>> from our studios in new york city this is "charlie rose." charlie: we have the executive editor of the "new york times" here. it is a top position in the newsroom. he took over in may of last year, succeeding jill abramson who was the paper'first female editor. he became the first african-american to hold the post. the digital era has disrupted the business of journalism as many of you know and it has presented challenges and opportunities. many traditional news organizations have reduced their staff in face of significant competition from digital outlets. the "new york times" has with stood the industry wide downturn. last month it reached a milestone of more than 1 million

digital only subscribers. 1 million only digital subscribers. as it goes forward "the times" has a new form of story telling. its latest project is a 10-minute virtual reality film that tells the story of children displaced by war. this weekend more than a million subscribers received google virtual reality viewers. i am pleased to have dean baquet at this table for the first time. welcome. dean: it is a pleasure to be here. thank you so much. charlie: what is virtual reality film? dean: for me it is a different way of telling a story. it is a dramatic visual form of story telling that makes you feel as if you're in the middle of the field. in the case of these three migrant children it makes you feel like you're walking among them, like you could actually reach out and touch them. charlie: it puts you there. dean: it puts you there. it is a powerful piece of journalism and a great new story

telling device. charlie: how will you use it? dean: you know, you can use it all kinds of ways. we have used it before though not as widely just showing people a sort of immigrants walk through new york. you could do it for light stuff. in this case we wanted to do it for what i think is one of the most powerful stories in the world, which is the way war has displaced children in particular all around the world. this is told in the eyes of these children and you see the world through their eyes. as beautifully as the story could be written, i don't think you could tell it quite the way --. charlie: it adds to the experience of story telling. dean: it does. it's a new way to tell stories. charlie: war has driven 30 million children from their homes. these are the stories of three of them. now, this was shipped to what, a million people? dean: a million people all home subscribers around the country got it. charlie: in the u.s. dean: yes. charlie: now on this iphone which doesn't belong to me, but it had the "new york times" app, correct? dean: that's right.

charlie: and you have that app, it gives you access to the "new york times." dean: that's right. charlie: i'm going to push that now. and i'm going to fold this like this. and then -- dean: i'll join you. now we're starting. this is a food drop in south sudan. charlie: right. dean: now you've been following the story. charlie: my goodness. wow. dean: it's amazing. you've been following the story of this one child. charlie: yeah. and as i turn it's like i'm in the middle of a field and i'm turning around and i see the man with the bull horn. dean: this 9-year-old child has been telling you what his life is like as a refugee. charlie: in this remote camp in the swamps of south sudan one of the only ways to deliver large amounts of humanitarian aid is by air. dean: and they're waiting. there's the plane. they've been waiting for the plane. charlie: wow. this is extraordinary. dean: it is so powerful. now watch as they rush to pick up the bags. charlie: yes.

it's like i'm in the center of everything and i can just turn and see everything. you parachuted me down. there are the bags. dean: and there these kids are, all of them, there is one bag so heavy that -- charlie: wow. dean: the kid needs help. charlie: yeah. dean: it's heart breaking. charlie: and these are bags of humanitarian aid. dean: yes. food. charlie: so this is available today? or when will this be -- dean: well, hopefully everybody will keep their glasses and we'll do more. we have more in the works. the reason we chose this one, when we first started -- i'm going to name the two editors who were the leaders on this, jake silverstein is the editor of the magazine and sam dolnik at the time, this was their baby. my job was to sort of get the heck out of the way. and they wanted a subject that would make it so that people could say, would not say, well this is an interesting gimmick. so they wanted a subject that

was powerful, journalistic, and timely. if it had been just a mere feature story or something where people could feel like they're just walking through a park everybody would have said it was a gimmick. in this case it is obviously journalism and obviously powerful. charlie: google is your partner in this? dean: that's right. charlie: what do they provide? dean: the glasses. and the remarkable thing if you think about it, 10 years from now when virtual reality is a part of life or sooner than that, everybody will think of this remarkable moment when a bunch of people put cardboard box in a bag and delivered it at homes all around the country and they'll think it was such a rudimentary way to do it but it was really a remarkable feat to pull it off. and in my humble opinion a great moment for the "new york times" in pushing ahead with a different kind of story telling. charlie: did you have to learn digital? dean: yes.

charlie: or was it something you just naturally included in your tools? dean: no, no. i started as a journalist at 19. i dropped out of college. i got a job with the afternoon paper in new orleans. i did cops, courts, city hall, investigative reporting, the whole nine yards. this is new for me. on the other hand, the bedrock of it is what i grew up doing. it's story telling. it's being honorable. it's being truthful. it's trying to convey news to people in a straight forward way. it's news judgment. charlie: it can add to journalism the same way the internet did. dean: journalism is better now just for the record. journalistic institutions are working and struggling but journalism, itself, is better now than it's ever been. the fact, it wasn't that long ago that you would not have even been able to see any video at all in south sudan. to be able to see it as a

virtual reality tool, it's remarkable. journalism is greater now than it's ever been. charlie: the quality of writing better than it's ever been? is the quality of story telling better than it's ever been? dean: absolutely. charlie: why do you think that is? dean: i think first off we have to work harder. i think 25 years ago if you were a -- the "new york times" or "the washington post" you had a built in audience. we sometimes took our readers for granted. charlie: cbs news as well? dean: that's right. now we have to work for them every day. we have to work harder for them. so story telling i think is better. now, the big institutions that tell stories the best i would argue like the "new york times," like cbs news, like "the washington post," are going to have to fight hard to survive. but story telling, itself, journalism, is better than it ever was. i think sometimes we make the mistake of worrying over our institutions and not worrying

enough about actual journalism, itself. journalism is thriving. charlie: all right. tell me what your role is as executive editor. dean: if things go well, i get responsibility for them. if things don't go well, i pick somebody else. i mean, i run the -- [laughter] dean: i run the news report of "the times" so i come in every morning worrying over what the "new york times" is going to cover. i'm responsible for everything except the opinion pages. charlie: you report to the publisher. they report to the publisher. dean: yes. i do as well. charlie: you do as well but the opinion people only report to the publisher. dean: right. but i only report to the publisher too. charlie: who else would there be to report to? dean: that's true. as the c.e.o., mark thompson runs the whole business side of the operation. charlie: how big -- church and state, the separation between business and journalism, church and state, you have said some things that indicate you think there is a need for more

cooperation. dean: absolutely i do. charlie: with maintaining church and state. dean: yeah. charlie: explain that. dean: well, first off, church and state, pure church and state existed in a world in which there was a newsroom and there was advertising. there was no technology. the people who helped create this product, this whole world of journalists didn't exist 25 years ago. those people, the people who sort of plan what the "new york times" looks like online and on the phone, those people for my money are as beholden to me as they are to the person who runs the business side. that's the first thing. the second thing is we are in a tumultuous, difficult time. and the most creative people in any news organization happen to live in newsrooms. it would be nuts if those people were not involved in charting the future of the "new york times" or "the washington post." it would be nuts, this, which i hope one day will not only

become a great way to tell stories, this is also hopefully a way to make money. charlie: right. dean: it was born in the newsroom. it was created by two senior editors who fought and pushed for it. and i have to create a situation in the "new york times" newsroom where journalists feel compelled to not only tell great stories but think about their impact on the future of the "new york times." i think i can do that. i think we can do that. without jeopardizing our integrity. charlie: your integrity is jeopardized when? dean: your integrity is jeopardized when people think that advertisers or powerful interests influence your news. and influence the way you cover the news. and that ain't going to happen. charlie: not as long as you're there. dean: nope. nope. nor as long as arthur is there. charlie: okay. fair enough. and he's been here many times as you know. dean: yes. charlie: when you were at "the l.a. times" just to take a measure of you, they told you to cut the staff. dean: right.

charlie: you said, no, i'm not going to do that. dean: that's right. they fired me. charlie: and they fired you. dean: right. charlie: you said you weren't going to do it as i understand it because it would go to the heart of producing a quality --. dean: that's right. the only times when i became managing editor and when i became editor was one of the greatest news organizations in the world, it still is, but to be frank i thought that people who owned "the l.a. times" were not thinking about the impact the cuts would have. we were facing the possibility of closing foreign bureaus. we were facing the possibility of cutting the news report we gave to people in los angeles. i think we were creating the situation where we would jeopardize the business. to be perfectly frank, i don't mind saying this, i didn't quite trust the people who owned "the l.a. times" to understand what i was trying to say. and i think they were severely weakening the paper. as a journalistic institution and as a business. i think i was right.

charlie: when you quit, did you have any idea what your future was? dean: none. i was fired first. charlie: i mean fired, right. dean: none. i went home. i was a little bit freaked out. i sort of had hoped it wouldn't come to that point. charlie: freaked out because? dean: because -- charlie: because you believed in the paper and believed it could do --? dean: i believed and i still believe that a great news organization can survive and thrive. and it broke my heart that the "l.a. times" was being cut to the point where i didn't think it could be as great as it was. charlie: did they hear you say that? dean: you know, i don't think they did, to be honest. i don't think they did. i mean, as evidence of the fact, when my fights with them started, the guy who was the publisher, jeff johnson, actually sided with me. and this is the guy worrying over the finances of the "l.a. times."

he sided with me and he was also pushed out. so it wasn't just me. charlie: who was doing the pushing? dean: it was tribune company which was based in chicago. charlie: from the "chicago tribune." dean: yes. i think we just live in different planets. so, no. i was freaked out. i spent a month reading philip roth. charlie: what were you reading? dean: i read, i set as a goal, i had to read all of philip roth's novels and i came close in the course of a month. charlie: why did you choose philip roth? a great american novelist. dean: a great american novelist who has written nothing about los angeles. charlie: exactly. dean: i just wanted to go back to school. so i wanted to pick one writer and just read all the work. i'm an english major and i've always read a lot of fiction. i spent time with my son and my wife who writes fiction. and then one day arthur called. actually arthur called the day after i was fired.

he asked if i would consider coming back. i told him i just needed some time. actually what i was secretly hoping was that the "l.a. times" would be sold and then i would go back but that didn't happen. charlie: you loved the idea of running a great newspaper. dean: yes. charlie: so arthur calls you and you end up as the washington bureau chief. dean: yes. which was a blast. actually in a paper the size of the "new york times" it's the closest thing to being a city editor. you walk into that room with 50 reporters. you have a piece of every story. it was the waning days of the bush administration. the big fights over torture were starting to yee rument. -- erupt. it was pre-snowden but it was just before wikileaks. i was involved in wikileaks. it was a blast. you walked in and you had command of this room and you had the white house and you had national security. you had, you know, fierce debates over the wars in afghanistan and iraq. it was just a blast.

charlie: in the south we have an expression for that. dean: i'm a southerner, too. i've heard that. but you can't say it. charlie: no we can't. but the point is here, also an investigative reporter. that's what you love. dean: that's what i was. charlie: what is it about investigative reporting that you love. dean: i was an investigative reporter in new orleans and chicago and for the "new york times" before i became an editor. first off, it's hard. it's really hard. i think that my history and my background makes me skeptical of powerful institutions even though i run one now. charlie: yes. dean: and investigative reporting lets you look hard at powerful institutions. in a lot of ways, i don't want to say it is the highest form of journalism because that's not true. there are many high forms of journalism. but it is a high form of journalism. it's tough. and it's fun. it's exciting. it's really hard. it's mentally challenging.

it's, i mean, it's exciting. i started doing it in louisiana which is a great place to be an investigative reporter. charlie: do you love politics? dean: i do love politics. i do. i like politics a lot. i like different forms. i like a horse race. but i also like the sort of substantive stuff and i like understanding who the candidates are. yes. i do. a lot. just remember i want -- i always tell the story because i want it to be my obituary -- i am the reporter who got the quoteation from edwin edwards when he was running for governor of louisiana. charlie: tell the story. it's a great story. dean: i was covering edwin edwards' campaign from the back of the bus for the times picayune. it is just the two of us. i say, governor, will you lose this election? he said dean the only way i lose the election is if i'm caught in bed with a dead girl and live book. -- or a live boy. once he saw the effect he kept

saying it every day after that. i got it first. charlie: what is he doing now? dean: he ran for congress and lost and he's sort of a political figure in louisiana. he just got out of jail. ♪

charlie: you're there at the "new york times" as washington bureau chief. then you come to new york. dean: yeah. came to new york as managing editor. was brought in by jill abramson who was a friend and also executive editor. charlie: still a friend? dean: we've lost touch. i still care for her a lot, like her a lot. i was obviously we had a disagreement that became public which is unfortunate. but i still care for her a lot. charlie: the disagreement was about? dean: we had, i'm going to be coy if you don't mind. we had different philosophies about how to lead the newsroom. charlie: so management style. dean: yes. it was management style. our styles are different. charlie: and the publisher decided it was time for a change. dean: yes. that's right. that's right. that's about a year and a half ago. charlie: so what's your goal

as editor in chief of the "new york times"? dean: my big goal, my first goal is to make the "new york times" better. i mean, i think every executive editor of a big news organization wants to make it better. i want to make it in particular a great, investigative institution. i care deeply about investigative reporting and it's something i've made a priority. i would love to leave a news organization that's on sound enough financial footing so that my successors can keep building the way previous executive editors have been able to build. i'd like to leave it in a good, safe place where it can thrive. charlie: what do you have to do? dean: i think significantly increase the number of people who read us and pay for us. as you said in the beginning we have a million paid subscribers. all together we have 2 million subscribers if you count print. i think we have to significantly increase that. we have said, mark thompson the c.e.o. and i, have said that we

need to increase our digital revenue from about $400 million to $1800 million. charlie: by 2020. so you have got four years to go from 400 to 800. dean: we got to the 400 in about four years so i think we can do it. that's going to mean getting a lot more people to read the "new york times" and to pay for it. i actually think we can do that. i think there is a bigger international audience for us. i think about 15% of our subscribers roughly are abroad. but i think a lot of people want to read the "new york times" abroad. charlie: how would you define the best newspaper in the world? what does it have to be to be considered the best newspaper in the world? dean: well, there are the givens. you have to be honest. you have to have great integrity. that's the given. right? just knock that off the table. you have to be truly ambitious. charlie: ambitious for?

dean: you have to cover the biggest stories better than ever else as often as you can. nobody can do it every time. charlie: anticipate stories? dean: anticipate stories, yes. and you have to take on big, big subjects worthy of your size. you have to write about the biggest corporations, the biggest governments. you have to be really ambitious and large in your goals. charlie: and do it without fear. dean: without fear. do it without fear. i think one thing people forget is that as the world has gotten smaller in a weird way the subjects we take on are larger. companies are bigger. governments are bigger and more important, there's more interaction among governments. i think a great news organization is also humane. and courageous. and i don't mean courageous in terms of just taking on the largest subjects, but, you know, making hard judgments about where to put reporters.

i think we have to cover wars. war is usually more difficult to cover today than it ever was before. charlie: and more dangerous. dean: more difficult, more dangerous. i mean, it used to be 30 years ago you covered a war that was an understanding between both sides that a journalist was there to get both sides. this is a free for all. but you got to cover it, right? charlie: what are you looking for in good reporters? dean: i think a really great reporter is courageous, immensely curious, is willing to try new things, has fun. the best reporters i know have a blast. charlie: i know. dean: and as ambitious as the institution. charlie: if you can't enjoy doing this you shouldn't be --. dean: it's true.

even in tumultuous times being a journalist is a lot of fun. charlie: and you look for those obviously i need to say this because i believe it so much, those that can write. dean: of course. that goes without saying. charlie: there are some great reporters who can't write. dean: that's right. you know what? that's okay. charlie: it is. because they're reporters. dean: sometimes you get the perfect reporter who is an elegant writer and a fabulous reporter. sometimes you get somebody who's a stunning reporter who can find things out and doesn't write as well. but that's, to me, just as valuable. charlie: that's the notion of the combination. like one singular. dean: you want to mix the talent. you want beautiful writers, people who can do both. beautiful writers, ambitious reporters, specialists who have expertise. nowadays you want people who have a much more visual sensibility, digital talent. ben solomon is the videographer who worked on the video we just watched. has as much journalistic gum

ption as anybody, as any of his predecessors who were largely writers. charlie: who's your competition? dean: all kinds of competition. "the washington post." charlie: it is tougher and tougher. dean: oh, sure. they have a really good editor. they're much more competition. "the journal" is competition. you know, "the guardian" is competition. charlie: yes. dean: the financial times is competition. we have competition among sort of specialty -- charlie: and is the competition to cover the story first and best? dean: first and best. charlie: first and best. dean: competition is an underrated force and i hope it's always there. it means you want me and i want marty barren the editor of the post to wake up in the morning worried about me and he wants me to wake up in the morning worried about him. it makes us better. charlie: ben bradley said nothing thrilled him more than

to know that the "new york times" was worried about him. dean: that's right. well i worry about a lot of people. he would be thrilled. but hopefully they worry about me, too. charlie: you have said to your friend, jim amos, the former editor of "the times picayune" i want to make people gasp over their morning coffee. dean: right. i want people to pick up the "new york times" and in whatever form they pick it up, phone, laptop, print, and i want them to not be able to put it down. i want them to pick it up, go holy s -- because there is a powerful story and an amazing piece of photography, a great video. i want people to gasp and not be able to put the paper down. charlie: one of the great things to me, i mean, this is just -- just happened to be the sports page of the paper today. how good a photograph is that? dean: it's a great picture. i take no credit for this but the "new york times" in the last

10 years went from being not a great photographic paper to being a fabulous -- charlie: and who takes credit? dean: michelle mcnally the photo editor. charlie: and look at that. getting the ball over the goal line. dean: fabulous. it's terrific. charlie: yes. dean: i'm proud of it. charlie: and the color. dean: yeah. charlie: so you want them to gasp and know the story. take me through your day. okay? from the moment you get up and you're having your coffee and you know what's in your paper because you've ok'd it before it went to bed. dean: that's right. but the first thing i do is look at the phone for two reasons. look at the news on the phone. first off, things have happened when i went to bed. right? things have happened around the world. if i went to bed at 10:00 at night, between 10:00 and 6:00 a.m. when i get up, news has happened. stuff has happened abroad. it catches me up on the news. plus i like to see how "the times" is presenting itself on the phone. so i spend a little time on the phone. then i read the print paper very thoroughly. then i look at the journal, the

post, and the guardian at least glimpse through it. charlie: the journal, the post, and the guardian. dean: those are the -- even in the era we're in those are the ones you look at. i glance to see what they have. i look at the f.t. usually when i get into the office. there is an overnight note that one of the editors has left that just gives me a sense of how we fared overnight whether any stories broke at 2:00 in the morning while i was asleep. if they're big stories i get a call. but generally speaking you don't get a call if they're not big enough. i go into the office. usually get in -- our news meeting is at 9:30. charlie: what is that meeting about? dean: the news meeting is a meeting where all of the leaders of all of the major news desks of the "new york times" sit around a table and talk about the news of the day. it used to be the meeting where they would start to build the print front page but not anymore. charlie: want to talk about that but go ahead. dean: we talk about, this

morning, for instance, we talked about, before the president of the university of missouri resigned, so the national and the sports editor said here's what we have working on that story. we kicked around ideas for a few minutes and then the washington bureau chief on the phone piped up and said netanyahu and obama are meeting in a few minutes. we want to discuss the history and we are talking about coverage. it tells us what people read the night before. after that meeting, i have a couple business meetings, and i

make time to walk around the room and visit as many desks as possible. usually, lunch with a reporter or an editor. the next big meeting of the day is at 4:30 and there is a meeting at 3:30 that i do not go through. i have a sensational deputy who is good and it is the next day. charlie: how is the meeting different than what it would have been?

dean: i would start with a print from page and start building it through the day and take possibilities. you cannot do it anymore. you should not have that many smart people sitting around a table and talking about wanting to be on one platform. people read us a lot of different ways. if people only do that, it knocks out video. the people who do great multimedia work, what are they going to talk about? we talk about coverage and the print from page. charlie: does it have to be on the front page?

dean: here is the way i think about it. the front page is a mix of the most important stories of the day at the moment they are captured in print. from there, the rest of it is a balancing act. we are one year away from a major presidential election and you may have something completely different and a great trial. it is something completely different. charlie: is it harder to be a reporter because you have to file and file? dean: it was significantly harder. you have to file and file and you have to know how to do more stuff.

charlie: is the work product as good? dean: yes. charlie: there are more demands on you to be filing because the monster online is eating you. dean: they have more access to information. it is harder and a challenge is to make it not too hard. you see and you can look at all kinds of opinions and things. dean: think about what happened and the revolutions in the middle east. those things could be seen widely because people who lived there are sending tweets and that is a good thing.

it is harder for me to harness it, but take what we do today and apply it to the secret wars with the holocaust or other events. i do not honestly believe you can have some of the giant historical events hidden. charlie: and other things, like roosevelt and kennedy's health. nobody wants to talk about the issues. tell me about how you feel about what ben carson is doing. dean: i think the horse race is a blast and i am not embarrassed to say it is great. charlie: everyone is interested. dean: i do not think you can run for the president of the united states and not assume that people are going to parse your words.

those days ended before bill clinton and they died during bill clinton. i think it is interesting that the candidates are all blaming the media. charlie: and, in blaming the media, they believe they are enhancing their own viability with their constituencies. dean: i think that is disingenuous, to be frank. charlie: they believe it. dean: maybe. charlie: does ben carson believe it? dean: i don't know. i think people have cynically blamed the media when things don't go their way. i have been blamed. charlie: you are not satisfied with diversity, you have said. dean: i think the new york times newsroom -- this is

industry-wide, for the record -- but i care about my room. the new york times does not look like america. we have to fix that. jean roberts is a managing editor of the times and was once quoted -- he was asked what is the biggest story newspapers and have missed and he said it was the migration of black people from the south to the north, one of the most transformational events in american history. newspapers missed that because they did not have anybody who is related to anybody who was migrating. this is the argument for the diverse newsroom. newsrooms have to tell the story of america and the world and you have to look like that to tell the story. i feel strongly about that and we have a lot of work to do.

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charlie: there is a story about the times and hillary clinton. her email story, they said there were times mistakes. dean: we make them.

charlie: i don't hope you make mistakes. i hope you are willing to acknowledge that nobody is perfect. dean: what happened was a bad mistake. there was an inquiry into e-mails and we went further than what we knew at the time to say it was a criminal investigation. the fbi was conducting the investigation and it made us believe it was criminal. charlie: it was about national security. dean: we were wrong. why were we wrong? i blame myself. that is my job. it got online and the clintons called us on it. they wrote a letter and said that they were right.

we crafted the editors note that said i was wrong and we made a mistake. i believe in that. you are supposed to own up to your mistakes. that was a mistake. charlie: has she received fair coverage? dean: i think she has. i think she has. i think the coverage of hillary clinton, over time, has been completely fair. what they struggle to understand, sometimes, is that she and bernie sanders -- there are essentially two candidates for the democratic nomination -- there are 10-12 for the republican nomination. of course she will get more scrutiny. if you put energy on the democratic nomination and the people running, she gets more, as will bernie sanders, by the way. you can never give as much ink to the republicans.

charlie: do you think marco rubio was a story? dean: i do. it was not like we made it a huge story. charlie: you ran this before the story on his financials. some said they they did not agree it was a big story. dean: it is a tricky calculation and i actually think stuff like that is fair game, as long as you keep it in perspective. i think it is fair game and the test for me is always when you learn something and the act of not publishing is almost a political act. if you learn something like that, the candidates take the spouse, shine them up, and say,

here is my perfect partner. it is interesting. people can make their own judgments and decide this helps him or hurts him. charlie: does the fact that you printed the story and mean -- does the fact that you printed the story mean you made a decision about the relevance? dean: sure. it was not a monumental story. it was interesting and it was a story. it did not -- i do not believe it was on the front page. by the way, i would say the reaction justifies it. some people did not like it and some people liked it. that is what a story is supposed to do. charlie: why do some people think the new york times is

liberal? dean: my own theory, i don't think that's true. i think that reporters have a quote rule meaning in the same way. if you look at the new york times and not just the front page, if you look at the whole of the new york times, i can make the case that the new york times writes a lot of story about business and some people think we are pro-business. i can say the features section's extol wealth. i think if you look at all of the new york times, that is not true. the reason people think this is because our editorial page is liberal and some people cannot distinguish the part that i run and andy rosenthal runs. we are a new york urban paper

and we are drinking the waters of new york and the influences we have same-sex marriage in wedding announcements. if you live in certain parts of the country, it feels uncomfortable. that is why i think it is. the best evidence is the liberal democratic likely nominee thinks we are unfair to her, as do the most conservative candidates running for the nomination. they cannot both be right, right? charlie: that is true. there is the amazon story. i love that story. dean: the hardest are stories about big business because, if i want to do an investigation, i walk into the office and use a freedom of information act request and they give me everything. nobody ever complains about a

story about big government. everyone assumes that big government gets things wrong. i thought the amazon story was based on dozens of interviews and fair. i mean, i have had friendly back in force with amazon and i do not expect them to agree with it. i thought it was fair, ambitious, and hard to do. we are one of the few institutions that can do this. charlie: margaret sullivan said it was driven by generalization and anecdote with a damning results presented with drama. dean: i disagree with margaret, even though i think she is a great public editor. that gets to the point. margaret wants what she can only get from government investigative reporting. documented internal records show

screw ups. if you do a story about companies, it is driven by anecdotes, because you cannot get internal documents. this is a case where margaret did not understand that this is a different kind of investigative reporting target because it is about a company and it has to be based on interviews. by the way, countless interviews. the heart of that story has stood up. the amazon complaint has largely been that they say a handful of the people we quote were not credible, particularly one gentleman. the story quotes people by name. charlie: they are testifying to

an atmosphere at amazon driven by this. dean: essentially, this is larger than amazon and it is a story in an era of metrics when you can measure success and failure of individual workers. do other companies go too far? they deny it. charlie: national security, i assume is tough. dean: it is the hardest. you get calls from the government and the biggest mistakes i have ever made are with cases like this. charlie: not printing or printing? dean: not printing. i have never regretted printing. charlie: you let the government convince you it was against the security of the united states to go ahead with stories. scene, you arehe on deadline, you get a call from the head of the cia or the chief

national security advisor and the famous mistake was a case where a cleric was killed in a american drone strike and we said -- we were about to say that the drone took off from a base in saudi arabia and the head of the cia said, if you put this in the paper, the saudis will shut down the base and we will never be able to use it again. i folded and that was a mistake. charlie: why was that a mistake. dean: they knew they had a base there and it was going to come out. that is not life or death. i am an executive editor and the

government has to make the case to me that somebody is going to get killed and make a convincing case and tell me why before we pull stuff out. i have made too many mistakes over the years -- every editor makes mistakes over the years. after 9/11, the whole world would change and the government would call up and say that something bad would happen. every editor in the country has a story where we full did and my view is nowow that you have to prove to me that somebody is going to get killed. charlie: it is a hard case. dean: it should be a hard case to make. there are cases where we have not published. charlie: more than we know. dean: i will give you a classic one. it has come out. i was an editor involved in wikileaks and going through the cables.

one of the most dramatic cables was the description of gaddafi visiting new york and it was richly detailed and describing what he would need for the trip. he could not have a room with stairs because because he gets out of breath going upstairs. he travels with two nurses. it was richly detailed. i said this was a great story. the state department said to me, if you publish this, muammar gaddafi will know where it comes from. it came from one of his aides. julian assange did not publish it. that was an easy call. charlie: easy call not to publish. dean: somebody would get killed.

suppose edward snowden had gotten onto the phone to you? dean: i would have met him anywhere and done whatever he wanted. i would have given him a back massage. charlie: because? dean: edward snowden was important to the debate and i wish they had been in the new york times first. charlie: about how far we are prepared to invade privacy in the interest or the guise of national security. dean: no matter what anyone thinks about surveillance government should be able to do, obama said there was not a debate about it. there was not a debate. the government made a giant decision with no debate and no discussion.

edward snowden revealed that. charlie: you look at national security and do you believe this administration? you have said the attitude of the obama administration and the stance on leaks is disturbing. dean: yes. they prosecute and they investigated one of our best reporters. it is disturbing. charlie: more so than the bush administration? dean: you know, here is why i'm not willing to go there, the whole technology and the ability every day, every year, it started with bush and continued through the obama administration.

more foreign policy and national security is conducted in secret than ever before and it is one of the great stories of our time. it continues today and is probably accelerated because of the availability of drones. when that happens, governments inherently become secret and prosecute leaks more. i don't know if that means the obama administration does it more because we conduct more form policy in secret every year. charlie: my last easy question. you won't do investigative reports on the new york times. dean: you said this would be easy. charlie: what do you know about the times? do you want to know if there is a bias that is not readily available? do you want to know whether they

are influenced by forces we do not recognize that have to do with training, experience? what you want to know in an investigation of the new york times? dean: if i was an outside media journalists and i wanted to do the investigation, i would probably examine how fit the "new york times" is, how well-built it is and the strategies for the future. charlie: this is about survivability? not reportage? you want to make the paper better. to make it better, you have to find the weakness and fix it. dean: that is right. that is what i would investigate. charlie: where would you go to investigate the weakness of the

"new york times?" dean: i would start in my office. i question the strategies to make sure the time survives into the future, because it is important that it does. charlie: thank you for coming. a pleasure to have you here. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ >> stocks fell from a four-week

low and investment will drop this afternoon, a debt figures showed china facing a threat of deflation. more from the big banks expecting china's currency will bring reserve status this month. is a beijing has picked most of the boxes. the want to join the currency