked to comment on this observation. (00:45:10) We just put the button on the fundamental limitations of American journalism, which is the attempt to go for the immediate 15 second film clip and if they can't get that, there's no story there. So if a revolution occurs in Burundi over occurs in a Zaire, it's not a story if some type of event happens in the Middle East especially in Israel, whether a more television journalist than any other country in the world per capita, you can be sure it's going to be covered. I mean, I think there's an unhealthy concentration of journalists covering the arab-israeli conflict and an unhealthy lack of journalists covering other conflicts other Regional conflicts in Africa, and the Burundi example is a perfect one. The fact of the matter is newspapers have been pretty good in covering it and trying to get into the issues of what created the war the tribal Warfare but I don't see television is ever rising to the occasion. And to tell you the truth and this maybe it's just a theory. My feeling is the American public. I'm not including you necessarily in this indicative of its if it's of its attraction toward cop shows toward killer shows toward action packed shows likes to see the drama and violence of 15 second Clips on television. And that's what American Producers are catering to (00:46:37) Emerson was then asked if he thought networks and major news magazines should try to achieve the standards of public television news and public affairs (00:46:45) programming. Well, if you don't an issue of pocketbooks and economics, the fact of the matter is Mcneil, there is a very healthy has a very healthy affect public television in general is a very healthy effect in terms of commercial television. It does add some type of competitor out there. And so the Network's always know that there is this competitor out there showing public television interest specials and that's why ABC has allocated, you know, twelve percent of its budget this year toward documentaries. Probably only because of the fact that that PBS is driving it and yet 88 percent of that budget is dedicated to other sources other areas totally unrelated to healthy news coverage. The fact of the matter is dollars are getting increasingly rare in television networks are losing money. The magazines are losing money. The whole orientation in journalism is going toward the style of USA Today which we comment we commonly refer to as Mick paper and it's you know, I can recall seeing a story in USA Today two weeks ago. It was the headline was nine words long. The story was seven. It was a one-sentence story. That's the direction of where journalism is going and I'm sorry to say magazines like Mother Jones will probably not be around another five years. Not that I agree with everything Mother Jones does or says but it's provocative and it has a new balance or at least a tries to correct the imbalance that exists but but fundamentally Americans aren't reading as much as they were 10 years ago. Well, that's a good question. I can notice imbalances or imperfections or erroneous reporting in the New York Times. How can you notice the same thing? It's hard for you to notice the same thing. I mean after all you're not covering a press conference, you're not covering a candidate. You can't really see that that's more of an admission on my part that we've are tremendously in this Arena and we're not careful enough. The only way you as the public can get involved is that if you see something that you're into Be familiar with or you compare the coverage between one newspaper or another and you see totally different contrasting versions of the same event. You're right both newspapers and say hey which one should I believe door? Number one or door? Number two, the fact of the matter is that there is very little self policing in the journalism industry, you know, I often compare the journalism Community to the mafia and to the Republican Party. There's an 11th commandment Thou shalt not criticized I own and it's very true. There's very little internal criticism of our own reporting and I'm all for you know new institutions to be created to criticize journalist. You know, I'm not against the interest groups that criticized journalists, even though they've been labeled as right-wing or left-wing. I think they're very healthy in terms of keeping us honest. The question is since I noted that reporters like to socialize with and cocktail parties and be accepted by The Establishment is this create basically an inherent bias against the underclass and the underprivileged. Well, it's interesting question because public opinion polls are analyses of reporters backgrounds and they've been there a couple of social scientists in Washington who tracked the backgrounds of reporters and Survey them and interview them show that they're overwhelmingly considered themselves liberal Democrats may be as much as 70 to 80% that they sympathize with the underdog and then I generally see personally more of an underdog orientation. I know personally I root for the underdog and that shows itself in my reporting especially if there is Injustice involved. Now the question about establishment reporting and getting too close to the establishment in Washington. I think that by and large that protects the establishment in Washington, it protects the state department. It protects Congress from a lot of hard-hitting reporting that could that would be phenomenally instructive and eye-opening. If it were ever done, you know, I can't tell you the number of potential stories that are out there on corrupt members of the Congress who in various ways. Would Merit front page stories in various newspapers, but don't get that coverage because of friendships engendered by the top editors. Oh by the reporters themselves. And I don't want you to all go away. I know that I've been pretty harsh and critical about journalism tonight. I just want to make one statement and I find myself. I was telling Paul Paul wellstone that he's heard me rant and Rave about journalism and journalists for several years. Now whenever he comes to Washington, he has to hear me rant and Rave about them and and I was telling him that I was so cynical I couldn't recommend people going into the business, but that's not really true because talking to you and thinking about these issues. I really come to the conclusion that there's no other institution like it that you really do have the opportunity to correct injustices and you really had the opportunity to make a mark on society and to improve the community or the state or the country and there's no other institution like it at all and besides that it's a lot of fun so all in all, you know, I've come to a conclusion that I didn't think I would make myself which is that you know, if you're interested in writing if you're interested in reporting if you're interested in meeting new people, and if you're not interested in having a lot of people like you going through reporting Do I find whether the Press is in a responsibility to fight the trends in journalism, like the 20-second clip on television or whether they just have to accept it as something that's the general decline of television or the way we're going I'd like to think that we should fight it and yet I know that the producers are listening to the people up on the 10th floor at Black Rock, which is CBS saying we're losing to 20 million dollars a year. You've got to think of something new. It wasn't so long ago when the Network's thought about going to an hour news coverage at night. Now they're actively thinking going to a 15 minute news coverage. That's the trend and I wish there was a force that I could we could unleash the fight it. But there isn't unless one of you has a billion dollars you'd like to share (00:53:46) with me. One member of the audience wanted Emerson to comment on the lack of press coverage as this person saw it for the Christian Institute in Washington DC. (00:53:57) Well, I would disagree about your latter statement. They have had press coverage. But I would say that in response to your first statement. They deserve nose, press coverage. I have not seen a more Reckless Institute operate in Washington in my entire 11 years there than the christic Institute. They have totally discredited. Let me backtrack they are they have used sources who are total Fabricators and confirm liars and they have done a disservice to the whole issue of investigative journalism, the critic Institute for some of you who don't know is an ecumenical Institute that has launched several lawsuits on behalf of several journalists who were injured in the bombing of Eden pastora Contra leader in 1984. They have subsequently made these allegations in depositions and lawsuits that this A secret team of us officials operating since 1963 in Southeast Asia going up to today including Oliver North designed to coordinate a campaign of drug smuggling to fund covert operations around the world. The charges are and I've looked into many of them are absolutely Reckless. Yes, there has been drug smuggling by some countries. Yes, there have been covered operations conducted an authorized by Oliver North. Yes. There have been an illegal involvement by General c chord and yes, there has been you know a secret members of former former US employees running around the world conducting operations. But is this a 20-year conspiracy to run the world which is what they're alleging absolutely not and the fact of the matter is when they first unleash their lawsuit lots of members of the press because they were too afraid to stake out their own position quoted The christic Institute and gave them a lot of ink in the very beginning and I in fact was very resentful over lots of journalists who refuse to do their own homework to check out the allegations to begin with once they checked out the allegations. You will not find the journalist today and I'm not talking about people who are right wing at all. You know people who were instinctively distrustful of the government, like myself will say to you there's not almost any substance to most of the allegations. They've raised and to the allegations that do have Credence. They've discredit themselves, and that's a shame because they're really they did uncover some wrongdoing, but it sort of got buried in the whole Avalanche of Hysteria. (00:56:26) That was Steve Emerson senior editor at us news and World Report speaking at Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota before the question and answer session is formal remarks were on the topic reporting versus reality how the news gets filtered Steve Emerson is the author of a number of books. His latest one is called the secret Warriors inside the covert operations of the Reagan Era now. If you'd be interested in purchasing a tape cassette copy of this broadcast, you can order one directly from Carleton College make your check payable to Carleton College for Dollars five dollars is the price of the tape cassette and send it to Carleton College Office of college relations one North College Street, Northfield, Minnesota 55057. Again, that address is Carleton College Office of college relations one North College Street, Northfield, Minnesota 55057. The price of the cassette is $5 and Carlton asks that you not make any telephone orders. Please orders by mail only for the $5 cassette. And I'm glad I got the price right this time. The last time we had one of these Carlton lectures on I said, it was a different figure. I couldn't read my own handwriting and my goodness was I sorry about that. Anyway, we've got it right today on seasonably warm. January temperatures will continue the National Weather Service says right through the early part of next week the forecast today is calling for highs from the 30s in the North to the middle to upper 40s in the South and Southwest and then much the same for tomorrow. Good afternoon this Gary eichten. It's taken a while. But finally the material minnesotans donated to help the victims of the Armenian earthquake is on its way to Armenia the Air Force picked up the supplies this morning and will have a report this afternoon on NPR Journal alter day. We'll have the latest on the Minneapolis Police Department's drug raid this week that led to the deaths of two people who apparently got caught in the middle of the drug war. We invite you to tune in for those stories in the rest of the News 5 o'clock in our music stations, 5:30 on our news stations a reminder that Of public radio's coverage of issues related to Human Services is made possible in part through a grant from 3M makers of posted brand notes. That's midday for today. This is Bob Potter. You're tuned to ksjn 1330 Minneapolis-Saint Paul in the Twin Cities. Sunny skies, 36 degrees the high could reach 40 for today. A reminder that we today's programming is sponsored in part in honor of Marie came a l'm on her 90th birthday stay with us for take-out which follows the news from AP at one o'clock.