getting to know paul ryan when i return in one hour for a special 12 p.m. edition of "state of the union." i'm candy crowley in washington. "reliable sources" with howard kurtz starts right now. good morning from los angeles, where the sun was barely up yesterday morning as mitt romney rolled out paul ryan as his running mate. we will look at how the story broke, how the media are framing the choice and what journalists and pundits are saying about the wisconsin congressman and his budget-slashing plan. >> we find ourselves in a nation facing debt, doubt and despair. this is the worst economic recovery in 70 years. >> is this a game changer? no question about that it does put both sides' vision for the future front and center in this campaign. >> and was romney trying to please conservative media outlets in picking ryan? >> this is what "the wall street

journal" was urging. this is what the weekly standard, bill crystal, the strong voice of conservatism, both were saying this week, this is the guy. >> plus, lolo jones lashes out at the press after failing to win an olympic medal. >> the fact that they just tore me apart, it was just heart breaking. >> is the sports press building up female athletes just to tear them down? i'm how wa i'm howard kurtz and this is "reliable sources." the tsami of speculation known as the veepstakes was still going strong in the world as late as friday. >> rob portman. >> mcdonald. >> tim pawlenty. >> paul ryan. ment >> and then there's florida u.s. senator, marco rubio. >> i think he will opt to take a safe choice, like a portman or

he will take pawlenty. >> that came to a screeching halt friday night when fox's carl cameron reported at mitt romney would announce his running mate the next morning and that all signs reported to the likelihood of paul ryan that remained unconfirmed until nbc's chuck todd weighed in with this report shortly after midnight. >> nbc hours in has three sources, all telling us that paul ryan is mitt romney's choice for the pick, but what we also can tell you is the campaign itself will not confirm that it is definitely ryan. >> clearly, it was a time when news organizations were being cautious. >> [ inaudible ] don't have confirmation. again, these things take funny twists sometimes. >> yeah, they do we try to read smoke signals. >> once the smoke cleared, all the networks went live as romney introduced ryan in front of a battleship in norfolk and there was no shortage of analysis about mitt's pick. >> i think the choice of paul

ryan clearly has injected new spirit into his base. >> paul ryan is someone the conservative base will embrace enthusiastically, jump up and down for, turn out in large numbers for. >> well, i have long thought, brett, that this young man, this exceptional man represents the future of the party. >> is a battle to define ryan before ryan can define himself. >> that young ideologue that says every man and woman for themselves work don't need all these social program that is basically what he is saying. >> joining us now to examine the coverage of romney's choice, ben smith, editor-in-chief of buzz feed.com. terrence smith, former media correspondent for the pbs news hour and here in los angeles, robin al pairian, reporter for the "los angeles times." ben smith, what i heard most

frequentably romney's choice of ryan was the word "bold." as we have learned in previous election cycle, such snap judgments can look pretty different a week or a month later. >> it was a choice to change everything romney was doing, not to just keep doing it the operating assumption until now, he was going to try to romney himself would remain a sypher and try to run a refendum on obama which he never talked about himself, never really laid out a lot of details. ryan has come in and filled in a lot of blanks before him as detailed policy he is carrying. now it looks like it is a very clear choice between a set of policies for the president's articulated between -- and now a very clear ideological policy that ryan brings. if anything, a referendum on paul ryan for a while now. >> that is certainly the way it is playing in the media and terry smith, looking back to sarah palin four years ago, not comparing the two candidates, but is there a journalistic tendency to say something

positive about a new running mate at the outset? "washington post" described ryan as everyman with extraordinary charm. >> well, there is. there's a very brief love affair. but i think the coverage was pretty good this time. i think not only did they get a little beat on the actual selection of paul ryan but there was all that commentary that you talked about. and hey, if rupert murdoch and bill crystal are happy, who are the rest of us to complain? >> i want to come back to that point, but robin, you spent yesterday putting together a profile with other reporters in the field of paul ryan. >> yes. yes. >> does the pundit class tend to forget that most americans, i bet most californians, have no idea who this congressman is? >> oh, yeah, absolutely. we do this with all of our political coverage, i think. we tend to think something is a well-known fact when it isn't, when we realize somebody like paul ryan gets picked who we

were speculating about someone else. we have to dispatch reporters to janesville, wisconsin, his hometown, beat the doors and bushes, figure out who is this guy. there will be a lot of who is this guy in the coming days and weeks, i suspect. ben smith, coming back to the media coverage what is striking to me exnobody i have seen in the press is questioning paul ryan's qualifications or his experience, he is a long-time capitol hill hand before he even became a member of congress t is all about his policies. is that a good thing? >> i mean it is certainly the choice that romney made. he is not a biography candidate. he's career washington politician. he spent his whole life working on policy and politics in washington there's no dishoner in that. >> is that a good thing for -- is that -- get back to the media coverage is that a good thing for the way -- for the idea that we might, that we in the news business might actually stumble

into a substantive debate here as opposed to a personality-driven one? >> i think so i think the fact he nominated somebody with a lot of those threshold qualifications are obvious. one of the thins with sarah palin, she may have had a lot of qualifications, nobody knew, including her staff. i was looking back at the e-mails i was sending them four years ago, all sorts of questions and they didn't know the answers. here, he is just starting at a much higher base in terms of the knowledge his people have of him and that we do. >> this question four, terry smith, are the sensation-seeking media really going to have a serious three-month debate about tax cuts and entitlement reform sore that just going to be the flavor of the week? >> hard to believe, isn't it howie? i mean, going back on this, i think had romney selected, you know, a boring white guy, a rob portman, a tim pawlenty, somebody like that, the media coverage would have been quite

different and far more subdued. this does throw meat to the conservatives i. gives ammunition to the obama campaign and gives news organizations a lot more to focus on. will it all be policy? no, of course not. but a great deal of it will. after all, the most interesting thing about paul ryan is his budget plan and are his policies. >> i heard him tell candy crowley earlier he likes led zeppelin. what defines him in the public mind is the budget blueprint and the policies he pushed on capitol hill. >> otherwise, howie, note -- as you said earlier, no one knows paul ryan. they have no notion of him so there is no independent knowledge beyond this budget plan, so forth. >> that is about to change, i

suspect. robin, from your perch out here in california, does it seem that ryan benefits, has benefited and benefits, at least at this moment, from having a somewhat friendly relationship with reporters and pundits in washington and new york? >> you know, he is known as a likable guy and that's always a good first step when you're talking about cultivating relationship with the national press. i think that very quickly becomes meaningless in the context of a presidential campaign where the bubble descends. the messaging now is all coming from romney headquarters, he will be constrained about what he can say. you know, sure they like his person eighth, they want to turn him ose, but when you talk about, you know, the kinds of issues this are going to be coming up for ryan, there's already crumbling that we are hearing among establishment republicans that he doesn't have foreign policy experience, these lacking -- when you think of the heartbeat away stuff, that's what we will be looking at in the coming weeks. >> that is a very interesting point, as we round out the portrait. and by the way, ryan was made

available to reporters yesterday. he talked about how he kept the secrecy of the pick by sneaking out of his wisconsin home, going through the woods and no reporters would see him and both the romney and ryan doing a joint interview on "60 minutes" tonight i have been told, according to my blackberry. ben smith, talk about journalism for a minute. i'm competitive. you are competitive. we like to get the story first. why do the media spend so much energy every four years chasing screenstakes, tips and rumors when we are all going to find out anyway? >> i think it is because the kind of people who are in this business are people who are obsessed with new news and sometimes it's really important new news and sometimes it's just -- this is like one of those little bright, shiny objects that gets us all chasing it very hard. nbc, which broke the story, put immense resources into this. i'm glad they got it. i think a lot of news organizations made different stories about exactly how much resources, whether you have somebody outside each of the contenders' houses 24 hours. it is the people like us get

excited about it, i suppose. >> terry smith, okay, tip of the hat to chuck todd, getting the story in a very competitive environment and getting it late at night but why is it such a great scoop? i know that's how it's viewed by people in our business to get something, this piece of information, that a candidate is about to announce anyway? it is not like digging out some investigative report that would never come out except for your efforts. >> right. well, it isn't that much of a scoop, but howie, it is august. there's nothing going on. the campaign is flat and dull. they have to do something with themselves. remember this romney was in trouble in this campaign he was slipping slowly back in the numbers and so, there was -- >> the storyline. >> that's right. there was a storyline there and this contributed to changing that storyline, at least for the moment. >> and robin, the los angeles times did a whole series on the possible contenders, you interviewed and profiled ohio senator rob portman. a lot of wasted energy or is

that a useful exercise? >> no i mean, i think it is a useful exercise to know who these people are. you have to be prepared jump on it as soon as the guy is announced. and what we decided is, you know, in any case, these people who are being mentioned as contenders, are important national political figures anyway that our readers should want to know about. so we looked at them. i did have a funny conversation with rob portman's wife. she said, so you're doing all that work on my husband and what if he is not the selection? and i said, well, i guess i will just throw my notebook away. i mean, they are looking at this kind of all the press hovering around them going, boy, this could be all for naught. >> a lot of people throwing their notebooks away for everybody except paul ryan a lot of people gathering, as we speak, more information about the congressman from wisconsin. let me get a break. we will come back and talk about a little bit more detail about the coverage of ryan's policies, especially on the budget. it's , it's not for pain, it's just for sleep. because sleep is a beautiful thing. ♪

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their notebooks away fo

back in los angeles, looking at the paul ryan could have rams and terry smith in washington, rupert murdoch tweeted the other day yesterday, i guess, thank god about the ryan choice, an almost perfect candidate. how much do you think this selection was influenced, if at all, by murdoch's "wall street journal" editorial page and "the weekly standard"? >> i suspect it was influenced in the sense that those editorials were a reflection of the fact that the conservative base really had not come out for romney at this point, that the

enthusiasm factor among them for romney was very low, that romney needed to do something to push the discussion away from his tax returns and his swiss bank accounts and his money and so forth and so i suspect that did have a contributing factor. what you read this morning is that a big factor was the personal chemistry between romney and paul ryan. accepting that that is good, i suppose that's important as well. >> what you also read this morning in several newspapers are stories about ryan's budget, particularly, robin, his proposals to do such things as eliminate all taxes on capital gains, turn medicare into a voucher program for future retirees. now, is it -- it's certainly fair game for the pressome it fair to tie romney to those proposals even though they are made by ryan? >> i don't think you cannot tie romney to those proposals because by choosing paul ryan as

his haval candidate what romney has done is whole-heartedly, full-throatedly embraced that budget and embraced the philosophy that ryan brings to the table that is what he talked about the rollout yesterday, talked about his intellectual leadership of the gop. clearly, romney turned this into an election about ryan's budget and the democrats are foaming at the mouth, practically. >> i must have gotten 100 e-mails from democraticplaces, operatives groups yesterday attacking -- obviously, they were prepared to attack everything paul ryan had ever done. on that point, ben smith, if now that the -- now that the press is focusing, as it well should, on not only ryan's budget but his position against abortion, federal government, even the case of rape and incest, is there any danger it looks like we are piling on as we try to explain who this guy is, what he stands for? >> yeah, i do always think about that, whatever is new always gets way more attention than something very important that's been around for a couple of days and we are in that phase with ryan, that kind of introductory

get to know you phase, and is this sort of a swarming kind of coverage of who this guy is? i mean it is part of the process it is also -- the single-most important choice romney is going to make this cycle and it says a lot about mitt romney. i think the coverage when it's best is always looking to that. >> in other words, we can't understate the importance here, not just because ryan, you know, would be a heartbeat away, to use the cliche, but -- not just because he has transformed the race but because it shows something about romney's decision making? >> absolutely. both about the very kind of careful process and then also something that i would really surprise me taking a real risk here, something he has not done this entire cycle. >> right. exactly. terry smith, you know, this budgetary stuff,ed me kay, the outyears, cutting the deficit, effective tax cuts, complicated stuff, especially for tv. how effectively do you think press will be able to play referee here? >> that is a very good point, howie, because some of these things are open to

interpretation or certainly to your perspective on them and so you're going to get a lot of argument about it. also, as you were saying before, we haven't gone beyond his budget plan, paul ryan's budget plan, to look at his views, if he has any, on foreign policy, on other issues, on immigration, that sort of thing. so, there's a good deal of analysis still to go, a good deal of introduction, i would say, but i agree with robin, the point she was making earlier, that when -- when romney picked ryan, it became the realliny/ryan budget. and he has now got to embrace it he can say as he already has that he will come up with a budget plan of his own, but nonetheless, this sets the parameters and the base for that discussion. >> already hearing media chatter, why wasn't romney wearing a tie at yesterday's announcement, the fact he is a devote day of ayn rand.

we will try to focus on his personal side? >> yeah, we are looking the what made ts guy this guy and paul ryan often says he was deeply influenced by the work of ayn rand, who many people associate with high school students and undergra undergraduates in terms of a phase you go through about self-rely yables and the privacy of an individual on your way to a more mature view of the social contract. but he is passionate about her and gives the book to his staffers to read. >> very briefly, cot press be turning this into an obama/ryan race? >> i think absolutely they will. i think that ryan has the ability to eclipse romney the way palin did mccain. i think we will see some of that play out. and whether romney can bring it back the attention to himself remains to be seen but ryan is the one who is generating the big crowds right now. >> i think we might be talking about this on next week's program, robin, terry and ben, thank you for joining us this morning. be back with in a moment with more further look at the ryan

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for further perspective on the paul ryan extravaganza, the media coverage, joining us from los angeles, stephanie miller, host of current tv's "talking liberally" and dan shah near, the jesse unrue director of politics and a former republican strategist. stephanie miller are you and your left wing pals now going to pound paul ryan even more than mitt romney? >> i'm not sure if this is better for comedy or democrats it is about even. i love the fact that eddie munster is treading and come zi-eyed granny starver, which was coined on my show. >> in reference to the congressman fr wisconsin? >> to someone that once got medicare, which i guess they just gave up florida. >> speaking of comedic potential, let's roll the tape of mitt romney introducing his running mate yesterday in norfolk.

>> join me in welcoming the next president of the united states, paul ryan. every now and then i'm known to make a mistake. [ laughter ] i did not make a mistake with this guy. >> you probably know that he -- we didn't hear it here in the studio, but he said the next president of the united states came back and said, oops. >> freudian slip or some people are saying, i've read some column saying this is such a hail mary this is such an obvious giving up on this cycle, they are trying to prep paul ryan for the next time. >> dan shah near, you would have to say the so-called liberal press, many conservatives think it leans to the left, has been respectful, maybe surprisingly respectful of paul ryan so far. >> being the reasonable centrist that i am, howard, the media coverage, as your previous guest talked about, very -- whether it

was sarah palin four years ago or john edwards four years before that the media bends over backwards to get a honeymoon, becomes a shorter and shorter one this time tomorrow, paul ryan will be talking a lot less about his workout regimen and a lot about his workout budget a day or two he gets slack. >> blank also introduced joe biden without using you the word vice. >> you may not like paul ryan's ideas, and i bet you don't. >> yes. >> he put himself out there with a fairly detailed budget, some omission and the democrats are largely ducking debate about entitlement. >> oh, you mean ducking as in not wanting to destroy the social safety nets? this is what drives me crazy about the mainstream media, present company excepted, of course, is that we -- somebody

puts forward a plan like that and people go, oh, that's bold and courageous, he is serious, it is seriously a horrible plan. i don't there is anything bold or refreshing aboutmedicare, replacing it with vouchers. >> this will be the focus of many stories in coming weeks, if on the other hand you basically don't propose to do anything in a second obama term about these runaway costs in medicare, medicaid, social security, it is not like these programs can continue on -- on an unsustained basis without going bankrupt. >> well, this is what george bush tried to do with privatizing social security, first of all, they call it a crisis it is not a crisis it is not that there can't be policy ideas but paul ryan's i think is roundly rejected by the, you know, the american public. and as my favorite writer, howard kurtz pointed out it does nothing to address the deficit with us, all these tax cuts for the rich if you are going to run as a small government person,

his budget does nothing to reduce the deficit. >> is true that while congressman ryan takes big whack at a lot of domestic program, he doesn't touch the pentagon, he does keep tax cuts for the wealthy and eliminates capital gains. and that's fair point for media scrutinizing. but do you expect there to be, once this two-day honeymoon is over, a kind of media assault on what paul ryan has proposed and what he stands for? >> there almost certainly will be. and whenever anyone comes out with their proposal that veers significantly from the status quo to the left or the right that sin he have vitt tabably the second wave of coverage, howie, as you know. that said -- >> and this isn't some starry-identify -- this was passed by house republican, it was kind of symbolic, everybody in the house knew the senate wouldn't take it up, more making a statement than something that would occur. >> and one that president clinton offered some grudging respect to early on, even though he said he differed with some of the details, recognizing ryan for being polled bold and taking a more aggressive stance. that said, this is the president

of the united states, that said, i think the -- one place where stephanie is right, the romney campaign took a risk here if they were confident about the trajectory of the campaign, would you have seen a paul lynnty or a portman or someone like this. >> short-handed the media, boring white guy? >> precisely. this isn't throwing a hail mary. this isn't -- this isn't a palin-type of selection, but it does represent a risk and i think to your question, howie, what the romney campaign is anticipating is, okay, we are going to get beat up over medicare, we were going to get beat up over it anyway, maybe at some point going forward, we can pressure the media to push obama -- >> double-down on gting beat up on medicare, he is certainly not a boring white guy. he likes to strangle catfish with his bare hands. >> the second wave risk is to get the media to say, okay, mr. president what is your -- >> it is a good debate and make this into a more substantive campaign. you are not a boring white gal but you are a lib mall a

conservative medium talk radio. won't you be drowned out in this election? >> the american public is largely with us, don't think it is a good idea to give further tax cuts to the rich. this is -- i mean, if his choices were bush's budget director or doubling down on -- >> you are saying you won't -- >> plan is even worse. >> won't be drowned out because you're right? >> the vast majority of the american people don't want tax cuts for the rich and gutting medicare. >> but conservatives have a much louder megaphone on talk radio. >> just 'cause you're loud doesn't mean you are right. >> do you think briefly, dan schnur, having now the ryan pick, "wall street journal" editorial page, weekly review will help him? >> helps him marginallism as terry smith mentioned earlier, while romney is getting the support from the base of the republican party, it is without a great deal of enthusiasm, as

page was designed to rev up the base, here is ryan with an intellectual foundation to help him out. >> conservative pundits did not like mitt romney in the primaries, as you may recall. let me get a break. we will continue this conversation on the other side. energy is being produced to power our lives. while energy development comes with some risk, north america's natural gas producers are committed to safely and responsibly providing generations of cleaner-burning energy for our country, drilling thousands of feet below fresh water sources within self-contained well systems. and, using state-of-the-art monitoring technologies,

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there's been plenty of chart, mostly in the media, about nbc airing its prime time events on tape delay, they bowed to the criticism is by streaming today's closing ceremonies live online, the plan, still delaying them for tonight's prime time. well, i now know how it feels to live in the middle of tape delay land, 6 in the morning yesterday when mitt romney >> interpreter: throw deuced paul ryan as his running mate, mostle of california was asleep and one journalist was half asleep. try writing a coherent story at

that hour. when the note work even news comes on here, usually on tape, an hour or two old, night line, 60 minutes, today, gma, 20/20, "american idol," letterman, leno, three hours behind. yes, the country runs on eastern time in this twitter age, everything else instantly available on the phone, west coast feels like some kind of time warp, especially heading to the studio this morning in the predawn darkness. more with stephanie miller and d dan hnur in just a moment.

with the explosion of coverage about mitt romney picking paul ryan, stephanie mill per, what was it like going through the veepstakes when your dad, william miller, was picked to be the vp candidate in 1964? >> i have to say it's interesting, everything that the romney camp has thrown at obama, he didn't have any business experience, well, paul ryan drove an oscar meyer weinermobile, never worked in the private sec torch as some bush people are saying -- >> trying to get you to talk about your family. >> my dad -- i'll tell you, my dad was, yes, a congressman for 14 years but chairman of the republican party, a prosecutor at the nuremberg trials,er is informed world war ii so i -- i take offense when people try to say, oh, your dad wasn't that well known. well, he was eminently qualified.

i don't think paul ryan s >> how old were you at the time? >> 3. >> 3. i hadn't said anything, it wasn't my fought. >> you went from a goldwater family to this if whatever you are today. >> my mother is shaking her head that -- at the same time you are, howard. trust me. >> dan shah unusual, you work for john mccain's presidential campaign in 2000. the press loved him at the time, had the bus tours, i spent a lot of time riding around with, answered endless questions from reporters, how does the campaign look different from the inside compared to the picture with he get from the press? >> the biggest difference over that 12-year time lapse, of course, is just the no offense intend, the relentlessness of the media coverage. and even bill clinton, a master communicator in 2008, as you remember howie, really struggled with the ongoing coverage, online immediate yark the social media and so on. by the way, very quickly, my father is a liberal democrat from madison, wisconsin, who is now surrounded by paul ryan, scott walker and reince priebus and he is very, very unhappy. >> let's hook him up with my

mom. >> we have two guests here who have evolved, shall we say, from their beginnings growing up. but, you know, reporters i think sometimes have the impression that campaigns are extremelym macya villiian, was it brilliant mccain strategy in 2000 or just kind of worked out because he liked hanging out with reporters? >> it was something he created on the spur of the moment because he got used to sitting with reporters there are plenty of smart people in both parties in presidential level politic bus never as smart as we pretend they are and a lot of this stuff happens by accident. >> the honeymoon with sarah palin lasted until she started talking. >> 20 seconds here, your dad talk to you when he got old better experience having all

that media attention as goldwater's running mate? >> you recall the famous mushroom cloud ad that began against my dad. >> 1964, lbj. >> politics has always been a tough business but to me, all of mitt romney's ads so far have been based on provable lies, as, you know, politifact or wherever has pointed out. >> neither of you has lost your sense of humor, stephanie miller, dan shah unusual. thanks for stopping by. we will go to london next where lolo jones and other female athletes are denouncing the media as sexist, and, well, a little bit mean a conversation with christine brennan in just a moment. ♪ ♪ ♪ every mom needs a little helper. that's why i got a subaru. announcer: love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru.

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olympic hurdler and there she was on hbo talking about her sex life or lack thereof. bush. jones says she knows why she can't find a man who is willing to commit to her. she recently tweeted that she's a virgin. >> just something -- a gift i want too give to my husband. >> wow. >> but please understand this

journey has been hard. i'm not -- there's virgins out there, let them know, it is the hardest thing i've ever done in my life. >> in short, lolo jones became a major media figure almost overnight and when she just missed winning a medal in london this week, she lashed out at the news business during an interview on the "today" show. >> the "new york times" did a very tough piece criticizing you for being more image than accomplishment. >> yeah. >> how hard was that to deal with? >> i think it was crazy, because it was just two days before i competed and then the fact it was from a u.s. media, like, i mean, they should be supporting our u.s. olympic athletes and instead, they just ripped me to shreds and i just thought that that was crazy because i work six days a week, every day, for four years, for a 12-second race. and the fact that they just tore me apart, it was just heartbreaking. >> is lolo right? have the media largely been portraying female athletes as

sex symbols? joining us from london, christine brennan, sports columnist from usa today certainly you lolo jones got ts and lots of media coverage, sought media coverage. does she now have a legitimate complaint about how she is treated? >> howie, i really don't think so and here's why. i don't want to sound overly harsh about hership. did he have a fine fourth place finish but she was clearly the most publicized u.s. olympic athlete to not win a medal here. and she brought a lot of this on herself by posing in various stages of undress and wanting to get the publicity and that's fine. it's free country. she can do that. and often, olympians have a very small window so we understand why they do some of this stuff. but then to get angry with the media, first of all, u.s. media, we are not there to support her, we are there to cover her and that's what the journalists do we report on these issues, we are not the pr people, and i understand why she is angry, i think from our perspective, howie, we do have to cover

athletes the way we cover other news. it's journalism and sometimes it's not always easy but it's what we do. >> obviously a bit of a delay from london. i agree with you. i mean she did pose news for espn, the magazine, out there talking about her virginity, sorry she missed a medal by .01th of a second but there that the media is there to pump up and support u.s. athletes, but that's not your role, is it? >> no it's not. i can understand the confusion by these u.s. athletes, howie, most other nations, they are the cheerleaders. for example, in the press center, which is not too far from where i'm talking to you now, in the presenter, we will hear cheers from the press offices, the wire service of other nations when their teams are playing in gold medal games or in big matches. in the u.s., of course, wither not cheering for the athletes, that's not what we do and we are not part of the government, obviously, the first amendment, everyone knows all about that but so many of these other

nations, because they are smaller, because they are kind of all in it together, the reporters do cheer for the athletes, even here in great britain, a lot of cheering for the british athletes. we don't do that i'm proud we don't, we will never do that and i don't think the raiders and listeners don't want us to do that. >> funny that foreign journalists share any appearance of activity and root for the home country team. i think this "new york times" piece about lolo jones was quite harsh, "the new york times" ombudsman agree ready. why don't we put it up on the screen, i will read it quickly. jones received far greater publicity than any other american track and field athlete competing in the london games. this was based not on achievement but on her exotic beauty and on a sad and cynical marketing campaign. essentially, jones has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be, vixen, virgin, victim to draw attention to herself and the many products she endorses.

that seems to me a trifle mean. >> he is a colleague and a friend, we have known each other 25 years or so and no male journalist done for insightful, intelligent work on women athletes than him. when most male sports writers want to run away from covering women's sports, duree has always said he wants to cover it. so he speaks with authority. and he made some very valid points. harsh, i know that's what the ombudsman said. you know, that's -- to me, it was a fair commentary. it was tough. but i'll make this point. >> sure. >> if women athletes want equality and if women athletes want to, you know, be in the same sphere as male athletes, and i think that's certainly certainly that most of them want, then sometimes there's going to be some tough criticism. and i hope that the criticism of longman's piece isn't because, oh, he was being tough on a woman because, again, he's done incredible work and has a right, i believe, to say what he said.

>> what about gabby douglas, this inspiring story at the olympics and suddenly the whole media debate seems to be about her hair. and she seemed rather frazzled by that. >> oh, that was ridiculous. that was absolutely preposterous. i have no idea how that got started. i covered gabby douglas, i guess, three days. the qualifying, the team competition and what she helped the u.s. to win the gold, and then that individual all-around where she won the gold. to me she's the breakout star of these olympics. i think we'll be on a first-name basis with gabby douglas for the rest of her career, probably, if not her life, like mary lou retin, like nadia comaneci, and i think gabby's that big a deal. and for anybody to be talking about anything other than her incredible athletic performance, i don't understand where that comes from. >> and finally, christine, i've got about a minute. are the media guilty or at least some in the media of sort of playing up female athletes based on their sexual attractiveness? i know some athletes might

exploit that themselves, but is there a little bit too much of that in your view? >> yeah, i think there is. i mean, although i will say this, howie. this has been team title nine for the united states, more u.s. women winning gold medals and medals overall than u.s. men by a lot. d around the world, again, i think we can call these the women's olympics. and i think it's a jumping-off point for so many things for women in sports in the future, enabling and empowering women. so i think there's so many positives that i hate to focus on the negative. but certainly, as long as it's a male-dominated sports media and a male-dominated sports audience, and it still is, then you are going to have some of these reporters, some of these broadcasters talking about the looks of female athletes. and i sure wish that they would focus on their athleticism, on their talent, on the incredible ability to perform under pressure which we've seen behind me for the last two weeks. that, to me, is the story of the olympics, not how they look. >> okay. thanks so much for joining us from london, christine brennan, you are certainly right, especially when it comes to

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fareed zakaria is a smart journalist who did a dumb thing, by his own admission. the "time" magazine columnist acknowledged friday that he plagiarized parts of an article by jill lepore in "the new yorker." it is sadly the latest case study of an insyd yis journalistic disease. zakaria who hosts a weekly cnn program says in a statement, "media reporters have pointed out that paragraphs in my "time" column on gun control which was also a topic of conversation on this blog bear close similarities to paragraphs in jill lepore's essay in the april 23rd issue of "the new yorker." they are right. i made a terrible mistake. it is a serious lapse and one that is entirely my fault. i apologize unreservedly to her, to my editors at "time" andcnn and to my readers and viewers

everywhere." "time" accepted the apology but has suspended zakaria for one month pending review. the magazine said he had violated its standards which say columnist's work which was not only factual but original and that their words must be their own. cnn owned by "time's" parent company has temporarily taken him off the air. "he wrote a shorter blog post on cnn.com on the same issue which included similar unattributed excerpts. that blog post has been removed and cnn has suspended fareed zakaria while this matter is under review." the conservative watchdog site news buster is acting on a tip from the nra broke the story that fareed's column was not entirely his own work. it cites adam winkler saying, "laws banning the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in kentucky and lisiana, other

states soon followed, indiana, tennessee, virginia, alabama, similar laws were passed in texas, florida and oklahoma. as the governor of texas explained in 1893, the mission of the concealed deadly weapon, murder, to check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man." za yarkari zakaria's "time" column says, "laws that banned the carrying of concealed weapons were passed in kentucky and louisiana. other states soon followed. indiana, tennessee, virginia, alabama in 1839 and ohio and similar laws were passed in texas, florida and oklahoma. as the governor of texas explained in 1893, the mission of the concealed deadly weapon murder to check it is the duty of every self-respecting, law-abiding man." now, i've seen a number of plagiarizing cases far more extensive than this one, but that misses the point. borrowing someone's