the 2012 london olympics will max out at 40,000. the beijing olympics outdid the rest of the world along most dimensions. now we know how impressive they were on security, as well. it was twice the size. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. stay tuned for "reliable sources." have you noticed how much of this campaign has revolved around candidates mangling the facts or not being able to recall the facts? it was michele bachmann's flub on vaccines causing retardation, rick perry's famous brain freeze, and now herman cain failing to remember what he thinks about president obama's handling of libya. >> i do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reason -- no, that's a different one. >> up and why is the press turning up the heat on newt gingrich if the pundits are so

sure he can't win? as the penn state tragedy unfolds, is stwitelevision let something defend themselves in brief interviews that don't say much? >> in retrospect, i -- you know, i shouldn't have showered with those kids, so -- >> that's it? >> yeah, that's what hits me the most. >> plus, we'll talk to the young pennsylvania newspaper reporter who broke the story. and nbc hires chelsea clinton as a correspondent while msnbc brings megan mccain on board. is a famous last name now more important than knowing anything about journalism? i'm howard kurtz, and this is "reliable sources." the coverage of the penn state tragedy now focusing squarely on the cover-up. how much have we really learned from these relatively brief encounters with tv reporters?

take jerry sandusky, the former assistant football coach accused of raping several boys. nbc's bob costas says he was about to interview sandusky's lawyer, joseph amandola, when he got an unusual offer. >> no more than 10, 15 minutes before the krarmcameras were to, he says, what if i can get sandusky on the phone. i'm thinking, i wonder from your standpoint, whether that's the smartest thing to do. but at the same time, sure, if you want to do it, let's get him on the phone. >> and that's what happened with sandusky denying the allegations. >> well, in retrospect, i -- you know, i shouldn't have showered with those kids. you know, so -- >> that's it? >> yeah. that's what hits me the most. >> are you a pedophile? >> no. >> are you sexually attracted to young boys, to underage boys?

>> am i sexually attracted to underage boys -- >> yes. >> sexually attracted, you know, i enjoy young people. >> cbs touted its exclusive with mike mcqueary, the graduate student who says he witnessed a 10-year-old boy being raped in the showers. but mcqueary didn't have much to say. >> describe your emotions right now. >> all over the place. just kind of -- shaken. >> crazy? >> crazy. that this process has to play out. i just don't have anything else to say. >> joining us to examine the coverage this gut-wrenching story, in new york, marisa guthrie, columnist for "the hollywood reporter." eric degans, critic for "the st. petersburg times." in washington, david zerwick, for "the baltimore sun." this is a sensational, sad, and sickening story. television is organized around the big get, even if the people who are gotten don't have that much to say. >> you're right, howie.

that's part of the problem. we judge tv journalism by -- i don't even like the term "get." i really don't. but i would have to disagree in this respect. i thought bob costas' interview was important. i don't agree about the cbs news. i think that was just a couple of words. but costas did illicit something in there, and he did it with really some superb interviewing. he pushed just enough without sort of hectoring sandusky. and the admissions -- at first sandusky said no, i'm innocent. then he said, innocent of everything, in a good way. sandusky said, well, i touched a leg, i did this -- it's not what you thought you saw. that was really good. i think costas' interview was important coming when it is, and it's not just the get. i think he did more than that in his -- in his execution of it. >> by contrast, cbs hyped this exclusive interview with mike mcqueary, the graduate student who says he now -- later said he went to the police, turned out the police never talked to him. what did we learn from that

exchange? >> we learned that he feels like he's in an emotional maelstrom. we learned stuff that we could easily have guessed. i think cbs certainly overhyped and overpromised with this interview. it was technically his first words to a news reporter since all of this broke, but he didn't really say anything. and i agree with david, these are two separate cases here. as this broke, what the public wanted was somebody to go to sandusky and say, what happened here? what's your side of this story? you know, are you a pedophile? costas asked all the questions that we wanted to have asked, and the answers were telling even though he didn't necessarily deliver a lot of details. he did admit that she showered with boys. he did admit that he touched a leg here and there. and he admitted enough that he might be convicted of crimes based on what he said in that interview. i think that was an excellent job. >> well, since we're talking about that, marisa guthrie, when

sandusky said, yes, i showered with young boys and we were engaged in horseplay, his word, horseplay. how does a journalist stop himself from saying "that's ridiculous"? >> yeah, it's really -- i think it would be really hard. i think -- david is right, bob costas really prosecuted this interview extremely well. and bob has said subsequently since doing the interview that, a, he didn't have time to prepare for it. b, he did not want to let his outrage or his own personal feelings interfere. he wanted the interview to stand for itself. he wanted sandusky's words to stand for themselves. and i think he was very, very effective in that. >> overall, david zurawik, do you think that television news is adding much light to this complicated and tragic story, or basically a lot of heat? >> you know, howie, in some ways there are so many moving parts of it. you know, for example, i watched the penn state football game, the first game they played without paterno. and watching those players come out on the field arm in arm,

walking instead of running behind paterno, was an incredibly emotional experience that made me understand part of the emotion in -- at penn state and i wouldn't have. so there's different parts of it -- >> that's not journalism. that's turning the camera on the game. >> putting the camera on is journalism in a way, howie, and i think it is. also, you know, for local news tried to cover the "riots." if they were riots. i think it qualifies as a riot. >> right. >> so there's a lot of different parts of it. they did it. and i think it's too easy to say, oh, it's a sensational story. tv's doing a bad job because we often say that. i think tv is really trying to cover this. i'll tell you something about penn state. there's a terrific documentary called "the paper" about the campus paper there, howie. and one of the things is they can never get the president of the university or anybody connected with the football program to talk to them. so i think it's a hard story because of the darkness in the administration and the football program to tell. and we sort of have to peel it

back piece by piece. >> so much of the early coverage focused on joe paterno, the legendary coach, of course, now fired. now the spotlight more on jerry sandusky. let me briefly play a couple of lawyers for alleged victims in this case who have been taking to the airwaves. >> my client was sexually assaulted by mr. sandusky in the early '90s. and he was sexually assaulted on the grounds at penn state university. >> emotions of the survivors and their families right now are really a retraumatization, a mixture of despair, confusion, and fury. >> marisa guthrie, is there any way that jerry sandusky can get fair treatment from the media when he is so widely presumed to be guilt? >> well, perhaps that was amandalo's strategy in even having him on television with bob caostas. you have to wonder why he let his client do that. that may be part of it.

but i don't think anyone is presuming that -- the grand jury report was so graphic and disturbing that no one is giving this guy a presumption of innocence. maybe that's the strategy in having him make the phone call to bob costas. that was certainly damning, i don't think we'll see any other interviews from him. and the other principal players in this scandal, mcqueary and joe paterno, have certainly been advised by their lawyers ton give interviews. >> right. now you have a story about a cover-up which n which the key players don't want to talk. that's always challenging for the media. but as we saw with those lawyers, i mean, the problem for the media, it seems to me, is that a number of alleged victims are surfacing, but understandably and appropriately, they don't want to go public with their names. so we are left to deal with allegations from anonymous sources, perhaps as channelled through their attorneys. >> yeah. i would say -- distinction i would dow is not television versus print. the distinction i would draw in

terms of coverage is outside national media versus some of the people on the ground and have sources inside this very insular, connected community. you're going to talk to a reporter from "the patriot news" newspaper in harrisburg who's done a great job of breaking stories and getting behind that wall, and breaking the silence and getting people to come forward. she had a -- a great story with a sister of one of the victims. she did not name the sister and did not name the alleged victim. we got a sense of what it was like to be a family of someone who may have been assaulted by this person. i think those stories are there, but they're hard to get. and you have to have sources on the ground. it's very hard for someone like a arman ketayan to get coverage. >> and there's moral outrage that the grown-ups in charge didn't do what they should have done. i think journalist are wrestling

with not letting their opinions overly intrude into coverage but not wanting to seem indifferent. eric, you set me up nicely to the tease. we'll talk to the reporter from harrisburg who broke the penn state story. next, nbc brings on chelsea clinton as a correspondent. anyone got a problem with that? . listen to these happy progressive customers. i plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. i was worried it would be hard to install. but it's really easy. the better i drive, the more i save. i wish our company had something this cool. yeah. you're not... filming this, are you? aw! camera shy. snapshot from progressive. plug into the savings you deserve with snapshot from progressive. riding the dog like it's a small horse is frowned upon in this establishment! luckily though, ya know, i conceal this bad boy underneath my blanket just so i can get on e-trade and check my investment portfolio, research stocks, and set conditional orders.

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nbc news has a new correspondent, perhaps you've heard of her, by the name chelsea clinton. it's not true that she has no interviewing experience. here she is at the clinton global initiative talking to the secretary of state. >> i'd like to go back to technology. partly because as your daughter i remember when i helped you send your first text message. >> yes. [ laughter ] >> that wasn't very long ago, i have to tell you. >> my father still refers to the internet as the world wide web. [ laughter] >> eric, do you see a problem with nbc hiring chelsea deloitte

-- chelsea clinton doing these "making a difference" broadcasts? >> at the nepotism company? not at all. i think it sends an odd message when you have a team of great journalists, people who have been in the business for a very long time, and you leapfrog one person ahead of all of those people and give them a prime reporting position essentially because they're related to two of the most famous people in the world. i -- she may have skills. i think one of the things that nbc should have learned from trying to develop tiki barbour for the "today" show, a football player that they tried to turn into a broadcast journalist before our eyes, is that that is very hard. and you really need to let people apprentice. you need to let them develop -- >> you're saying chelsea should start in the minor leagues, at some station? tampa? marisa -- >> no, no, but there's a place to put her in the nbc news family where she doesn't have to do high-profile report her first time in front of the camera. >> it's not a partisan thing,

nbc's "today" hired jenna bush a couple of years ago. >> no, no, it's not a partisan thing. and they have megan mccain. it's an insider thing. they want to effect that they are inside without actually hiring an insider, a real insider with some baggage. so they hire the children of washington insiders. and that's what i think is so cynical about this. is that this is also the network that, you know, suspended a reporter for accusing hillary clinton of pumpi ipimping out h daughter during a campaign and now they've hired her. i find it a little cynical actually. >> there's another dimension. at a time when young people who have played by the rules, gallon college, worked hard, camping out in american cities because the system has failed them in some ways, in terms of providing them jobs, to send to another member -- to take another member of the -- of that elite -- the 1% and give them one of those

jobs is really a dispiriting message. in terms of cynicism, i can't think of a more serious message. it's upsetting that they would be that insensitive to what's going on in this country with the lack of jobs right now in doing this. >> i was per tushed that nbc wouldn't make the latest journalist available for interviews by other journalists. i talked to a spokesman in bill clinton's office that said chelsea clinton see this as a vehicle to extend her work about making a difference. she doesn't want to be another barbara walters. once her piece is on the air she may do interviews. giving an open invitation to come on the program to talk about her transition to at least part-time journalism. let me turn to the cbs morning show, a failure for 30 years. i was at a news conference this week in new york. marisa, you were there, as well. the two new -- two of new -- excuse me, three trotted out.

two were new. let's check my mathd. here's a look at that. >> just great stories out there. and they're about politics, and they're about culture, and they're it sports. and the boundaries of those stories are not always as we have thought. >> i had a tattoo of 50 cent on my arm the other day. i thought, i better not do that for this today. my son said, god, mom, you can't do that when you go to cbs. i go, i don't know. they have a great send of humor at cbs. we are not your typical stuffy program. >> marisa, can charlie rose and gayle king help make cbs competitive in the morning? >> well, cbs certainly thinks they can. look, this is a sort of odd couple pairing. it is -- totally in line with what the new executive producer of that program did at msnbc with "morning joe." chris licht, correct. i think that they are zigging where everybody is zagging, and that has been what jeff faiger

and the chairman of the news division since last february have been doing with all of their choices. they figure why not, they've been in third place for decades, why not try something different. charlie does bring this intellectual, intellectually elite veneer to the whole morning proceedings. that's something that's been certainly abincent a lot of the morning shows. >> eric, we're running short on time. these are two talented broadcasters. but skeptics say a 69-year-old guy and oprah's best friend? >> yeah, i got to wonder about this. but marisa's right, they have changed the name of the morning show five times since the '80s. they had a huge aa ray of people -- array of people, everybody from merritt yet hartley to the latest people on the show. so they might as well try something. reminds me when msnbc was in the dumps not long ago, and they tried a lot of people including jesse ventura until they landed on this guy named keith olbermann and found their groove.

you never know. >> eric, cbs executives saying it's going to be smarter, newsier, less tabloid, no dressing up in costumes as compared to today "gma." could they be right? >> they could. but for all of charlie rose's veneer of intellectualism, george stephanopoulos isn't a sch schlump. this is a smart guys and he's interviewing kate gosselin after a couple months -- so morning television pulls you to its own level. i don't know if charlie rose is the right guy. gayle king has promise. >> she was entertaining before the news conference. before we go, this was the final week for regis philbin, 80 years old, signing off after 38 years on the air in the mornings. take a look. >> regis, we realized, my god, sitting under our nose, here is the guy. and this man -- is it like 7,000 shows? >> 17,000. >> 17,000 --

[ applause ] >> sealed with a kiss. eric deggans, marisa guthrie, david, thanks for coming on the show. what should a journal dogfight when a candidate seems unfin formed? and the press ratchets up the heat as newt gingrich soars in the polls. the young newspaper reporter who broke the penn state sexual abuse scandal in march. why did it take eight months for the national press to wake up? a refrigerator has never been hacked. an online virus has never attacked a corkboard. ♪ give your customers the added feeling of security a printed statement or receipt provides... ...with mail. it's good for your business. ♪ and even better for your customers. ♪ for safe and secure ways to stay connected, visit usps.com/mail delivering mail, medicine and packages.

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there are times, you have to admit, when journalists try to trap presidential candidates into admitting they don't know something. like who's the president of uzbeki-beki-bekistan as herman cain puts it? what about sizable gaps in knowledge. this exchange develop cain and an executive board didn't revol around that -- >> did you agree with president obama on libya or not? >> okay, libya. just want to make sure we're talking about the same thing before i say yes, i agree -- or

no, i didn't agree. i do not agree with the way he handled it for the following reasons -- no, that's a different one. >> joining us to examine the latest twists in the campaign coverage, harry washington, malika hernandez, national political reporter for the "washington post." david shuster, chief substitute anchor for current tv's "countdown witholberma olbermann," and neil acosta, writer for "the political review." you write about the appeal of herman cain, rick perry. is the press reluctant to say on cain, some issues sometimes this guy doesn't seem to know what he's talking about? >> i think it's always the% doesn't have to say that because we can see it demonstrated -- >> in this videotape? >> yes, in this videotape. he talks about this in his book. he talks about how that was part of his appeal. the fact that he openly admitted that he didn't have a plan in afghanistan. in some ways it endeared him to

republicans. i think what we've seen happen over the last couple of days, in fact, or the last couple of weeks is that it is starting to hurt him. and it clearly hurt rick perry when he showed in this debate that he didn't know what his own plan were in term of -- he could name the three departments -- >> yeah. >> and you can lose their train of thought. the question for the media, is this a pattern, and do we call them on a pattern of not seeming to know, say, foreign policy? >> it's not a pattern in foreign policy with herman cain. sometimes it doesn't seem like he knows his own 9-9-9 plan. everything's reduced to sound bite. yet, if it's reduced and you will win by only having to say 9-9-9, when somebody says, what about libya, you need to respond quickly. remember, we're not talking about some obscure conflict. we're talking about something that taxed nato. there was a huge debate over presidential powers with congress, and there was something that divided politicians in both parties. so for herman cain not to have a ready answer, that's a problem. >> commentators are starting to refer to this gop crowd as the

no-nothing field. is that a biased view? some of them -- you know, it almost becomes a point of pride. well, i'm not a washington insider, therefore, i don't know all the jargon and all that. >> i think the commentators are pretty right. herman cain's gaffe here in this editorial board meeting was pretty devastating. he -- ignorance is not a great political play. i think reporters are right. this gop field, every week there's a new gaffe. i thought rick perry's stumbling in the debate where he fumbled his entire platform would be the gaffe of the campaign. now there's eye na new one from herman cain. i think the republican field has to sharpen up. and herman cain may have challenge because it's fun in august to fein knowledge in some issues. but with newt gingrich rising as a master in issues, cain has to show that he can compete in the gop primary. >> and cain subsequently canceled an interview with "the manchester union leader" editorial board who wanted to videotape it, which makes you think he was afraid of another

such moment. but if you want to be a candidate in new hampshire, you don't dis the union leader. >> right, and the newt gingrich flip-flops on policy and mistakes, newt gingrich selling to say, look, bring on the cameras, bring on the scrutiny. i'll talk in front of the cameras as much as you want, and you can ask me about the controversies in my past. it seems like herman cain's trying to run from it, and there's a fear that i think is sort of blood in the water for people who are concerned about him. >> but there's -- there was a long period of time when it seemed that, you know, journalists were puzzled by the fact that cain was remaining at or even in the lead in the polls, at the top of the polls despite the fact that he didn't have answers on a lot of things, and he even poo-poo'd the notion that if there was a question about troops, he would say, "i'd consult my generals." maybe it's catching one him, but think the media hasn't been able to figure him out from the beginning. >> the gop in the early months was a contest of likability. mitt romney was staid, the stable front-runner.

the republican party was looking for someone they could get excited about. >> with pizazz? >> right. bachmann rose, we had perry and cain, one of the most likeable guys in the field. he never stops smiling. now before the iowa caucuses in early january, i think voters are getting more serious and the gaffes may many more than they did in august and september. >> i'll get to you in a second, but the other thing happening is that it's battling the allegations of sexual harassment. and this past week his wife gloria was made available to fox news for a sit down with greta van us istern. take a look. >> at any point in the -- the week or two weeks that -- pull him aside and cross-examination him and say, okay, you know, herman, what's the story? what's the real story? did you do this or do not this? >> yes, of course. because i wanted to know are there any accusations, do you remember any of these people. >> that's a tough assignment.

did greta van susteren adequately press her? >> i think she did adequately press mrs. cain there. she had an interview with herman cain, one of the first interviews that he sat down for. she was pretty tough. i talked to greta about it. she got pushback from fox viewers what thought she was too tough on crane. i think ultimately -- on herman cain. i think ultimately that interview, it was a lost in the whole week. gloria allred has the other press conference with a more corroborating witness came out for sharon bialek. i think we are starting to see a point where all of this is starting to watch up with herman cain. some of these polls, he's third and fourth in new hampshire. and, you know, this strategy that he's had so far which is in some ways ducking the press, ducking questions about the allegations, and feining ignorance on issues is catching up with him. >> herman cain did have a news conference so i don't think he's ducking the press as much as mitt romney who's not very available to the media. you've interviewed a lot of people on tv. that's a tough situation when

you have a woman not accustomed to being on television or in the spotlight at all, being asked about her husband and other women. >> it was great television. i give greta credit. she had d a great job with the questions but herman cain's wife knocked it out of the park. she was terrific, likeable, confident, she was cool. and in this story as you know, people are making a judgment. do they believe sharon bialek? do they believe herman cain's wife? i think anybody watching would believe herman cain's wife. she seemed credible. maybe there are things about her marriage that maybe she doesn't know, but she is the best thing that herman cain has going. i'm surprised that they're not using her more often. >> may have been a little too late, though. during the cries i situation, right when the controversy broke, she was nowhere to be found. now as it unfolds two weeks later, she sits down with fox, and that's great. i think this hits at a key part of herman cain's weakness that he doesn't have a rapid response operation. he doesn't have a crisis manager within the campaign. it's only a few people on his senior staff. they weren't able to address this immediately and put her on tv. >> you do wonder whether or not

it would have been a benefit to the cain campaign to make his wife available earlier given that gloria cain did well. and i thought greta did well in a tough situation. the political dress declared his campaign dead, finished, kaput. now are journalists trying to kill off newt gingrich's run a second time? uh, i'm in a timeout because apparently riding the dog like it's a small horse is frowned upon in this establishment! luckily though, ya know, i conceal this bad boy underneath my blanket just so i can get on e-trade. check my investment portfolio, research stocks... wait, why are you taking... oh, i see...solitary. just a man and his thoughts. and a smartphone... with an e-trade app. ♪ nobody knows... [ male announcer ] e-trade. investing unleashed. ♪ ♪ ♪ when the things that you need ♪ ♪ come at just the right speed, that's logistics. ♪ ♪ medicine that can't wait legal briefs there by eight, ♪ ♪ that's logistics. ♪

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the media are filled with report on newt gingrich being filled wi fi involved in freddie mac. >> this is a bubble, this is insane, this sim possible. >> liberal pundits and journalists dismissed that historian explanation. gingrich got a more sympathetic hearing at fox news when the full total of his freddie mac payday wasn't yet known. >> newt gingrich wants politicians who profited from the mortgage crisis to be held accountable, okay. he can start by looking in the mirror. >> i wanted you to explain the $300,000 you said you got -- you said you gave to freddie mac

that they did not take your advice. you were not a lobbyist for them? >> sure -- i have never been a lobbyist for anybody. >> laughing at that question. >> typical -- i love sean, but that question was ridiculous. >> the "washington post" reported that one of newt's outfits got $37 million from health care companies for access to newt. does this mean the media are finally taking newt gingrich seriously as a presidential candidate by digging into his sfloerd. >> some of the media -- they're looking into this. you're not a lobbyist, right? the fact is there's no evidence that fannie mae and freddie mac actually heard that advice if he warned it. they don't remember him saying it. he was getting millions because of his history about what would have happened if japan won world war ii. he was doing something and clearly saying, you know, i'm going to create this cloud. >> robert, gingrich famously disdainful of the media, likes

to beat up on moderators in these debates. given how much fannie mae and freddie mac have been targets for conservatives, this is not some gotcha story. legitimate news story in my view. >> and you're see something of his conservative challenges. michele bachmann saying she doesn't have these bad connections. gingrich does have a problem since he left the speakership. >> what does it tell us about the media climate? my pet theory about this is, you know, if the press decides in our collective wisdom that you're not going anywhere, we go off and investigate someone else. when you seem like you might be a frank coletthreat to nominati reporters turn over rocks about who paid you money ten years ago. >> it speaks to the resources that many news organization, you follow the front-runner. that's not a great situation. you want a spotlight on every candidate. newt gingrich, a lot of his baggage is public knowledge. we know stuff, stuff we don't know about michele bachmann ukraine crane. you saw investigative stories about him. this newt stuff is going over old territory, old news. >> did the media laugh about the

initial explanation about him being a historian, hired by freddie mac as a historian? >> yes, i think we did. it seemed like a not-so-frank explanation. and the reality is he was speaker of the house. in some ways he was trading in on that influence and the ties that he had made in washington. now we see real pushback against these stories. he's got a new web site up where he lays out 16 possible problems that he's going to have to answer, whether on health care, agricultural subsidies -- >> or on history of marriage and -- >> his three marriages. exactly. exactly. >> and shamelessness to it. trying to impeach president clinton when he was five years into an extramarital affair. there he was try to get former democratic speaker jim wright out of office over a book scandal. and newt gingrich had his own book scandal. goes on and on. >> if you look through a media prism, david, you see gingrich trying to find ways to preempt the questions that he knows are coming. this guy's been around a long time. he -- you know, he led the 1994 republican takeover of country.

he knows and seems to turn to his advantage, you know, bashing the media. we all kind of snicker, but it's been popular in some republican circles. >> it's an effective strategy. there's the media talking about how i was criticizing president obama for going to the u.s. on libya, and then president obama goes into libya and newt gingrich, wait a second, he shouldn't have done that. a complete 180. but there's a certain shamelessness that gingrinewt gh has a twinkle in his eye when he does it. it's an effective strategy. >> it's time to put you on offensive. i want to play brief sound bites from last june. when you may recall newt gingrich's campaign seemed to implode. 16 staff members walked out saying they didn't think he was doing things he needed to to win the republican nomination. here's a brief taste. >> gingrich's campaign has fallen apart. most of his staff has quit. the former speaker is pretty much done as a serious candidate. >> maybe newt gingrich's sort of

fake campaign is totally dead now. >> this thing is over. for newt. i think newt is done. >> all right. does anyone want to apologize collectively on behalf of the media who said done, kaput, toast, finished? >> i think the media misplaced this entire cycle. newt gingrich had it right. debates are the center this campaign. until they started, the whole thing was games and playing around in iowa and new hampshire. gingrich focused on the debates, used them to his advantage. for the press to think in august and july, if advisers quit, your campaign's over, that the press misread the cycle. it was about debate and peaking at the right time late in the game. >> you want to defend the mainstream media? >> i think in ways he still could be done. i mean, there's still so much more that people have to chew over in iowa and new hampshire. some of his stances on health care, and so i think in some ways -- >> the media is competitive at the moment, even in a state like new hampshire, according to the polls which we thought romney had tied up. and it reminds me, david shuster, of four years ago when

mccain couldn't raise money and certain staff quit or were fired and everybody was writing his obituary. ends up winning the nomination. >> and against the cycle of the media. howard dean was going to be the nominee. hillary clinton was going to be the nominee. john kerry, his campaign was dead. he comes back to be the nominee. the problem the media has, covering 24/7, there's so much of a focus on a horse race and you can't judge a horse race when they're going around the first turn. that's what was going on. >> even the examples you pointed out, why is it that journalist don't learn that it might be dangerous to write somebody off, you know, six months before there's been a single vote cast? our track record is lousy. >> if you look at the pundits, howard, making predictions, these are people who have not covered campaigns or are relatively new or don't have the institutional memory. and they are -- >> it's also the wrong metrics. reporters looking at money and saying advisers, that's the inside baseball game. the real thing is the media, it's momentum, the debates. that's what matters, not so much how much you have in the bank. >> bottom line, voters don't care about inside baseball, but journalists most definitely do.

thank you very much for joining us. after the break, she broke the penn state sexual abuse story months ago. and some readers weren't too happy about that. more in a moment. is this a chevy volt? [ stu ] yeah. it's electric. i don't think so. it's got a gas tank right here. electric tank, right over here. an electric tank? really, stu? is that what you pour the electricity in? it's actually both, guys. i can plug in and go 35 miles gas free, or i can fill up and go a whole lot farther. is that my burger? oh. i just got bun. i didn't even bite any burger. yeah, i toog nyguil bud i'm stild stubbed up. [ male announcer ] truth is, nyquil doesn't un-stuff your nose. really? [ male announcer ] alka-seltzer plus liquid gels fights your worst cold symptoms, plus it relieves your stuffy nose. [ deep breath ] thank you! that's the cold truth!

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the penn state sexual abuse scandal wasn't broken by espn or some major news organization but by a 23 4-year-old reporter named sahra g anim. she first reported on the grand jury investigation of former coach jerry sandusky in march, a story that incredibly didn't cause a blip on the national media's radar. she joins me from cleveland. welcome. >> thank you. >> when you first broke that story and in the subsequent stories about jerry sandusky and these allegations, how did your readers react? >> well, actually they reacted pretty well to the fact that we broke the story. we did have some pushback and that was expected. i actually expected more than we got. you know, there tends to be that fan base, the blue and white, you know, believe that penn state can do no wrong. my barometer for that was football players would get into trouble or the nittany lion mascot would get into trouble, and we would get tons of hate

mail. and we really didn't get that march, didn't see that. i expected more than we saw. >> interesting. >> for the most part people were happy that we were bringing this up. >> you were on the case. now in those first couple stories, you reported sandusky is the -- under investigation by a grand jury and that joe paterno, legendary coach, had testified. why do you think that didn't make national news at the time? >> that's not really fair to say. did get picked up by a few national news organizations, and they attributed it to us. we were so well sourced but were so well sourced on backgrounds, to be honest with you. almost all of the people that we talked to talked to us on the condition of anonymity. you remember a grand jury is secret. the proceedings are done in secret. many people who testified before that grand jury could be charged and go to jail for talking about the fact that they were testified. >> it was hard finisor an organization it match -- >> it was hard because we were on the ground, correct. we're a local news organization.

a huge testament, i think the story is a huge testament to local news. i think that people were hesitant to say, you know, well, let's -- let's repeat what the "patriot news" reported. and i see that there's flisk that. the few national organizations that picked it up attributed it to us. they said a few sentences and ss and moved on. >> good for the patriot news. how long had you been working on this story and how difficult was it to piece together? >> i've been working on this story for several years, almost exactly when the grand jury began meeting was when i started hearing rumblings of it, started hearing rumors. things were popping up on internet message boards that are usually a hotbed for penn state football chatter. i started talking to people. like i said, it was all local journalism, going to my sources, you know, digging around, knocking on doors. i spent a lot of time knocking on doors and getting shooed off properties but, you know, a few times we did get through to people and people were able to

tell us that these rumors were correct. >> old-fashioned shooing of the kind we don't see enough of these days. we're talking about these horrifying allegations of young boys being raped in showers and working on this, was it hard to keep your emotions out of it? this is not just some run-of-the-mill story, obviously. >> well, you know, i'm a crime reporter. i'm not a football reporter. this is what i do. this is just like every other crime story that i report. you have to -- you can't tell yourself you can't have emotions. that's unrealistic. we're human beings. all reporters are. what you have to do is keep it out of your reporting, out of your story. you have 15 minutes where you let it out to your friend, your mother, your boss, you do it. but it stays out of your reporting. >> what attracts you about crime reporting? why is that your specialty? >> it was kind of an accident. i kind of just fell into it. i was the only reporter at my college reporter who had the time to do it one day and i

loved it. you know, the thing about it it is that you're reporting on people on the worst day of their life. i mean, most of day that's really -- their house just burned down, their parent just died, their son just died, their life is forever changed. but, you know, if you do it correctly, it can have a huge impact on people. you really can change a bad situation into a good one for a lot of people. >> i've got about half a minute. but you're 24 years old. you're on national tv now. you're being flooded with calls. you've been made a cnn contributor. what's that experience been like for you personally? >> well, it's been a whirlwind, that's for sure. i've learned a lot in the last two weeks, but i'm trying to stay focused on what i have to do. and my primary job right now is continuing the story for the patriot news and making sure that my readers, you know, get what they deserve and my sources get what they deserve and those eight victims get what they deserve, which is good reporting from us. >> you are staying on the case, not being distracted by the

bright lights of the national media. thanks very much for stopping by this morning. >> thank you. >> we'll continue to read your reports. still to come on this program, journalists get arrested in the wall street protests. corresponding doing some unbelievable moonlighting. [ adrianna ] when i grill lobster, i make sure it's a melt in your mouth kind of experience. [ john ] the wood fires up the grill a little bit hotter so you really get a good sear and it locks in the juices. surf & turf -- you can't go wrong. [ male announcer ] don't miss red lobster's surf & turf event. choose from three grilled combinations all under $20.

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time now for the robin meade, our weekly look at the hits and errors many the news business. some coverage of the occupy wall street movement has been sympathetic, some hostile. this week journalists became part of the story. new york mayor michael bloomberg ordered a post midnight raid to clear the protesters from a lower manhattan park. some reporters were pushed away and barred from covering the confrontation. >> order. order. under arrest. >> i'm a reporter. i am a journalist! i'm a journalist! i am a reporter. this is my press credential. >> about two dozen journalists, five of them with credentials from such outlets as the ap and "the new york daily news," were arrested. bloomberg says the city was trying to, quote, prevent a situation from getting worse and protect members of the press,

except police shoved and roughed up a number of reporters and photographers. this is an outrage that police would haul off journalists trying to do their jobs and push the press corps away from a legitimate news event. that is nothing less than censorship, and the city owes these journalists and the rest of us an apology. hard to imagine a more stunning conflict of interest than this one. the reuters news agency has a correspondent in yemen named mohammed saddam. he also had a side job as personal translator for yemen's president, saleh, even during the country's uprising during the president's time. they defended his work as fair and accurate but now says, upon reviewing the matter, however, we believe it's not appropriate to use a stringer who is also working for the government. how long did it take reuters to figure that out? now, you may be aware that bill o'reilly wasn't too pleased when

"the washington post" ran a story headlined "ford's theater bans o'reilly's lincoln book for errors" and quoted experts as saying the book killing lincoln had plenty of mistakes. >> in 325 pages there are four minor misstatements, all of which have been corrected. there are also two type set errors, one involving a date. now, that's a pretty good record. even for nitpickers who want to hurt the book. we well understand our enemies are full of rage about success and that the media lies at will these days with little accountability. >> well, i don't know about the rage and the lies, but the mistakes were pretty minor, "the post" had to run a correction. the book is available in the ford's theater book shop but not in the basement book shop. i have to side with o'reilly on this one. he got a bum rap. that's it for this edition of "reliable sources." i'm howard kurtz. join us next sunday morning, 11:00 a.m. eastern, for another critical look at the media. "state of the union" with candy crowley begins right now.