chop sticks a day. and lee sells them to the chinese. you see, it turns out china is running out of wood, and georgia's soft poplar trees are apparently perfect. lee better keep chopping. china uses 45 billion chop sticks every year. the correct answer to the gps challenge question was b, the average $20 bill lasts only two years in circulation. the life span of a $1 bill is even shorter, 1.8 years. maybe we ought to consider going the way of the canadian looney and having a coin. go the our website for more. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. ly see you next week. stay tuned for "reliable sources." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com i admit maybe we're playing along with the press pack on this one, but sarah palin showed up in iowa yesterday with

reporters in tow. are we falling for yet another presidential tease? what to make of dick chain nay's media blitz? are the anchors holding him accountable? hurricane irene, i say television was swept away with breathless coverage. we'll ask two critics whether i'm all wet. as the media gear up for the tenth anniversary of 9/11, a look at how that tragic day changed the news business at least for a while. slate lays off one of the country's most provocative media critics. jack schaeffer will speak his mind. i'm howard kurtz and this is "reliable sources." the headlines were instantaneous. politico's lead story for sarah palin "the game is still on." "the new york times" said palin sounded more like a candidate than in any other speech this year. "the washington post," palin blasts crony capitalism, all

because the former alaskan governor decided to show up yesterday in iowa. >> former alaskan governor sarah palin delivered a series of sharp attacks against president barack obama and her presidential rivals here at a tea party rally in iowa on saturday. while she didn't declare a presidential bid and not expected to until the end of december, she did draw a sharp line in the sand against republican front-runner, texas governor rick perry. why exactly was the speech big news? is palin faking out the media mop once again? >> joining us, lynn sweet, washington bureau columnist for "chicago sun times." and jim geraghty, contributing editor at national review. it's september. journalists seem to be falling for this palin tease although she was hasn't lifted a finger to form any kind of presidential

organization. what's going on, i ask you, eleanor clift? >> if you start with the cynicism in the first paragraph, i think that works. i think if you took every one of those reporters and asked what they think, they'd be more skeptical and be angry that they're being led into this game she's playing. >> you're saying they're covering their back side in case she runs? >> that's right, that's right. >> the fact is, jim geraghty, palin is down in the polls, most republicans don't want her to run. she's been eclipsed by rick perry and michele bachmann. >> this is somebody who shook up the race in 2008, very unpredictable. very few people saw the resignation coming. there's only two more months of that. the effective deadline for declaring presidential campaign is november 1st. so cover it now because by november 1st, one way or another, the story ends. either she's running or not running. >> it doesn't trouble you that

we might be being taken for a ride here. >> we are taken for rides all the time. >> and we happily hitch those rides. is it possible for a news organization, lynn sweet, to say we don't care that palin was in iowa yesterday, we don't care if she's going to new hampshire on monday. there are a lot of real candidates we need to be covering, we're just going to blow it off? >> in the real world it's not possible. if this was a test tube, yeah. here is why i want to defend the coverage of sarah palin. she is a legitimate american political phenomenon andality some point we'll know if she'll run or not. in the meantime her messages do have an impact on the republican field. >> let's say she announced last week that while she wants to play an important role in the debate, she's not running for president, she goes to iowa and gives the same speech. i don't think there would be correspondence on tv live talking about her. >> years ago i was at a reporters breakfast with newt gingrich and he was flirting with running for president.

somebody said you really aren't doing the things to be president, you really aren't talking about it. he said that's what gets you guys to listen. let's say you're right, she gets less -- >> a brilliant strategy on palin's part. >> for now, yeah. >> rudy giuliani is talking about maybe running. then people listen to you. >> the moment we actually hear a decision from her one way or the other. let's say it's no, that begins the automatic speculation, will she endorse? will she give can't dalts praise or criticism? >> don't forget 2016. let me move to the dick cheney book. the former vice president was inescapable, did a lot of interviews for "in my time." let's take a look at solve off the record those. >> you know if you were to conduct a poll in this country and ask people is waterboarding torture? a vast majority would say it is. >> i would argue, matt, it's

important for us not to get caught up in the notion that you can only have popular methods of interrogation if you want to run an effective counterterrorism program. the fact is it worked. >> secret presence, wiretapping? >> with the right approval. >> no apologies. >> no apologies. >> everything was president bush and dick chain nay's fault according to president obama. obviously he didn't give you any of the credit for the intelligence that led to the location of bin laden. irritating? >> we're used to it. >> mildly irritating. >> mildly. >> eleanor, did journalists succeed in those and other interviews on pinning down dick chain nay on iraq and torture or did we settle for canned sound booilts. >> of course we didn't throw him down. he throws out red meat for the press. we go after it and presumably this helps book sales.

but there was thoughtful coverage, bob keiser in "the washington post," the reviewer in "the new york times" went over all the discrepancies between cheney's account on these issues and counts of president bush and others. so i think he doesn't get away with it, but he gets his little audition tape here on television for his book. >> i'll take this moment to say, and this is the difference between television and print. in "time" magazine there was a good piece by bart gelman on the cheney book where he pointed out that bush officials went to ashcroft while in intensive care to try to get him to sign off on something. when you look at the chatter, jim geraghty, would liberal pundits be satisfied with anyone other than cheney confessing to war crimes? >> i'm skeptical. i notice you call it an audition tape. >> he's auditions for number one on the bestseller list.

>> i have my doubts that a tv interview would make a difference. it's dick chain nay's book. >> if he comes on as vice president it would be a very confrontational interview. is there a different standard when a former officials comes on and talks about his memoir and does the question get a little more informal and a little softer? >> i think, yes, howie, the edge is off these interviews since it's a media show you know are brokered to certain outlets, reporters, book tour in advance. >> deals are made? >> i'm not suggesting deals are first. everyone wants the first. >> "today show" got it. >> what's interesting is to tell the book, he went to outlets that he never probably would have appeared on. >> msnbc. >> "morning joe," lavishing the attention on nbc which to their credit helps sell books.

jamie geng gel did a terrific job of asking the questions. what you have, because they're not a newsmaker in the current office, i suppose you don't have a sense of urgency in asking the questions and there's years of stuff to go over. i think people try to put him through his paces. >> interesting, colin powell and condi rice both took issue with things in the book, they were cheap shots. condi disputed she once tearfully apologized about a bush state of the union speech. >> when you're being booked for an hour on date line and two hours on hannity, you get the lion's share of the coverage and your critics get maybe one argue. >> that's how it worked. colin powell had a best selling book, part had to do with the expectation he was going to run for president. condi rice had her books out. this is how it works. i think president bush actually comes out looking the worst in cheney's account because cheney is quite aggressive about adding to the narrative that all the press wrote during the bush

years that he was really pulling the strings, and i don't think that helps president bush's image. >> i'm stunned that every auto biography out of the bush administration makes the writer sound like genius, the one who knew what was going on the whole time. >> if only everyone else would have listened to me. >> what's interesting, the media coverage of this, it focuses on the personalities because that's what the media like to do. i haven't heard -- if it was about some heretofore unknown episode, there's no scoop people are talking about, oh, my god, mr. cheney, you revealed this or that that never happened. >> cheney said heads are going to explode in washington. i haven't seen that. so many controversies, the scooter libby pardon. then you have to deal with iraq and water building, that gets reduced to an interview because of television time constraints.

>> it's clear he doesn't forgive president bush for his refusal to pardon scooter libby. >> maybe we can put up video of the former vice president giving one of these interviews. he's 70 years old, he's had a lot of heart problems. his heart is not pumping on its own. he looked frail. he looked old. do journalists go a tad easier on him perhaps? >> no, i don't think so. i think he looked pretty good considering. he always has a quiet way of talking, howie. i think given the wealth of materials and questions to ask, i don't think he got a break because of his age or his condition. >> fair enough. let me get a break and when we come back, the president tries to step on that nbc politico debate and gets stomped on by the republicans. the white house says that's a nonstory. is anyone buying that? no, it was good because you told us so. the chevy model year wrap up. get in on our greatest model year yet.

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there is nothing the press loves better than a school yard fight. president obama picked one by choosing to address a joint session of congress on thursday night, the same night that msn and politico are hosting a major republican debate. reporters were all over white house spokesman jay carney. >> i know you guys love this stuff. i know it's cat nip, but we're really not focused on it. >> there's a perception by democrats that he doesn't have enough with the hill to figure out what day it is. how is he going to pass a plan for the american people? >> ed, you guys -- i honestly think that your obsession with this. >> it's not an obsession. >> is not -- what the american people expect the president to do -- >> is to talk about jobs. jay carney spent years working for "time" magazine. can he say with a straight face this is not a story. >> he said it. i think he needs to come up with a better line next time. the story line was created by

the white house and reporters and people can juggle a few story lines at once. yeah, the jobs plan is important and, yeah, the white house had a mess out of the speech date. people have a sense of stuff that happens. give him credit for trying. >> these white house complaints, jim geraghty, ring a little hollow in the sense that this was the president who knowing full well it was a republican debate on msnbc picked this fight by asking for this time on that night. >> you're telling me if the republicans said we'll move the debate back one day, we wouldn't be hearing white house sources leaking to politico, this shows that obama has the momentum, he still has the megaphone that the spotlight is always on him and he can always big foot -- if it was a victory, they would say it was a big deal. the fact that it didn't they say, move along, nothing to see here. >> yet, eleanor, all the media

yammering about the timing of the speech and what day and all that, i think maybe does feed an impression among people that journalists care more about political gamesmanship than the underlying issue which is 14 million people out of work and many for many, many months. >> the end result does not help the white house. it looks like they got rolled by the republicans. and i don't think the end result helps the media either because i think a lot of people do look at it and say this is the media running with something that's really ridiculous and it's a school yard fight and the media loves it. it really does step on the white house message. all these side shows have really distracted from this white house's effort to create jobs. he was in the rose garden calling for a transportation bill. while his legislation that stalled on capitol hill -- that gets no attention in the media, but it's true. we love it when we get the personalities battling and the white house really -- they stepped into this one.

it was really stupid. >> easy to cover obama versus boehner and how would nbc react. it's hard to cover this intractable issue of fixing the economy so more americans can find work. are we guilty of that? >> no. these stories get covered. different reporters cover different kinds of stories. if you really had a big appetite for jobs plans and stuff that's going on, we could spend the next hour here looking at stories where people do write about the very serious issues. >> you feel like the flap overshadowed the substance? >> for that day, yes. if you had a hunger for the substance, those stories were out there. >> all right. thanks very much for joining us this morning. coming up in the second part of re"reliable sources" as the media prepare to cover the tenth anniversary of 9/11, we'll look at how the tragedy changed journalism. plus the breathless coverage of hurricane irene, did the cable networks get utterly slept away. and later "slate's" jack

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as the media begin gearing up to mark the tenth anniversary

of 9/11, this is a moment to recall how much has changed in the news business since that dark day. >> today our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts. >> there was a lot of talk about a new seriousness, abandonment of silliness and superficiality. i spoke earlier with two television vet ransz. joining us, jamie mcintyre who is now an adjunct professor of journalism at university of maryland, and kelly marina from sam houston state university. kelly n the after math of 9/11, what changed for you as a reporter? >> everything. it was all terror all the time. i was the justice correspondent and part of thabeet includes fbi and fbi was the lead awe enforcement agency to investigate terror attacks.

i was on the air every half hour. >> cnn couldn't get enough, the media couldn't get enough. >> that's true. every bump and turn. of course, the nation had just gone through this catastrophic event. so there was a genuine interest clearly and news as the story developed and as we found out more and more, it was legitimate coverage. >> there was a lot of soul searching about the media's priorities and new beats were created, homeland security, a phrase we didn't have before. >> and new phrases were added to old beats, cnn added an add-correspondent and producer. one of the perversities is you would think when you devote more resources and time to a particular subject -- and in this case it was the aftermath of september 11th, that you would get better coverage. one of the perverse phenomenon that goes on is when network and news organizations get consumed with a particular narrative, it's very hard to get counternarratives on the air

because there comes this pressure to have all the stories conform to the conventional wisdom. >> did you fight against that? >> you try to fight against it. it's very difficult because, you know, the perversity is when the focus is off you, you can think for yourself, do your own reporting and you have much more control over the scorery. once the story becomes the obsession of everybody, it's much more difficult -- >> as time went on, kelly, the memories of the attacks started to fade, and actually the story shifted to the two wars. was it then more difficult to get terror-related stories on the air? did that appetite that you described begin to wane? >> that took about five years or so. after 9/11 you had the anthrax attacks, the sniper which people thought might be terrorism related. there was a steady appetite for about five years. >> and then what? >> and then it was don't pitch a story unless there's something

exploding. terrorism and intelligence is more of an art than it is a science. some of those stories are very nuanced, and in the world of cable television, everything needs to be black and white. >> so is that frustrating for you, if there was no arrest, if there was no capture of explosives, that it was harder to get on stories that were important, but not visual or dramatic. >> yes. as you know, there was a big uptick in the coverage of foreign news right after september 11th. that's where our emphasis went. but again, people get this fatigue that comes with that. >> for all the talk about how the need yeah would get more serious, and i think that happened for a while. eventually we're back to paris hilton celebrity shows. >> don't forget the evolution of news coverage didn't just happen, it was unto just the september 11th attacks and the aftermath, it was the rise of the internet, the increased competition. don't forget before september 11th the fox news channel didn't

even have a pentagon correspondent assigned. they didn't cover the pentagon regularly. they had a producer, no correspondent. that all changed, became a much more competitive environment. outlets like cnn and other news outlets had to compete more directly. sometimes competition in this business makes the product worse, not better. >> isn't it also a fact that the bush administration for political reasons played up the war on terror and we often take our queues from the white house. and the obama administration, except in certain times like the killing of osama bin laden, hasn't gone tut of its way to emphasize anti terror efforts? >> clearly they changed strategy. it was -- and then all of a sudden it became kind of a political story. i got the feedback from the audience, if i did a story saying intelligence sources were concerned about threat information, i was immediately blasted by people who said i was a puppet of the bush administration. if i questioned what investigators had done like in

the brandon may field case who was someone they thought had something to do with the spain bombings because they thought they found a fingerprint and it didn't pan out, then you get heat that you're unpatriotic. >> i just got this "new york magazine," the first of many mapping scene covers, one day, ten years later, you see the smoke rising from the towers. all the networks, including cnn, hours and hours of programming to commemorate that tragedy. is there a danger of turning this into a television show? >> i don't think so. this is such a seminal event. one of the things as a journalism professor, many of my students don't really have very vivid memories of this. i'm not sure it's too much. i think it's a very important seminal event that dezephyrs recognition ten years later. >> it depends on how they do it.

there are still some things that we see as vulnerabilities and things that still need improvement ten years later, i think that's valid reporting. i think there are still stories that need to be sold. >> is there a fine line between remembrance and exploitation? i just wonder to what extent -- obviously it's an anniversary, so it causes us all to look back. >> the media loves anniversaries, come on. >> this is a particularly traumatic anniversary to anybody who lives through that day. when we get the logos and the music -- >> this is not the first anniversary we've gone through. we've got through the first anniversary, the fifth anniversary. if you look back at the coverage, whether cnn or anybody, most of it has been tasteful. it's been thoughtful, it's been the kind of thing -- >> is this the high watermark, or are we going to continue to treat every subsequent september 11th anniversary as a national ritual? >> i don't think so. you know what? if you have another hurricane or

something, all these lovely plans will go right out the window anyway if it's a hurricane strong enough, that that can be the crisis of the -- talking about obsession of the story, crisis of the day, crisis of the week. jamie mcintyre, kelli arena, thank you for sharing these memories with us? up next, the wall to wall coverage of hurricane irene. should the cable networks have allowed the storm to wash away all other news? the afternoon tour begins with more pain and more pills. the evening guests arrive. back to sore knees. back to more pills. the day is done but hang on... her doctor recommended aleve. just 2 pills can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lara who chose 2 aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. if you think even the best bed can only lie there. ask me what it's like when my tempur-pedic moves.

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it was a huge catastrophe in the making, at least according to the television coverage. hour after hour, day after day, hurricane irene was coming. >> this has the makings of just the hurricane of our lifetime. >> an ominous storm on the radar and on tv. >> it gets skarier and skarier as we look at the scenarios for the northeast. >> tonight an urgent reality is gripping the big apple. >> the naked city has never felt so exposed. >> flooding situation has already begun here in lower manhattan and we're only expecting to see more of it considering the main rain event is far from over. >> there has been some flooding,

not huge amounts of flooding, and a lot of the water is already starting to receipt. it's actually not bad at all. >> was this storm overhyped in in some ways it's a one-sentence argument. this storm killed more than 20 people. four million people are without power. clearly there's misery and destruction. >> but did cable news get swept away by a category one storm as i've written? taking a lot of heat of that one. i put that question to a pair of television critics. joining us now in new york, adam buck man former television columnist for the "new york post." and glin nis mechanical editor of "the wire" for businessinsider.com. let's just talk about the run-up to hurricane irene. those three days, the constant, constant, 24-hour cable coverage made it sound like armageddon was coming.

>> it certainly did. i think there were a couple days in there where the weather indicated that armageddon was coming and especially, i think, when mayor bloomberg announced they were shutting down the mta. >> the new york city subway system. >> yes. i think especially coming up to the 9/11 anniversary, that triggered a lot of new yorkers' panic button because the last time it was shut down was obviously ten years ago. certainly, anywhere you clicked or turned or red, there was this sense of impending doom, and do you get out, can you get out? when do you get out? what's coming? absolutely. >> adam buck man, one of the things that struck me was that during those days and during the hurricane you could not get shred of news anywhere else. forget about it, as they say in new york. there was no other story. >> that is true. i don't know if compared to the storm coming and affecting so many people, i'm not sure those other stories were important for

those two or three days when all we had was hurricanes. >> you're perfectly comfortable with 24 hours a day, having reporters standing encoreers in saying i'm at the spot where a day from now there's going to be a lot of of rain and wind? >> i was not uncomfortable with it. this argument arises a lot when we have stories that take a 24-hour news cycle or more to tell. this is the kind of story where in 20/20 hindsight it looks like too much. but when it was happening, certainly the weather forecasters were saying we're going to be hit by a big one. i think the media came through and did what it was supposed to do which was get on board and get ready and get us all prepared for a potential disaster or potential emergency. >> absolute public service responsibility to get that information out there, that's what we meade to do. is there any doubt in your mind, glin nis, that a lot of this was delivered by ratings and nobody came off the story for five or ten minutes was because of a fear that people would change

the channel? >> i think the answer to that is twofold. on the one hand, certainly the cable news networks were running with this as fast as they could for ratings, absolutely. on the other hand, local news was very servicey, especially in new york where there was a sense if you looked in certain neighborhoods you have to evacuate. i kept turning on tech lol news to see what trains were running, who had to evacuate more. i think at the local level there was a service as spblth to. this on the cable news network what we have is we see reporters in windy, wave i have situations that make for great visuals. some of that was a ratings play. >> as you alluded to, the fact that new york city was right in the target path, given all the news organizations are headquartered in new york, i think this boosted this into the stratosphere that would not have been the case if it was bearing down on fouad. i was also disappointed sunday

morning when the storm finally hit new york and fizzled as far as new york city was concerned. reporters were sent to long beach, long island or sheep's head bay where i grew up because obviously there was going to be flooding right on the water. let's look back with the benefit of line side. it was a serious storm. more than 40 people were killed. lots of flooding in suburban areas like new jersey, upstate new york, vermont. but when that damage finally takes place, adam buckman, by then the coverage is starting to fade. it's being covered but nothing like the obsession it was before. >> that is the problem. in the days to come it seemed like new england was very, very hard hit. certainly we didn't have the kinds of coverage of the disaster that took place there, nor the coverage before it sort of warning new englanders to be ready for potential flooding. as far as new york city went, i'm torn with this argument about whether or not new york was somehow spared. from my window i saw the fdr drive flooded. i saw the roosevelt island in

the middle of the east river partially covered in water, something i had never seen in ten years living there. the fact is, with all the warnings and all the people off the streets and off the roads, i think it was actually quite helpful. i think people were not on the fdr drive and weren't there getting stuck in three feet of water that i saw from my window. in the end, it's 20/20 hindsight. who knew the storm would veer off and not be as bad as it was going to be? you couldn't predict that. >> howie, i also make the point when you say the media was located in new york and focused on this as a story, i think if a storm was going towards any coast where there's 35-odd million people lived, the media would be focused on that. there was a population here that would be affected by this that i think warranted a great deal of coverage. >> whereas washington is largely spared. i didn't lose power and i lose power at my home when there was a drizzle. philadelphia was very badly hit. but the focus of the coverage was new york, new york, new york because that's where all the journalists are and where all

the crews were. that's where i think part of the problem is, patterson, new jersey, and very month are not media centers, not many journalists there, and i guess it's not as dramatic when you have people dealing with the aftermath of flooded areas and flooded basements than it is when you can say here is the map and it shows a big one is coming. would you agree with that? >> sure, absolutely. certainly new york provides a backdrop you can't find anywhere else in the country. but i would also say that's evacuating a city of this size and the way it's put together, we obviously hurricane katrina was only five years ago, five or six years ago now and evacuating that city was a terrible disaster. so to learn from that mistake, i think what we're seeing here overpreparation, the coverage of it was the reaction to how underprepared new orleans was during katrina. >> no fault the public officials for preparing for the worst case scenario and there's also the political theater as spec. governor chris christie are out there all the time because it's

porn for them to be seen as coping with this crisis. when the damage got done, the media drifted off to do other things. >> i think they did drift off as you say. while it was going on, the media was following the weather forecast and the dire warnings by people in positions of authority such as mayor bloomberg in new york. he's a photo generalic guy. we have a very fancy facility here in brooklyn for emergency management. it makes for a good picture when the mayor comes out and talks in his broken spanish and he tries to warn the whole city that the end is near. >> you say that was good television. >> good television that you can understand why television gravitated toward it. >> one thing is clear, a very big week end for the weather channel which had very good ratings coring the storm. >> thanks very much for joining us. >> thank you. >> thanks so much. after the break, journalist jack shafer on being let go by

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jack shafer has been one of the sharpest and toughest media critics around, taking on targets ranging from rupert

murdoch to his employers to sometimes even me. unfortunately he's one of several journalists just laid off by the online magazine mfrp slate." times are tough in the media business. but schaeffer was one of the premier attractions at "slate." i sat down with him here in the studio. >> jack shafer, welcome. nobody likes to get this kind of news, but you really seemed to take it in stride. were you not particularly surprised? >> nobody should be sur pliesed, especially high paid media people like you. you think in sort of a publication recession, everybody who is making a good salary, they have to assume they're expendable, too. as you know in our business, "new york times," "l.a. times," chicago transcribe bun, "the washington post," the networks all engaged in lay-offs. >> all shrinking. >> all shrinking. >> it wasn't like you were fighting with management? >> no. i left on very good terms, got a nice severance. as explained to me, it was about

a budget. >> i understand many people. as many people observed online, you were a major at straxz on this site. isn't that self defeating for "slate." >> that's something you'd have to ask the bosses. everybody is expendable. somehow david brodeur guys and "the washington post" somehow goes on. people move to other publications. i'm of a philosophical view that no one is expendable -- i mean everyone is expendable. >> saying everybody is replaceable? >> yes. >> we're in a double dip recession and "slate" is struggling like a lot of publications. >> some of the chatter is shafer the a great guy, but -- >> i can tell from the sort of

response and reader response, being asked on television shows, not all media critics are created equal. i think i'm a little better than your average media critic and can add something to the understanding of how news is made. >> in terms of the public hunger, if there is such a thing, for this kind of critique and criticism, it seems to me that more than ever in an age of partisan media and partisan politician and polarization, that people gobble this stuff up and it's not just of interest to the junkies. >> i agree with that, too. if you look at any evening's news on the table stations, inscribed in practically every show is abstract media krichl. sarah palin complaining about media gotchas. and there are other people saying why is "the new york

times" ignoring ron paul or i guess that was "the washington post" accused of ignoring ron paul. >> you're known for hitting pretty hard, sometimes at your friends and colleagues, sometimes at your employer, most recently "the washington post" company. do too many media critics pull punches in your view? >> you'd have to name names. >> or you like to knock people off their pedestals? >> my first grade report card it says jack excels well in math and science and makes great friends on the playground, but he likes to start fights in the classroom and bring them into the but likes to start fights. >> you have always been like this. you have had a job that enables you to -- >> i think so. most journalists like to mix it up. if you are not going to tell the truth. if you are going to be a media critic and not tell the truth, pull punches because of social

reasons because you want to be social ly advanced or you are worried about losing your job you are not going to be a good media critic. >> have you developed a thick skin? >> what's the cliche, journalists don't have a thick skin they have no skin. >> i think that's it. >> i get some nasty, ugly contentious mail and you live wit. you roll with the punches. >> you get ugly mail. people beet beat up on you all the time. your skin looks good. >> i have scars to show it. how much media criticism in your view has become ideal logically motivated? any given night you can turn on fox or msnbc and see them blasting the other's coverage but from a partisan perspective in the case of many hosts. >> there's a lot of partisan media coverage criticism. but if you take "media matters"

which is overly progressive media institution and on the right we have media research center. very partisan, both of them. they are not playing it down the middle. because they have their antenna turned way up i think they capture things that maybe somebody who is either centrist or not rooting for either side may pick up on. i find it all goochldly look at a media matters analysis with a skeptical eye but i think they dig out great stories. >> if it is backed by data, videotape, transcripts. >> exactly. the same way you should read a newspaper. maybe a newspaper isn't guided by bias. something i don't care much about but you read a newspaper and make an analysis. how well is the source? how many are anonymous, what are other newspapers saying? i'm happy to partake or read and absorb partisan media criticism

but critically. >> do you hope to stay in the media criticism gain? >> i want your job. >> you are declaring that right now? >> yeah. i'm going to talk to your producer after the show. >> you will have to come back and prove yourself on the air. we'd love to have you back. >> when i have orr job i will have you on as a guest. >> jack shafer, i think thank you for joining us. you can see more of my conversation with jack shafer at cnn.com/reliablesources. ♪ [ female announcer ] we're throwing away misperceptions about natural gas vehicles. more of the vehicles that fuel our lives use clean american natural gas today. it costs about 40 percent less than gasoline, so why aren't we using it even more? start a conversation about using more natural gas vehicles in your community. if you think even the best bed can only lie there.

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time now for the "media monitor 0" our look at the hits and errors in the media business. nic robertson tracked down the man connected to the bombing of pan am 103 who was freed from prison because he was supposedly on the verge of death. >> reporter: nothing prepares me for what i see. he was apparently in a coma, his aging mother at his side.

>> fox news rushed to cast doubt on the exclusive. johnathon hunt reading from an e-mail from the president of the group victims of pan am 103. he said the family was trying to make a murderous monster look sympathetic and that robertson had been invited to the house along with other news organizations. turns out that is not true. he said he helped track him down with the help of a local fixer. a fox producer told the website the e-mail came in just before the report and "we a reassessed our report soon a after and concluded we would not run his report. >> michael arrington is the founder of tech crunch, the popular site that was later

bought by aol. >> we started tech crunch five years ago. and i'm not a trained journalist. i'm a trained lawyer and entrepreneur. >> long ago he announced he would be investing in tech companies covered by his site but that was okay because -- well, i never got why it wasn't a blatant conflict of interest. this week aol that merged with the huffington post said arrington would write for techcrunch while launching a capital called the crunch fund. really? aol chief executive said "we have a traditional understanding of journalism with the exception of techcrunch." the folks who work at techcrunch werer furious. here's what they said. what armstrong doesn't understand, because he's not a journalist in this game perception is everything. for techcrunch to have the moral standing to call out a company it is vital our own