you can see the premiere of the next gps special. "beyond the manhunt, how to stop terror." a deep look inside american intelligence and how it can best keep us safe. don't miss it. that's friday night at 11:00 p.m. thank you to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. stay tuned for "reliable sources." i'm howard kurtz and this is "reliable sources." the show is turning a critical lens on the media. this time the media mistake was mine. here is what happened and why i did what i did. on monday i read the "sports illustrated" article by jason collins. i read it too fast and said he was previously engaged to a woman and wrote and commented

that he was wrong to keep that from readers when, in fact, i was the one that was wrong. my logic between what happened between jason collins and his former fiancee and was and wasn't disclosed i was wrong to even raise that and showed a lack of sensitivity to the issue and didn't give him a chance to respond to my account before i read it and my first correction was not as complete and full as it should have been. video where i discussed the issue i wrongly jokingly referred to something that shouldn't have been joked about. for all those reasons i apologize to readers, to viewers and most importantly to jason collins and to his ex-fiancee. i hope at this very candid response may earn back your trust over time to something that i am committed to doing. within that regard, cnn invited two media critics to turn the table as and ask me the critical questions. they are dylan byers and david folkenflik correspondent for npr news. >> well, howie, an extraordinary situation for an unusual week

for yourself, in particular. obviously, you have a number of roles you wrote this about jason collins in your role as washington bureau chief and critic for "daily beast." to be clear from your forthright apology now, as you now acknowledge you didn't fully and adequately read that jason collins wrote in "sports illustrated." and doesn't sound like you fully watched the interview that george stephanopoulos conducted the next day. your reporter who didn't bother reporting the story out by your account -- >> i watched part of the george stephanopoulos interview, i didn't see that part. the mistake i made was sloppy and inexcusable. i'm not going to offer any extenuating circumstances. i screwed up. you kind of touched on it right here, david. because i have been a media critic for two decades, i should be held to a higher standard. because i'm the host of this

program, i should be held to a higher standard. i deserve the criticism, i accept it and determined to learn from this episode. >> let's just unpack a little bit of that, though. in so doing, when you were confronted with information that you were wrong. initially you didn't really fully apologize. you sent out a tweet in which you ripped him, you said collins didn't tell the whole story. you're being very honest with us now, howie. why didn't you have the decency to apologize to him at that time when you knew what you had written was wrong? >> what was i thinking? i wasn't thinking very clearly because he had played down the part about his former fiancee and he had been making the television rounds, which i thought was an interesting fact to comment on. but i somehow convinced myself, i guess i got -- i handled it wrong and convinced myself that i could soft on the wording. i should have retracted it immediately. >> it went beyond a factual air aer. in a website you also mocked him

saying he had played both sides of the court. why did you feel the need to mock him, especially after he had just come out to the world as the first pmale athlete. >> i shouldn't have done that. my tone was totally inappropriate. what jason collins did was a difficult step and a courageous one. when an espn reporter criticized him saying he shouldn't be considered a christian and i found that offensive and publicly criticized it. it is his story to tell and i shouldn't have taken it lightly and shouldn't have gone down the road of questioning or why he chose to emphasize or not emphasize certain things. >> right. >> aervegeverybody in our busin makes mistakes and you have made a number of mistakes in the last three years. this is only the most recent. you claimed to have interviewed darrell issa and later admitted you interviewed one of his aides. you attributed a quote to nancy

pelosi that it turns out she did not say. in addition to this, you also said that fox news host greta van sustrn and she had been a defending against people who had cast such doubts. why so many mistakes? >> well, the last two of those were editing mistakes but mistakes nonetheless. in my career i have written, spoken, blogged millions of words. the vast majority of those have been as accurate as humanly possible. in fact, i pride myself on double and triple checking the facts. but there are times, being a human being, when i have slipped up. i have asked people to look at the totality of my record but it is fair to point out where i have fallen short and in those instances i have fallen short. >> but factual accuracy, we go back to how you go about the correction process when you do get something wrong. certainly, with the collins' post it seems like the labor the correction process in terms of at first trying to play down the fact that you got it wrong. also in the case of the ice iss

interview it was months before readers knew that you had actually not interviewed the congressman, but interviewed his aide. why is it so hard as soon as you know you're wrong, come out and say, i'm sorry, i was wrong? >> i addressed those particular ones at the time. but i have been critical of other journalists who have been slow or reluctant to correct the record. plenty of times when i have corrected the record. look, i would like to sit here and tell you that i will be so careful i will never make another mistake. i probably will. i try hard not to take on too much and in the investigative work that i have done, including exposing jason blair ten years ago this past week, i double and triple checked everything. sometimes, under deadline pressure or when you're doing something quick and short where it's too hazy and you press a button. i have not been as careful and perhaps in a couple instances i have not been as quick as i should to correct the record. that's not going to happen, again. >> on the day that "daily beast"

retracted this post about jason collins, that was the same day that they announced you were parting ways. what were your reasons for parting ways with "daily beast"? >> some people have the impression that that is the reason i am leaving, but that was already in the works. there were a lot of personnel changes. there was downsizing. both sides came to feel it was no longer a good fit and then this columnist mistake happened, which i take full responsibility. but the amicable divorce was already in the works. >> let's talk about your multiple roles. you know, you had, we knew each other when you were back at "washington post" and moved more recently to "daily beast" where you served as media critic and washington bureau chief. you, nonetheless, were also here as the host of "reliable sources" and cnn's media guy. you have also been incredibly active on this other website,

not known to the delight called daily download. still active on it. promoted it so much when i follow you on twitter. has the effort that you've extended on that venture distracted you from what were already the duties of two full-time jobs at "daily beast" and here at cnn? >> i have always had a, it's always been a limited venture for me. i'm contributed to daily download and i don't have any eq equity in the site and my basic job was to make online videos. i'll leave it to others to judge whether i have taken on too much. i have always done print and tv. i shouldn't say always, but a long time. my kids tell me i work too hard. and, by the way, i have been extremely open about my role on the news site daily download. i mentioned it several times here on the air and negotiating

for the job on "daily beast" i disclosed in writing in a limited way with this new venture. >> sure. >> and it's on my twitter page. >> i just want to drill down on that. you have mentioned you were a contributor. first, i want to make sure, you are an unpaid adviser and paid as a free llance contributor to daily download. has that always been the case and no stake whatsoever with it? >> i am a freelancer. my friend who started this site and company homes it asked me to make online videos and very experienced television executive and she's top official and former anchor. i thought it would be a valuable learning experience. but has always been a small part of what i do. vast majority of my efforts have gone into "daily beast" and my work at cnn. >> the reason i asked this i was told by two separate people in 48 hours from your mouth you said you were a founder in this venture in trying to help her

attract grants and try to help lauren establish this as a go-to site in a way that has been trying to do. was that in an unfair way for you to describe it or now hearing a slightly different version? why didn't you say that at the time? >> i am not a founder and i have only tried to help promote the site. and i see it as not being very much different than my previous employers asking me to maybe sit next to advertisers at a breakfast or have a talk with the board of directors. a new site and trying to help promote it. i don't have any role in the management of it. >> let's go back here. you look at everything we talked about today. you look at your factual errors, you look at your errors of judgment. you look at these questions about transparency. if you were looking at yourself, let's say you were hosting this show and you were looking at somebody else, another journalist who had done this, what would you say about that journalist's credibility?

>> well, i view rcredibility an trust something you have to earn day after day. i have had a pretty long career in which i have not only done television work and not only done newspaper work but written five books. i'd like to think that i built up a big store of credibility. when you get something wrong. when you are too quick to say something without adequately checking, then you lose a little bit of that credibility and that's why i say that i have thought about this very deeply. that i am determined to learn from it. but i would like it be viewed in the full context of my career. this is not a ritual from me with you come on camera and say you're sorry and hope to move on. i'm truly sorry about what happened. i believe deeply in good journalism and fair journalism and i'm determined to learn from this episode and minimize the chan chances of anything like this happening again. >> if i could ask, if you didn't learn from the issue with

congressman issa and didn't learn with the issue with pelosi and van susstrn. why should we believe you will learn from this issue? >> although i am a media reporter, although, at "daily beast" not a media reporter but blogging and making videos for the site when the site was originally making videos. i consider myself to be careful. you can go through and say you did this wrong and the year before you did this. what i'm saying is all of this matters to me and some people who say, well, maybe you had too much on your plate. i'll leave that to others to judge but i'll be very careful from this point on not to take on too much and to make sure that everything that i say on the air and everything that i commit to print or do in a video or anything like that is double and triple checked. >> fundamentally a, you know, you have a career in which you have done many things write.

as journalists we're hummable b making mistakes. others have been forced out for lesser transgressions. why should we put stock in you as a media critic? why should the audience of this show put its trust in you when so much of your recent work has been shown, at times, to be sloppy and even reckless? >> well, i would say we're talking here about a small minority of cases, but, again, make your own judgment and people at home can make their own judgment. i have, i put in an enormous amount of work into this program to make it fair, accurate, balanced. i labor over the scripts, even the little banners that appear at the bottom of the screen. i do research for every guest, every segment and interview. i would like to think that over time people have seen that not saying that sometimes i say something off key and, again, we come back to the central point here. i have worked very hard over the course of three decades to

establish credibility and people are going to have to make their own judgment about weighing the occasional mistakes versus what i have done. but i am taking this very seriously. >> so, very quickly. we have under a minute left. what changes that people can feel that not get minor things wrong, but consequential, core parts of the story wrong in the future? >> it's funny because when i think i have done longer pieces, investigative work, that is where i am most careful and sometimes a tendency, perhaps in this 24-hour age and perhaps i have occasionally had lapses along those lines where you do something quick, where do you do something where you just hit the button you don't check as carefully. i'm glad you're both here asking me these questions and you and others should hold my accountable to be more careful than i ever have been before and minimize mistakes and if i make mistakes, hopefully not serious ones to own up to them and acknowledge them as i am doing here this morning. >> thank you very much, howie.

>> thank you, howie. >> we appreciate the chance to ask you those questions. >> thank you for a very fair interview. when we come back on this program, new details surface in the boston bombing case and are news outlets being more cautious in their reporting. later, conversation with doonesburry, garry trudeau.

just when it seemed the boston bombing investigation was winding down, the police

detained three new suspects this week all in connection with the aftermath of the attack. the media has learned a lesson from the bombing itself. ryan lizza and lynn sweet, washington bureau chief for "chicago sun times." also made clear these were dzohokhar tsarnaev's friends. >> people got it right and there was, you know, a change in the tone of the coverage. people being more careful. much more of a race to be first when something is dramatic and breaking as it was back on april 15th. you know, i think, also, what the media hadn't gotten credit for, a lot of the cleanup that was done after the fact. "new york times" did a fantastic piece that went through and explained almost every single detail of what was initially reported. a lot coming from government sources that turned out wrong

and correcting the record. so, you know, as much as we beat up on ourselves and the media and rightfully so. when we get stuff wrong, we have a pretty good self-corrective mechanism in this business and a lot of good reporting that told viewers, told leaders what was initially wrong and most from government officials that was passed on. >> for example, "new york times" had done a very good job of this story saying the surviving suspect told fbi interrogators that he and his brother considered suicide attacks and considered striking on the fourth of july. now, i'm not saying that was proven wrong, but i am saying it is hard and the police investigation not to use people who don't want their names attached. >> it's almost impossible at an investigation at this level according to fbi agent so and so and the thing i want to point out, for all the talk about new media, old media, main stream, most of the facts, most of the developments on this whole terrible tragedy have been from

reporters, traditional reporting outlets whether or not, you know, whatever their platform is, howie. >> journalists. >> and i think this tragedy has showed what real journalists do. in the use of unnamed sources and fbi stories, just that's what you have to do to get started. >> two stages of these stories, though. when the news is breaking and when, frankly -- >> being made real-time. >> this isn't real-time. >> what about catherikatherine . the wife of the dead suspect. she said she didn't know anything about this, but according to sources the bombs were made in the apartment she shared with her husband. has she been treated unfairly or maybe she did know something about it? >> the facts are obvious. she lived in this apartment. you know, it's been reported that her lawyer said she didn't speak russian, maybe she didn't know what they were doing. the press is acting like your basic common sense person and looking at the facts that this

is an obvious, potential suspect. and she's being treated that way. >> do you agree with that? >> i do. we still have a lot of news about her. profiles written about her. she is not escaping the role of scrutiny and she is not being treated as just a grieving widow. the context is there and it's very appropriate question to know what she knew and when she knew it. >> if someone is building bombs in your apartment, there is no, nobody in the media is supposed to treat you as if you're, you know -- >> by the way, in the first few days she was treated respectfully as a grieving widow. but as the story unfolded, this storyline shifted. >> obviously, the questions have to be asked. glad there's not an excess of speculation in answering them. president obama a news conference the first one in a couple of weeks and addressed the boston bombing and also addressed this question by jonathan karl. >> my question to you, do you still have the juice to get the rest of your agenda through this

congress? >> well, if you put it that way, jonathan. maybe i should just pack up and go home. golly. >> a perfectly fair question. do you still have the juice or was there -- >> so, my view on this is that if you cover the white house every day, you believe that the president and the white house is the center of the universe and the most important institution. and it leads to this fallacy that a lot of white house reporters have that the president can sort of wave a magic wand and get legislation passed that just having the juice is what moves things in washington. that has been a problem with white house coverage, especially in the obama years. but plenty before that, as well. >> in the press' defense, obama himself when he ran in 2008 ran as someone who could overcome the gridlock in washington. but that's not the way it works. >> the president went on to say that, you know, i can't force republicans to do anything. i can't make them behave. they have to be responsible. so, the answer made a lot of news.

so, clearly, a provocative question and interesting answer. >> i was in the room and the other reporters when jonathan said, have you got juice? there was a kind of a collective -- >> gasp? >> not a gas. no, nothing wrong with what he asked. kind of a little bit of head snapping that we're all listening carefully. here's where i disagree with my esteem colleague from "the new yorker." you have to figure out a way to ask questions, that is the point of a press conference. obama talks a lot during the press conference and it is his platform and you have to find out a way to cut to the chase. >> we have to go, ryan lizza, lynn sweet, thank you. up next, the jodi arias murder trial heads to the finish line. i'm a carpenter. i'm an accountant.

a mechanical engineer. and i shop at walmart. truth is, over sixty percent of america shops at walmart every month. i find what i need, at a great price. and the money i save goes to important things. braces for my daughter. a little something for my son's college fund. when people look at me, i hope they see someone building a better life. vo: living better: that's the real walmart. man: how did i get here? dumb luck? or good decisions? ones i've made. ones we've all made. about marriage. children. money. about tomorrow. here's to good decisions. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your family's future? we'll help you get there. there's a reason no one says "easy like monday morning." sundays are the warrior's day to unplug and recharge.

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the spectacle known as the jodi arias trial has been going on for months and many in the media have been wallowing in it. >> she's trying to convince the

jury that alexander treated her like a secret. a throw away sex object that he controlled in the years leading up to the brutal murder in june of 2008. >> little red riding hood fantasi fantasies, raunchy phone sex. was jodi arias a victim of -- >> what explains this constant coverage. joining us now in new york lisa bloom. so, does this trial, lisa, of jodi arias deserve this kind of constant and breathless coverage? >> howie, i'll answer that in a minute but for one minute i will go off script and say it's unprecedented. i have never seen a journalist subject themselves and i salute yourself for it. i run a law firm and write books

and this is the new era that we live in and i salute you for what you did. the standard for journalists is not perfection, it's integrity and i think you demonstrated that very profoundly today. >> thank you. now, let's talk about the trial. >> what was the question? is it too sensational? is that the question? >> that would be the question. >> you know, it certainly is and some of the coverage has been, at other times, i think the coverage gives us the chance to talk about real questions in our legal system. has it become a circus? maybe at times it has. an issue of domestic violence in this case, something i talked on air a lot. has domestic violence been an excuse for somebody like jodi arias. has it gone too far allowing defense attorneys to just slam people who are victims like travis alexander. sometimes we get to talk about serious issues and cases that catch fire with the public. >> the extent to which it has become a circus. there are explicit and graphic

voicemails and texts that were part of this trial. hln, which is the sister network of cnn doesn't make bones about the fact that it has been a nonstop jodi arias network and you have been a part of it when you talked about it on "today" show and else where does it make you uncomfortable at all to be part of the circus? >> i don't think that my personal contribution is part of the circus because i like to talk about the serious issues. i am opposed to the death penalty in this case and every case. hln, i know, also tends to not show some of the more awful, gory, crime photos. during the closing arguments they go out when it gets particularly salacious and graphic. hln covers trials and they cover trials very extensively. i used to be an anchor on court tv for eight years. if people aren't interested in watching trials, they can turn the channel and come to cnn and

watch other news. >> the amanda knox case. she has a book out and she did a big sit down with nbc diane sawyer. i'll play a clip of that and ask you a question on the other side. >> heartless manipulator? >> i haven't heard those. i mean, i've heard the gist of them. and they're wrong. >> so, that's also a case that involved the allegations of a kinky sex ring. so, what is it with these graphic cases and female defendants? used to be missing white women and now female defendants that gets the media all wrapped up. >> attractive, young, white women. i would like to see our trial coverage expanded to include people of other races. almost never see the breathless

coverage when it comes to an african-american women or man. i don't get to pick the stories. you know, i just choose whether they come on or not. i think that's an important issue. we want to see these kind of stories, though. we're interested in the justice system and i would like to think these are a window into the justice system. ahead on "reliable sources" a conversation with garry trudeau about his online series. ] all good? [ chirp ] getty up. seriously, this is really happening! [ cellphone rings ] hello? it's a giant helicopter ma'am. [ male announcer ] get it done [ chirp ] with the ultra-rugged kyocera torque, only from sprint direct connect. buy one get four free for your business.

i'm candy crowley in washington with a check of the headlines. syria's deputy foreign minister is calling an overnight air strike on the country a declaration of war by israel. syrian state television says it hit a government research facility in a damascus suburb. syria says it will retaliate against israel in its own time and way. the taliban is claiming responsibility for a roadside bombing that killed five u.s. service members in southern afghanistan. the attack occurred saturday in a kandahar province. two nato troops were also killed saturday when an afghan soldier turned his weapon on them. a third nato soldier killed

after an insurgent attack in northern afghanistan. afghanistan's president harmid karzai assured from the cia that it will continue delivering cash to its office. the agency has been delivering bags full of money to karzai for the past ten years, the practice sparked outrage after a "new york times" report about the payments last week. karzai says the money is used to pay salaries, help the war wounded and provide scholarships. those are your top stories. after the break, cartoonist ga gar, y trudeau tells howard kurtz why he decided to make the four main characters in his series republicans. who's this guy? security. cheryl, hi! i know you don't need one but would you try on the depend silhouette for charity? right now? under this? why not? for charity? now's the perfect time, cause with soft fabric and waistband, the best protection looks, fits and feels just like underwear. even doing the chacha.

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cartoonist garry trudeau's is called "alpha house." >> he withdrew from the race. >> that's good. well, not for him, obviously. that's an outstanding development. >> guess who's running now? >> who? >> you're in a real race now, darling. you can't just sit in your little man cave any more waiting to be re-elected.

>> who smashes an iphone? >> i sat down with the creator of "doonesbury." in new york. welcome. >> so happy to be here. >> why did you want to make an online video pilot? >> i had it be persuaded. especially the online part. i'm not a newcomer to television. i've done a special and some pilots and a couple of series, but i did have to be talked into this. >> doing it for amazon. >> exactly. >> that means tv is over and this is the new television. >> they have only been doing it for three or four months and they decided to get into the content business and because they're amazon, they could do it quickly. they came up with a different model, which is, which is if we're going to spend all this money creating television shows. shouldn't we know about whether the audience wants to watch them? and, so, they said, here's the deal. you can come and make a pilot

for us, but we're going to put it on on, you know, we're going to hang it up online -- >> and go like this. >> or like this. >> so, who wants to be troll bait? it wasn't something that appealed to me enormously originally but then they thought about it and the process is actually, given the capability amazon has for capturing very nuanced data, the process gives them more information about whether they should be making this show and it's transparent, it's democratic and rational and not just people with gut feelings and executive towers in l.a. >> the people who voted don't have the final say, but, obviously, a major factor. you're up against seven other pilots. little nervous about this? >> they tried to discourage a competitive mindset with all of us. they said, if you guys make eight great pilots, we'd love to put eight great shows on the air.

that was never, that was never the dynamic, as we understood it. that may, in fact, may be bs -- >> but you have john goodman and bill murray, did they owe you a favor? >> no one was more surprised than i that he got involved. a year ago, i don't think anybody of that stature was running towards making online programming. >> kevin spacey and now -- >> i think that was the thing. >> that was a big game changer and i also think that he likes the project and he decided in two days and we didn't get the push back that i imagined we would all across the board with cast and crew. everybody -- no one blinked. no one said this is web, we're not doing this. so, we got some very talented people from the film world and television world. >> i'm going to accuse you of having a cynical view of

washington because you have the congressional group house and a senator who considers going to afghanistan just to make sure he can get himself re-elected and then you have a latino lawmaker and then an anti-gay lawmaker who goes and gets an award from council for normal marriage. that how you view our nation? >> well, as you didn't say, all four of them are republicans. and they do share this house, this was based on an actual hou house. the reason they're republican is actually a dramatic one, a creative one and not so much an ideological one. the republicans under a great deal of pressure. the three of the four senators were elected prior to the tea party, so, the game has changed considerably. they're defending themselves from the right. >> you're saying it's in service

of the plot, not liberal garry trudeau joined the gdp. >> the shows i did were about liberal democrats. one a candidate who was running for president and the other was a liberal do good filmmaker and i go to where i think i can make the story the most interesting. in the late '80s, while i did give tanner initially a very solestering speech, i don't doed amirable people -- >> you made that clear. you were on twitter for a while and you were hysterial and you dropped out. >> not so much risky as it was really time consuming. i fell into the black hole. you tweet so you know -- >> it is time consuming. >> you know the danger. >> i miss you on there. >> for me it was work. not just a pastime.

i was trying to create comedy and i was trying to actually write good tweets. >> you made it look effortless. >> well, that's the goal. >> the "doonesbury" strip began in 1970. how did you keep it fresh and relevant and keep yourself interested in writing a comic strip? >> i'm a curious guy and i dive into the news, as i'm sure you do every morning and it never ceases to intrigue me and fascinate me and draw me in. so, there's never any danger of fatigue in that sense. also, because i write characters who age in real time, i have a multi-generational viewpoint. and i find myself favoring the younger characters, as you might imagine. because younger characters i always in the process of becoming. they haven't -- they're not set in their ways and their behavior isn't as predictable.

i have a lot of characters i can cast that are appropriate to any particular situation. >> right. now, a while back you had one of the other characters make a plea for newspapers. it started out as a newspaper strip and it is still a newspaper strip. why did you feel so passionate -- don't abandon the print press. >> it's not because of any reluctance to go online myself. i've been online since 1995 and it was creating cd-roms and today an early webisode show about 13 years ago. i embrace the web fully, but i'm a newspaper guy. that's where i started and i still read newspapers. the physical newspaper every morning. so, i do think, i do -- you know, you're always a product of what you came of age within. and i love newspapers. >> i have to confess, i'm the

same way. >> one of the guys that probably turns out the lights. >> gary trudea a u, thank you for sitting under the lights wi >> my great pleasure. thank you. still to come, elsa walsh on life, family and journalism. or good decisions? ones i've made. ones we've all made. about marriage. children. money. about tomorrow. here's to good decisions. who matters most to you says the most about you. at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your family's future? we'll help you get there. i am an american i'm a teacher. i'm a firefighter. i'm a carpenter. i'm an accountant. a mechanical engineer. and i shop at walmart. truth is, over sixty percent of america shops at walmart every month. i find what i need, at a great price. and the money i save goes to important things.

braces for my daughter. a little something for my son's college fund. when people look at me, i hope they see someone building a better life. vo: living better: that's the real walmart.

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>> ill is a walsh has a provocative piece about her education and being a mother. welcome. >> cheryl sandberg has gotten good press for her book but you see her arguments disconnected from reality. >> as cheryl sandberg was just in "time" magazine they called her the new boss of feminism and every couple of years, two years we have this debate about women and work. i think a lot of it is off track because what it misses really is the whole sort of emotional center of relationships and family and children. >> you put yourself at the center of this "washington post" piece. for example, tell the story about when your daughter was 4 years old and came in to your home office where you were working. >> right.

i wanted to write about the emotional journey of being a mother and parent. i was a staff writer for the new yorker and i was on deadline. i had been for several days. i had a 4 1/2-year-old daughter and i turned around and there i she was in her home office with her two suitcases, backpack and pajamas sticking out of it and she said i'm not leaving until you come and play with me. and i was frustrated and i said i'm never going to finish unless you leave. i promptly marched her down stairs to her father and the next morning i woke up with a sense of dread of what happened and i wrote myself a note that says today is the day i'm going to change my life. >> lasting impact on you. in terms of changing your life. you worked at the "washington post" and were a staff writer in the new yorker. did becoming a mother prompt you to withdrawal from daily journalism. you talk about turning down assign s at times? >> yes.

working at the new yorker you have a lot more control over your life and one of the things i recognize about my life and sherl sandberg's life is we have a lot of flexibility and options and choices that most other women don't. >> you are both in affluent families, let's face it. >> affluent families, a lot of help and resources which most women don't have. for me what i recognized it didn't matter that much to the bigger world whether or not my article came out today, yesterday, in a week. but what really mattered to my daughter is that i was more present and it really mattered to me. so i did cut back, not completely but in a way that i could be a full participant in her life. >> it is hard when you are wrapped up with the daily deadlines of journalism. you write success, the kind sandberg calls for requires more travel and ever more time in the

office. >> i'm older than sheryl. i'm ten, 12 years older than her. i look at a different perspective with my child about to go off to college and i felt like in reading -- there's a lot of good advice there but it doesn't have that sense of sort of, what is at the center of your life is your relationships, love. i got to the end of the book and wondered does she ever think she's going to die? it is so much about work. we shouldn't be talking so much about leaning in but leaning your own way. >> your own view of feminism, quotation marks included has changed. you write when you first got to the "washington post" you didn't have a desire to get married or have kids. obviously now you have both. >> exactly. i still believe strongly in the tenets of feminism, equal

opportunity. but what i feel the women of my generation did is we fought for that for ourselves and didn't recognize that maybe we are failing our daughters by not saying that we need to have all of these structural and cultural changes. we live in a culture of overwork. sheryl sandberg says in her book the way i deal with this is i get up at 5:00 a.m. before my kids wake up and then they go to bed an i'm on e-mail again. >> text, phone, twitter and that can clash with being a parent. is this a debate, whether it is sheryl sandberg or mayer at yahoo is this a debate about and among women? >>, no, it's not. one thing that i noticed -- i had a huge outpouring, emotional response to my piece and hundreds and hundreds of e-mails and half of them had been from

men. all ages of men, saying i'm struggling with this, too. >> you didn't mention in the piece, the photo of bob woodward. was that deliberate? >> i didn't mention my daughter's name either. it was a piece about the journey of a woman. >> a woman married to a well-known journalist. >> it was about me. >> did you feel compelled to write this? that you wanted to not only share what you had been through as a journalist, a person, as a mom but also to redirect this debate a little bit. >> as i said earlier, i think the debate about this has gone a little off track. it has gone off the rails. we had a debate about the gender police again. what is it that women should do. a bit of finger wagging about you should be doing more. if you want to be this ceo of a company, great. not every woman wants to be that. not every man wants to be that

and a lot of people are trying to figure out how do i not have a life that's squeezed around my job but how do i have a life? >> okay. elsa walsh, thank you very much for joining us today. >> thank you. >> thank you for watching us this morning. "state of the union" with candy crowley begins right now. a widening circle in boston and a changing political calculus in washington. today, the boston bombing case. where it stops we still don't know. >> people i spoke to in the investigation, most of them are operating on the presumption that others are involved. >> the scope of the terror plot. plus, why a new gun law could still happen and immigration reform may not. meet the senate's number two dirk durbin and peter king. and as we learn more about the how, what about the why? >> there is shi