according to the pew research country, no arab country makes the top five. nigeria has 77 million, just behind by a few hundred thousand in sixth place. is egypt. thank you for being a part of my program this week. stay tuned for "reliable sources." the dust finally settles in washington as the government gets back to work. lurking behind that cloud is a new story of government dysfunction. >> lawmakers from both parties are calling for someone to be held accountable over the flawed rollout of healthcare.gov. >> the botched rollout of obama care on its website that's left thousands of americans angry and frustrated. >> the administration say it is will be almost december before the obama care website is mostly fixed. >> but the confusion extended to some news organizations, as well, as they struggled to make sense of the system. >> broadcast tonight, breaking news on the topic of obama care. nbc news has learned the white

house now intends to delay the deadline requiring every american to have health insurance. >> the deadlines in this new health care law are confusing, and if we added to that confusion here last night, we want to clear it up. >> and the cabinet official in charge of it all goes under the media mi media mike my microscope. a amtrak passenger tweets as he listens in on a phone call. and a look back in the classic story about the man who dug jfk's grave. i'm john avlon, and this is "reliable sources." obama care signups started

october 1st, but the struggles of the site have dominated. reports of nightmare signups, dropped connections, overloaded servers, led to finger-pointing, congressional hearings, and calls for heads to roll. for a look at the coverage, whether it was fair, accurate, or even helpful, i'm joined by joe, rosie, and jamal, from "the daily beast," where i also work. joe, let's start with you. you had a piece up taking aim at sebelius' attempted defense of this dysfunction, with sanjay gupta. >> the guy who exposed sebelius in terms of everything that went wrong with the website is a doctor, and also a reporter for cnn. he's a doctor first. and what made this interview so effective, it was conversational and not confrontational. if she goes on fox, she probably has a finger wagging on her. at msnbc, she'll get the pat on

the back. she goes with sanjay gupta, he was tapped to be surgeon general in 2008, like, hey, we might get a friendly interview. instead, he asked questions that knew two major things. one, the site wasn't ready for launch. and when did the president know about it? he didn't know about it until after a couple days after the launch. this was devastating stuff. she was lulled into having a nice conversation, she doesn't realize how damaging it was to her and the healthcare.gov and health care in general. >> that's the best practice, get them comfortable, and you might get the truth. rosie, this administration has known this deadline is coming up. the world's most predictable crisis. now, all of a sudden, the media is paying attention. is this a pile on the administration, after they own it, or because the republicans got the hell beaten out of them? >> this is a deserved pile-on. i don't think the media is piling on the administration as

a result of the piling-on of the republicans after the shutdown. it's a disastrous situation with this website, and it deserves to be covered as such. >> jamel, the whole fire sebelius meme, and it has taken root. it's snowballing to the point where that seems to be the marketer of accountability. is that fair? or are we buying into an rnc talking point? >> i don't think it's fair. i don't think firing sebelius gets anything fixed with healthcare.gov, but will help, accountability is the media focusing on the problems of the website consistently, not just the administration's new deadline for when everything should be fixed, but continuously. this needs to be a beat for a paper or a news organization, following healthcare.gov and making sure it's living up to its promises. >> rosie, i don't want to be the cynic. we don't do such a good job of covering sustained stories. crises we cover very well. >> right. >> we don't cover governing so

well. give the fact this will be a months' long process to fix, what do you think the media is realistically going to do in terms of keeping the focus and the administration's feet to the fire? >> i think the media will lose interest, probably in the next few week, or even sooner than that. a crisis shutdown, the shutdown, it will get a lot of intense media coverage. this is sort of, as the website problems continue, eventually the interest in the media will peter out. >> joe, that doesn't necessarily serve the citizens very well. what do you think the media needs to do to step up to keep the focus where it should be, covering governing and the solutions? >> holding people accountable, like a jay carney, for instance, who said he's been asked since day one, since this launch, when are the numbers going to come in for who signed up for obama care. i don't want to know about pain hits and 20 million. how many people created accounts. how many people have signed up. this is very important. 7 million people need to sign up, and 2.7 million young, healthy people need to sign up to sustain the loss. so it would actually can feed itself. and that's been stonewalled time

and again. and the white house press corps asked, and carney is asked in every kind of form. finally he said, in mid-november, i will get you a number. okay. when november 15th comes, i guess that's mid-november, if we don't see a number there, the media has to hold the obama administration accountable. if you know page hits, right, and you know account, you probably know the number right now. it's probably because it's so low, is because they don't want to reveal it at this time. >> and false metrics is a classic way to weasel out of accountable, but the d-day is out there, november 15th. we'll be watching. we want to move on to another story. there was kerfuffle over the marine carp. quote, obama wants marines to wear girlie hats, saying the administration wanted a uniform standard. there was pushback on this story, as might mannen. one business cider had a memorable headliner calling it b.s., but the "post" one of the great tabloid, i think fair to say, pushed back and defended

their story pointing to documents that showed at least in the uniform command, there were e-mails going out, really ballots, if you will, showing that there was a debate actively in the administration about a uniform cap and saying it had been encouraged in air quotes from the department of defense. is this just a case, joe concha of the "new york post" doing what it does, going for the headline, or a slide back to a proxy, attack obama at any cost. >> the "post" is owned by rupert murdoch. he owns fox news. that sends to be right of center, if i can be forgiving of it, and they attack the president more than most publications. you can attack him on healthcare.gov, and asa, and every other acronym. to start going after the obama administration for hats, that colonel nathanson of "a few good men" wouldn't approve at.

and, you know, ahh, look at the girlie hats. it's quite comical. >> there's the temptation to dial up the headline. did this get to the point of distortion fundamentally? >> who say the hats necessarily look girlie? who says a unisex hat is a girlie hat? that's the problem with the story, that seems like a distortion. >> that's a good point. in the nfl, they're wearing pink cleats. >> that's a good work. >> i'm with rosie. i don't see anything particularly girlie about the hats. they're just hats. i imagine it's a cost-saving measure, you don't have to design different hats for different people. the idea that a unisex hat is by definition girlie, it could be masculine, a unisex hat is a male hat. >> tell you one thing, don't mess with the marines, people. if i'm dropping a drone, flying a drone plane with that hat on, guess what, i'm still hitting my target. >> might not be wearing the hat when you're doing the drone thing. still to come, a spymaster gets spied on, and social media

bites back at a white house staffer moonlighting as a secret twitter critic. the united states population is going to grow by over 90 million people, and almost all that growth is going to be in cities. what's the healthiest and best way for them to grow so that they really become cauldrons of prosperity and cities of opportunity? what we have found is that if that family is moved into safe, clean affordable housing, places that have access to great school systems, access to jobs and multiple transportation modes then the neighborhood begins to thrive and then really really take off. the oxygen of community redevelopment is financing. and all this rebuilding that happened could not have happened without organizations like citi. citi has formed a partnership with our company so that we can take all the lessons from the revitalization of urban america to other cities. so we are now working in chicago and in washington, dc and newark. it's amazing how important safe, affordable housing is to the future of our society.

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officials were followed by journalists and policy wonks, until he was discovered and quickly fired in a scoop first reported by josh rogan. here to discuss this is jamel and, jamel, let's start with you, a guy with a lot of drama in his real life, real job, national security council, and yet he can't resist becoming a twitter. is this social media democratizing journalism, or is this everyone wants to be on tv, everyone wants to be a critic. >> i think it might be everyone wants to be a critic. i know working in some places, you have snarky things to say, and usually you keep them quiet. and i think he couldn't resist going to the public and knowing that his colleagues happened to be policymakers of the united states of america, just, you know, irresistible. >> irresistible, but deeply irresponsible. >> incredibly irresponsible. >> dumb, dumb, dumb. [ laughter ] joe, another story, and this

really does, also, show the democraticization of journalist. michael hayden, former cia director, nsa chief, on the sub going from new york to washington, and giving background interviews, apparently loudly. and somebody overheard him, former director of moveon.org starts tweeting the live conversation, to the point where he gets a lot of followers on this fact, and hayden confronts him about it, and says, do you want a real interview? he says, well, i'm not a reporter. hayden wisely says, everybody's a reporter. this story really does pull the curtain back, and you would think the former nsa chief would know better. >> i've got four words for michael hayden, and breaking it into two blocks. one is, quiet car. they have that on amtrak. if you even -- forget about the phone, you can't even talk to somebody, you can't whisper somebody, and they take you to the bathroom and waterboard you. that's one thing. the second, the two words are mitt romney. you can be recorded at any time.

it doesn't matter. you think you have your privacy, particularly on a train with 100 people. what are you doing? yeah, you might want to remember the 47% rule the next time you're that annoyi ining guy in train. >> you would think the former head of the nsa would be more hip, too, on secure cell phone conversations, let alone interviews. >> yeah, you would think so. that's what's confusing. i guess michael is on the older side and maybe not -- would you assume someone would be live tweeting your conversation on the train? probably not. >> maybe you should. >> maybe you should, yeah. >> if he doesn't appreciate the internet is not a series of tubes at this point, we all have bigger troubles. jamel, i want to move on to another twitter story, the twitter block. the "atlanta journal-constitution" tweeted out after a georgia man won $1 million lottery, this. $1 million georgia lottery winner willie lynch can get 40 acres and a whole lot of mules. what the hell, man?

i mean, this -- this really defies intelligent description. they backed off it quickly. they said they're dealing with it internally. is this just a sign of the times? or is this just beyond idiocy. >> i'm guessing he thought it would be a funny joke, but i don't know the conversations they're having on a regular basis that 40 acres and a mule becomes hilarious. i don't think the guy should get fired, it just seems like a bad joke that went wrong. >> you know, joe, when people are going to war on the civil war reparation, as people are want to do, it's completely mind boggling this would go out on the feed. as we find out more, contrition really isn't sufficient. this is in atlanta. this is in the south. and there's weight behind these words when they come out from official twitter. >> absolutely. the problem with twitter is that it's unfiltered. and i brought this up a couple of weeks ago on the show, and we need two editors. one for your standard publication, and we need one for twitter, because reporters are, or anybody for that matter, can send out anything, and it's not

being filtered. it's not being vetted. as a result, you're getting -- i don't know what -- i'm from hoboken, dude. we don't have that mules and -- i'm just -- >> before that, it was a different deal. >> right. >> you know, look, this is -- twitter is your home page, people. don't just delegate it out to somebody who's liable to crack idiotic jokes, because you'll be held to account. it's basic, but not obvious, apparently. rosie, a fascinating story, grambling strike, related to cuts related to stimulus funds, but reported by student editors of the state -- the university there, they tweeted this out, getting a lot of publicity for their cause. but they were suspended. now, this is a real deal. the essence of student newspaper, but there are still standards and talk about wanting to set the right tone, what do you think the implications of the suspension are, and this overhauled story in terms of promoting? >> well, i think the

implications -- this kind of thing has happened on college newspapers before. and i think that it's setting a really bad example in terms of first amendment issues for these students who are working on the newspapers. >> jamel, i mean, in is basic stuff. and the alleged person who did this, the suspension, is a former journalist himself. looking at the grambling story, it's something from the grassroots. students strike, publicized by student journalists, is this a great moment for the brave new world of digital democracy, or a chilling moment with the university trying to suspend the staffers? >> i think it's both, right? it is chilling that the university would go to students and say, you know, for reporting what you saw, we're going to ask you to leave. but for these students, for the journalism, it's a fantastic moment. it's the genuine journalism, something they can build on in the future. it's unfortunate they had to resign. i hope they can get back into the game somehow. >> yeah. >> i have a feeling, joe, there's going to be not just a little bit of blow back, but a

teachable moment for the administration, as well. there's one lesson here people still don't know. you can't keep digital media down. suspending is not going to help. the story's out there, give it up. >> exactly. before, we talked about our age, which i'll not reveal on the air, but we went to school in the '90s, and not twitter. and if you you spend the two students, by the time people find out, the reaction is over, it's too late. with michael hayden, he found out he was being tweeted about in that -- in 15 minutes while he's on the phone, when he gets off, you know what, you're being tweeted about. that's how fast it is now. there's accountability everywhere, and that's because of twitter, john. >> and it's not going away, folks. get with the program. ahead on "reliable sources," as u.s. troops leave afghanistan, the media's attention seemingly go with them. my conversation with jake tapper is next.

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as america's longest war draws to a close, the timeline for u.s. troop withdrawal raises major questions for the soldiers

ahead, for the journalists covering the book. and now, jake tapper, anchor of "the lead" follows several u.s. soldiers through one of the deadliest periods of the afghan wars. i asked him about what he thinks to the dwindling afghanistan coverage while the war still rages on. jake tapper, thank you for joining us on "reliable sources." >> my pleasure. thanks for having me. >> congratulations on the paperback release of "the outpost." writing a book is a labor of love, and this book so intimately about the military. how did it change you as a journalist going forward? >> i think at the time i was a white house correspondent and i was covering the war in afghanistan, but doing so from the comfort of the north lawn of the white house. and i think my coverage was focused like a lot of coverage on troop levels that were glibly vandyed about, 20,000, 40,000, about the political rivalries between the pentagon and the white house and general

mccyrystal versus president obama. and i didn't really get to the individual battles, the individual people. and so, obviously, writing this book made me appreciate the war in a much more substantive manner than i think some of the typical washington, d.c., coverage of war gives it. and i'm focusing on my own coverage at the time. not so much everybody else's. but, also, i think people in washington very glibly talk about sending force in here and sending force in there, and i think it gave me a greater appreciation of the complexities of sending in force, and how it's not necessarily the right answer all the time, and that if you do do it, if a general and president sends troops in, they need to have everything they need and deserve to do the job

effectively. >> and i'll say it, it certainly affected your coverage, it seems, on the medal of honor ceremonies that have occurred. you know, sometimes these are a 30-second hit on the nightly news. but you've really gone in depth into the individuals and their stories and given them a lot of honor, in some ways bucking that trend. >> well, that's because of the three medals of honor that have been awarded to living service members since i started at cnn. where there is time and space for documentaries. i knew two of the guys, because two of them were in the book, two of them i had -- i had their cell numbers on my phone. so when they got the medals of honors, i was able to call them and congratulate them. actually, for both of them, i knew it was coming ahead of time. so that's been -- that's the story behind that. it's the first time, actually, since 1968 the awarding of medals of honor to former staff

sergeant clint and sergeant ty, the two living service members were honored for the same battle. john, to your larger point, i think there's a lot of tendency in the media and in the public, i think, to blame the media for not covering the wars more and for not covering the troops and their families more. and that's -- that's perfectly valid criticism. and i agree with it, and i'm trying to -- >> well, let's get into that a little deeper, because here we are towards the end of america's longest war. and there is a sense that this has just been a hum and a buzz in the background. it's not been brought into our living rooms every night. how much of that lack of sustained attention, of focus, of honor is the public's responsibility? and how much of it really is the media's responsibility for not keeping it front -- front and center during the entire time of this intermnible conflict.

>> i think it's right to not let the media off the hook. in the documentariesfor cnn, dr a show on nbc, or a variety show does typically, then not only cnn but everybody would be rushing medal of honor documentaries onto the air. and, look, as a reporter and an anchor, i totally accept responsibility for the fact that i do not cover war enough. i do not cover troops enough. i do not cover veterans enough. i aspire to do it more. but i definitely fall short. on the other hand, it is not only my fault. it is also the fault of the public and what they choose to view. and the magazines they choose to buy. and the newspapers they choose to read. there would be more war cover e coverage, there would be more coverage of veterans if the public bought those magazines

and newspapers and watched those tv shows and listened to the radio stations. and one more thing, john. the public is not the only one to blame here. our political leaders are, as well. president obama, john boehner, mitch mcconnell, harry reid, nancy pelosi. these people talk about troops a lot. they could talk about them a lot more. >> that's right. and we do, though, to your larger point, we all vote with our wallets and eyeballs every day, and there are real impacts of that. let's talk about the attention at this specific moment in what will ultimately be the history of this war. we are in a drawdown period, where there is far from clarity or certainty, even at the level of leadership, about what residual force will be left. what are you hearing both from the soldiers on the ground and from your sources in washington about the status of this drawdown? >> well, the troops i know who are in afghanistan, they're just doing their jobs. right now, a lot of that has to do with training afghan soldiers. and they are following orders and hoping that this wasn't all for naught.

the ones i know are on -- they've been on multiple deployments, so it's not their first time there. what i'm hearing in terms of what's going to happen next, i think there was a goal, and still probably remains a goal to have some sort of troop presence in afghanistan after the december 2014 deadline. i think that that was going to be some sort of smaller counterterrorism force, and, also, perhaps some sort of military trainers. but right now, there's an impasse between the u.s. and karzai, and it's an open question about whether or not there's going to be the kind of arrangement for u.s. troops to be there and do their job the way that the pentagon wants them to be able to do their job in order for them to remain. and we saw it happened in iraq, that impasse ultimately meant that there wasn't a troop presence in iraq. beyond security for the u.s. embassy. so we'll see. i can't predict at this point, and i would have predicted and have predicted months ago that ultimately there would be an agreement. at this point, i can't.

>> the only thing for certain is the taliban is likely to still be there. jake tapper, thank you for joining us, and congratulations on the paperback publishing of "the outpost." >> thanks, john. up next on "reliable sources," npr takes us on a journey into rupert murdoch's world. ido more with less with buless energy. hp is helping ups do just that. soon, the world's most intelligent servers, designed by hp, will give ups over twice the performance, using forty percent less energy. multiply that across over a thousand locations, and they'll provide the same benefit to the environment as over 60,000 trees. that's a trend we can all get behind. is what makes us different. we take the time to get to know you and your unique health needs.

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few people have done more to craft the modern media landscape than rupert murdoch. the australian-born news corp. explains the globe, including the "wall street journal," "new york post" and tv networks like fox news, but he's been under an investigation over a phone-hacking scandal. more damaging revelations could soon emerge as the trial of two former "news of the world" editors begins in london tomorrow. npr david fullkinflick has delved deep into the story. he shared some insights with me

when i spoke with him earlier. david, thank you for joining us. >> delighted to do it. >> so you've got a very well-timed book out, "murdoch's world," and a trial involving rebecca brooks, and obviously, innocent until proven guilty. tell us what's likely to play out in this trial. >> well, what we're going to see is a few things. obviously, prosecutors will make their case. they're trying people -- a variety of defendants on different counts. you have the question of hacking, which is what we all remember in this country, the breaking into the cell phone messages of so many hundreds and thousands of people. you have the question of bribery of public officials, politics, people in defense ministry and others. and then you have the question of obstruction of justice, which rebecca brooks, rupert murdoch's surrogate daughter, former ceo of his newspaper arm, and somebody who used to lead the two top-selling tabloids, on trial with her husband, also, for conspireing to conceal evidence from the government. >> this is one of the moments

where truth meets power and the outcome will be fascinating. your book opens up with a vignette apologizing to the family of a girl whose phone was tapped. >> this was days after the revelations. going back to july 2011, "the guardian" newspaper, almost alone on this story, said that not only had celebrities and some politicians had their phone hacked, not only had the two princes had their phones hacked some years earlier, but a young, dead girl who had been a cause celeb when she vanished in 2002. she, too, had been victimized by this. and a wave of national revulsion occurs. murdoch, who had been able to hold the line for so long, to protect not only his newspapers but the top executives, particularly rebecca brooks, could no longer do so. he meets in this suite, in this posha hotel in the middle of london, and holds his head in his hands, saying i'm sorry, i'm

sorry, saying not only was he ashamed, but his father would have been ashamed. he inspired him, fostered him in a sense of grievance, in some way he wasn't recognized fully for his accomplishments. the touchstone was something he came back to as he thought about the parents and the young dead daughter. >> it's powerful, powerful stuff. it brings out the human side. there's another scandal, as well, perhaps small in some ways but profound in the age of digital journalism, is the seating of comment sections and trying to push back or rebuke and discredit people who criticized the murdoch empire. >> there's this astonish array of things. i've felt with the fox p.r. for year, covered the media over the past 13 years, and they're the most intensive, aggressive shop i've dealt with. it's not personal. it's intentional. dissuade from doing it and warn others not to. in this case, what they did, they had staffers for years go

online and rebut every blog post that was negative, every article. go in the comment section and do this. the amazing thing is, even if the articles were positive or neutral toward fox, they would attack commenters who had posted. the p.r. people were up until 2:00 to 3:00 in the morning using a variety of subterfuges. one used over 20 aliases, one used over 100. one tried to camouflage by using old laptops. one had to do an aol dialup, so the i.p. dress couldn't be traced back to fox news. astonishing array of things. one other thing they did, they tried to discredit reporters, one from "the new york times," doing something for this channel, 2008, the fact he had been treated for substance abuse, as retribution, warned not to do it. one was baited. he was given fall information under an e-mail account set up in the name of an actual fox

news producer, hey, we'll make a change, it turns out it was completely untrue. he mistakenly ran with it, and when he made the mistake, fox news tried to destroy his credibility as a reporter for something they themselves set him up with. >> that's chilling stuff. >> most people in america know about rupert murdoch through fox news, a successful competitor, conservative, ideologically driven agenda, and then when you follow his twitter feed, by all accounts he does himself, it's not a tea party/conservative die tribe, instead takes positions, a strong advocate for migration, and it doesn't dovetail with the stereotypes, the cartoonish stereotypes. how do you account for the gap between perception and reality, and more importantly, the channel and the man himself? >> well, i've got to say i think he doesn't always get credit for being a more interesting and

textured creature than he's often vilified as being, or often lauded as being. he is a creature of the right. he is a conservative voice. he's of the center right. you mentioned immigration, he himself an immigrant to the country, naturalized american citizen, australian by birth. i have a chapter in the book about his stance corporately to advance the notion of carbon neutrality. he pointed to some severe weather, devastating his native country of australia, and said we can no longer sit back and do nothing. and news corp., his company, a beat, his own five-year deadline to become a carbon-neutral company through offset, but also through a series of environmentally minded reforms. on the other hand, he's very against taxation. he's very against government regulation, and he's very set against a lot of the government involvement in that kind of issue. so you see him taking a stance, which is more -- more to the center than you would find reflected on any of the opinion shows, or most of them, on fox news. >> yeah. >> and certainly, outflanked on the right by the editorial pages of his own "wall street

journal." they're much more conservative than he is. he at once empowers them to do this. it serves the audiences of fox. it serves the core audiences of the editorial page of the "wall street journal." and yet, his heart is on the center-right, which you can find often in the pages of "the new york post," the pains of "the sun of london." >> time question. what do you think his legacy will be when all is said and done? >> somebody passionate about newspapers and about news. you see somebody who is willing to shake up some fairly schlerotic, in britain, with sky b, and more importantly, you saw the introduction of a crueller form of journalism that might have been sustained in this market, and showed ways it would work to his benefit not only as a journalist but as a businessman. >> david, thank you for joining us on "reliable sources." >> thanks for your interest. for the record, david

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some reporters become legends. they inspire readers to become writers. and jimmy breslin is the best living example of this. a man whose newspaper column expressed the soul of new york city for decades. his no-b.s. independence and commitment to telling a story developed to devoted readership, memorably expressed in this clip from "when harry met sally." >> first, let me say, i'm not a big fan of jimmy breslin. >> well, he's why i became a writer, but that's not important. >> breslin was so famous in his prime that he became that rare reporter who was called on by ad agencies to give credibility to their beer pitches. >> i'm jimmy breslin, a writer. but beer is a subject that's not exactly unknown to me. so i tried one. i liked it. it's good beer. i tried another. it's better than good. it's a good drinkin' beer.

>> now, 83, jimmy breslin still lives in new york city with his wife, ronnie eldridge. recently published a book and still writes occasional column for "the new york daily news." i had the rare opportunity to sit down with him in his home this week and talk about his life in newspapers. when you look back at your career, as a journalist, as a columnist, what did you love the most? >> deal with. yeah, it's good to deal with, and still is. well, i mean, you can get some work -- some jobs until you're dead, so you better look for something that's got a little tingle to it. >> when you were picking a story back in the day, what did you look for in a great story? what made you -- got you fired up to write? >> let that happen to you. you're not going to force it.

let something going on -- just keep looking and stop freakin' talking when you're out. just go out and listen. keep your mouth shut and your eyes open, and keep moving. that's the main thing, i would say. >> breslin pulled no punches in his columns. he once said that rage is the only quality that's kept me or anybody i ever studied writing columns for newspapers. >> disliking people is good. [ laughter ] that helps. >> from what way? >> well, you'll write about anybody you don't like. and it's good. i think that's very good. but the ones that you like, i know you've got to take a lot of time to get to the lousiness that must be there. you've got to look for it if they are likable but that takes too long. it's much better if they are

right out front with what they are. >> and one of his most famous columns came just days after the death of president kennedy. while all of the other reporters were chasing the funeral procession, he chased another. i asked jimmy breslin to read part of that work. >> clinton pollard was pretty sure he was going to be working on sunday so when he woke up at 9:00 a.m. in his three-room apartment on cochoran street, he put on khaki overalls before going into the kitchen for breakfast. his wife netty made bacon and eggs for him. pollard was in the middle of eating when he received the phone call he had been expecting. it was from maso who was the foreman of the grave diggers at

arlington national cemetery which is where pollard works for a living. poly, could you please be here by 11:00 this morning? i guess you know what it's for. pollard hung up the phone, finished breakfast and left his apartment so he could dig a grave for john fitzgerald kennedy. >> breslin was able to write beautiful stories under punishing deadlines. such as the report on john lennon. >> what would you do when you were inspiring yourself to write a column like that on a deadline? >> fear. the clock. that's the thing. if there's a lot of time, it's good. i'll stop and talk about how great i am. have a cup of coffee or

something, you know, screwing around. but, no, every minute was precious. it was -- there's some stuff that you had to know it was important and that was it. as long as it got done quick enough, i was going to get paid for doing it that way. yeah. >> it's always for money, never for love? >> you better have the money to get home with, yeah. i don't know. you work at it. it's a life -- i mean, you're working. it's a working life. that's what it is. >> and that, ladies and gentlemen, is jimmy breslin, one of the all-time greats. and up next, we all know political pundits say things pretty crazy but now they are in for serious scrutiny. i'll explain after the break.

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if you're angry at the division and dysfunction in washington, you already know that politicians deserve plenty of blame.

but the rise of partisan media is a huge part of the problem as well. >> this president i think has exposed himself as a guy over and over and over again who has a deep-seeded hatred for white people. >> the republicans lie! they want to see you dead. they'd rather make money off your dead corpse. >> what does it say about the college coed susan fluke who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? what does that make her? it makes her a slut, right? >> you know, the intense, i had yeah logical, it's part of their business plan. they profit from polarization. there's plenty of outrage but not enough accountability. that's why i was surprised to

find out that the fact checkers are branching out to create pundit checks. as well as individual donors, like the founder of craigslist, set to officially launch in november, it will check the business meter where there is a need to help cut through the spin and establish the facts. take the current debate over the seriously screwed up implementation of healthcare.gov. sean hannity said in 40 out of 50 states, on average men are seeing their premiums double going up 99%. women up 62%. with all of those statics, it sure can sound credible but it was found to be mostly false. over at msnbc, lawrence o'donnell raised some eyebrows

when he said that the irs will -- the irs has specifically been forbidden from ever actually pursing either civil or criminal remedies for people who don't purchase health insurance. well, it turns out that that statement is mostly true. finally, let's look at a statement from ann coulter saying that no doctors who went to an american medical school will be accepting obama care. the truth-o-meter rated it as pants on fire. it's no accident that trust in the media is on the decline at precisely the same time that partisan media has gained outside influence. the independents of the news business has been compromised and we need to push back to earn that trust back. everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts. that's it for this edition of

"reliable sources." if you missed this program, find us on itunes or on our blog. tweet us. joins next sunday morning at 11:00 a.m. "state of the union" with candy crowley starts right now. can you hear me now? today looks like the u.s. has been phone tapping allies. >> what? it would not be sufficient to change if necessary. >> the age of edward snowden brings sunlight to deep secrets, positively awkward and dangerous. a conversation with mike rogers. then, control/alt/delete. >> tell us what is wrong. fix it or do something else. >> the computer reboot, you and your doctor.