15 thsds anniversary this month. if you have any latvian lats convert them soon. the eurozone encompasses now 333 million people. latvia added 2 million to that total. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. roger ailes has been called many things, a genius, political hack, paranoid. president obama once called him the most powerful man in the world. you might call the chairman of fox news nervous. nervous thanks to the brand new book "the loudests voice in the room" how roger built fox news and divided a country. author gabriel sherman is here today for his first in-depth interview. time to look at this week's chris christie's media circus in new jersey and an update on the case of three reporters from al jazeera being imprisoned in egypt. i'm brian stelter and as time

for "reliable sources.". good morning. welcome to washington. there is nothing on television like the fox news channel and there is no one in television like roger ailes, the 73-year-old republican strategist and television producer who has been in charge of the channel since it launched in 1996. to many on the right, he is a hero. to many on the left, a villain. the book "the loudest voice in the room" by guy he brie yell sherman has been in the works for three years and highly anticipated in the media business and this tuesday it's on sale. now ailes did not cooperate with sherman, but hundreds of other people including ailes' older brother robert did. let me read you one of the key passages from the book. roger ailes has the power more than any other single person in american public life to define the president. for many americans, admittedly and patently not the ones that

voted for him, the obama they know, the one they are raging against, is the one that ailes has played a large role creating. sherman joins me now here in the studio and gabe, thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> a lot of people have heard this notion ailes is the most powerful man in media but we hear that quote and you describing him as someone that can get inside our heads. what led you to those conclusions? >> brian, this as you mentioned was three years in the making. i talked to more than 600 people to provide this account. it is exhaustive. what i learned and changed my mind, this process changed me, i've been covering media for a decade as you've been covering media and fox is a dominant cable news network but what i learned is that romger ailes has created a political operation that employs journalists. and i'll tell you, it exists for two reasons. to generate as much profit as possible for its corporate parent rupert murdoch and advance the personal, political agenda of its founder roger ailes. >> it's a news channel but also

a political machine. >> i'm saying it's a political machine that employs journalists. >> is it a news channel at all in your mind? >> that's for other people to decide. >> what about shepherd smith? >> there are great reporters, brett baer, hosts a very well-regarded news show, but roger ailes is smart enough to know if you're going to give the audience red meat to advance your agenda you have to give them some nutrition. >> i want to before we go further talk about the fact that cnn is a direct competitor to fox news. >> of course. >> and also talk about an interesting back and forth that happened this week among roger ailes and the head of this network jeff zucker. >> of course. >> i was at a press conference in pasadena, california, when jeff zucker was asked about fox. this started because the "hollywood reporter" had an interview with ailes asked about cnn, his views of the cable news landscape. made a comment criticizing cnn for running documentaries and zucker at this press conference shot back. he said that comment was a way to deflect attention from your

book. he said your book confirms that the republican party is being run out of news corporation headquarters masquerading as a cable news channel. zishg said he had not read the book yet, only the excerpts on-line. the book won't be available for a couple more days. do you think that description from the president of this network is fair? >> well, look, i think zucker would call for ailes' ratings. every executive in tv would. i think i would put it a little differently. roger ailes with fox news has surpassed the gop and what i found fascinating after all of my reporting is that this is a vision that roger ailes had more than 40 years ago. he gave an interview which i quote in the book where he said that he envisioned a day where television would one day surpass the political party as a mass organizers of the 20th century after he helped richard nixon get elected president in 1968 and he saw a day where television was going to move ahead of the political parties. with fox news he has achieved

it. inside fox news roger ailes has disdain for the gop. he once said to his executives last year, that the gop could not organize a one car funeral and the reality is with fox news, roger ailes has his hands on the wheel and the gop is just going along for the ride. >> and you're saying that you did not start this book with that belief. >> no. >> this only comes out of the reporting. >> i've been covering media for a decade and i went into this knowing ailes has created a phenomenon, fox news the most talked about in the country and i wanted to explore the secretive world and i went in and it took exhaustive amounts of reporting. i came away with an incredibly different idea. it was a testament to ailes' geni genius he has been able to keep the true nature of the fox news secret from the american people 17 years and that's a testament to his genius as a political communicator and the power of his network. >> i want to go in detail about how you reported this book, the process, why so many of the sources are anonymous. a comment from fox before we go

further. they say aside from mr. sherman never interviewing the main suspect of his book, he and your publisher random house refused to submit fact checking questions to fox news prior to the book's publication. what do you make of that charge? were you able to fact check with fox or others? >> this book was rigorously fact checked. i had a team of two. i reached out to roger ailes more than a dozen times in writing and in person to have him participate in the fact checking. ultimately roger ailes and fox news declined to participate in the fact checking. >> what i was most struck by when i read through the book in the last few days, all of the comments about president obama. and this suggestion there's real hostility between roger ailes and the president. not that the president feels that way about ailes but ailes feels that way about him. a few comments from a former senior fox producer. anonymous quote. he honestly thinks obama has set back the country forever.

he feels he is the only one out there that can save the republic. he has said it. implies in meetings. >> >> in meetings. >> three quotes you attribute to ailes. before the president was elected when just announcing his campaign quoted as saying people need to be reminded this guy never had a job. he's a community organizer. after elected the first time ailes quoted as saying there's no reason to have a civil rights movement anymore since there is a black man in the white house. the third quarter was this one. says one executive recalled ailes saying, quote, they hate america. they hate capitalism. another recalled he would say, beat the blank out of them. is this a day-to-day theme that you heard about within the halls of fox that every day, roger ailes would talk this way? >> i think brian, one of the major revelations in this book and the thing that really surprised me and will surprise your viewers and readers in my book, roger ailes is more extreme than glen beck. >> because some of these quotes

sound like things that glen beck had said on air. for example, when glen beck said something to the effect of president obama has a deep seated hatred for white people you say ailes agreed with that. >> i didn't say that. sources inside the meetings who heard from ailes said after that controversy erupted ailes agreed with beck. >> what makes you think he's more extreme than glen beck. >> roger ailes, one thing that makes him a genius, he obscures his true agenda. glen beck is transparent. a story in my book, a revelation for the first time, roger ailes had a conversation only months ago in which he told a politician that if he were president, he had the solution to the immigration problem. and roger ailes' solution would be to send navy s.e.a.l. trainees to our southern border and have them find illegal immigrants crossing into the united states and he would give them direct orders to shoot and kill anyone coming into our country. and this is from an anonymous source in this case or on the record source. >> on the record source that related this conversation, based

on contemporaneous notes of this conversation that took place. roger ailes said to have s.e.a.l.s. earn their certification he wanted them to have to bring home a dead body. >> let me play devil's advocate. ailes is a republicanp. everybody knows that. conservative. everybody knows that. we could find other conservatives that would express certain points of view. many years ago you quote him in the book saying about his relationship with steve forbes, one of many republicans he advised what i do in my private life is my business period. does it matter what his personal views are about say president obama or about illegal immigrants? >> of course it matters. i'll tell you why. i went into this process trying to write a book about fox news, wanting to write a book about fox news. i realized early on into my reporting that the story is not fox news. the story is roger ailes. the network is a complete expression of his world view. roger ailes -- >> the roger ailes' channel. >> yes. roger ailes said you know what, i built this network from my life experience and it's true.

in the 8:00 a.m. meeting and in the regular meetings with his executives he monologues about his experience with post-war history and they absorb his world view and everything flows from roger ailes and radiates through that organization. you cannot write about fox news and it does matter what his views are because it ends up on the screen in various forms. >> you know, i think about people who write books come in with lots of goals sometimes. what are you trying to accomplish? i one ker if people are going to look at this, if they don't like fox they are going to dislike fox more. are you going to change minds. >> the number one thing was my mind was changed. i went in to understand this is a phenomenon that has changed american culture and understand how he built -- >> you do have some respect for him. >> incredible amounts. >> incredible amounts of respect. i likened roger ailes one time to steve jobs who both are american icons. steve apple was a complete expression of steve jobs' world

view and that's why he was successful. fox news, very different product, but is a complete expression of his vision and he is able to marshal thousands of people in -- to execute his vision and that takes tremendous talent. >> neither man very often talks to the press. >> steve jobs was very reluctant. >> exactly. >> both, you know, both demonstrate they haves this sort of me versus the world idea and that's why the organizations were very successful. >> gabe, stay with me. a lot more questions. i want to get into the process of the book and talk about what it's like to write a book about roger ailes. what kind of, you know, responses did gabe get. we'll talk about that in a moment. [ male announcer ] this is kevin. to prove to you that aleve is the better choice for him, he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪

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in a little dorm room -- 2713. ♪ this magic moment ♪ . welcome back. i'm talking with gabriel sherman author of "the loudest voice in the room." the book comes out on tuesday. i want to read a question from a viewer that came in. what was the most surprisingly positive story about roger ailes? >> brian, i think one of the

keys to fox's success is the loyalty that ailes inspires in his talent, his producers. they go to war for him. a great story in the book i tell when he left nbc in 1996 to go work for rupert murdoch. 82 employees followed him out the door and he told nbc executive in a phone call because they were furious he was poefrping people, he said, i'm not poaching people. it's a jailbreak. he freed -- he looked that he was freeing these people from the tyranny of nbc. they love ailes. they wanted to go work for him. he is a warrior and they'll go into battle with him. that to me is a testament to he -- he is a leader like general patent. ailes loves to quote patent and to me, you know, ailes is very much a patent-esque character tough as nails but he will inspire his guys to go into battle. >> you talked like you know him so well, yet you've only interacted with him a few times. >> i tried to interview him. always said no. what were your interactions like and what does that tell us about

him? >> i feel like i've lived with roger ailes for three years. i've been vest deep into the story. on the occasions i've met him they have been fascinating revealing interactions. very combattive. i had one combative conversation with him which i detail in the book which he accused me of being harasser. he said he was personally upholding the first amendment. he told me it was because of him i'm allowed to write my book. the other encounter i had with him here in washington at the kennedy center his bodyguard pushed me out of the way. to me these interactions although they were, you know -- >> sound brief. >> they were -- yeah, they were brief but revealing. that's the thing, brief but very revealing of his view of journalism, of how his desire to control his story. this is a man that has been controlling the story of his republican political clients and now the news agenda. it would make sense that the number one story he wants to control most is his own. >> if we google your name we're going to see charges you're a left leaning journalist, a

liberal, out to get roger ailes. some of those charges have been made by fox news talent. what's your reaction to this campaign ha you've seen happen while you were writing the book? >> listen, brian, i'm a reporter. so politics doesn't enter into it. what it tells me -- >> you must have certain personal points of view. >> i approach this as a story. i've covered "the new york times," "the wall street journal" i've covered "the washington post" aggressively. i'm a media reporter. you want to go to where the heat is. in media, the biggest story is fox news. i consider roger ailes to be the biggest media story of the last 50 years in american culture. he is an icon. he will go down, i hope, in history, as someone on the level of william randolph hearst. he is an american legend. that's why i was so compelled to write this book. it's the biggest story on our beat. >> another charge you'll see on-line, it seems to have merit to me, is the new america foundation gave you a fellowship a couple years ago, backed by a number of liberal causes and groups and donors. what's -- what do we make of that connection to the book?

>> listen, number one, that's an effort to distract from the book. the book is coming out -- >> that is what you think. >> readers can read the book. to that point new america is a nonpartisan think tank receive funding from a variety of sources. roger ailes' own hand picked biographer for many years, almost ten years, was a fellow at the new america foundation, it's clearly a transparent effort to distract from the book. i would let readers read the book and decide. >> it says fox's war against ailes' biographer, do you sense you're at war here. >> this story is a lot of heat. fox talent has attacked me. sean hannity, karl rove, andrea. there's an been an on-line campaign to malign me as a reporter. that shows i'm getting deeper into the story. to my earlier point roger ailes runs a political organization, employ journalism do some journalism but at its heart the dna to understand fox you have to understand it is a political organization. >> i should say we've tried to have him on the show or anyone from fox this week and fox

declined. so far he haven't said a lot publicly about the book other than what we read earlier. do you expect more to come, to be smeared by someone about the book? >> listen, if past is pro log, there's been intense interesting in this book in the run up. i've been at work for this like i said three years. now it's coming out tuesday i expect -- i expect there to be a lot of interest because roger ailes is the biggest story in american politics and media over the last 50 years. >> i want to get into what it's like to try to research someone like this. if he is who you're saying he is it must have been hard to get people to talk to you. how did you convince people inside fox to talk? >> i'll say it was heroing. you know, when you get deep into the story you realize that this story is much darker than anyone realizes. i quote in the book from documents, from nbc, in 1995, ailes was engaged in a fierce power struggle for control of the nbc cable unit. at the time roger ailes was the president cnbc and ran a network

called america is talking and these executives who battled with ailes, the things they said were chilling. in a letter to bob wright, andy friendly, who is a prime time executive at cnbc, son of legendary cbs executive fred friendly, he said, that roger ailes pressured him and his colleagues to lie to the press and that fred friendly feared for his safety and in one conversation roger ailes, quote, said he would blow his brains out. david, another top nbc executive, currently the head of the ceo of discovery communications, highest paid media executive in america, certainly no wilting flower himself, he wrote in a letter to nbc hr, which i quote from in the book, that he feared for his family's safety. that roger ailes -- >> ailes used a slur, anti-sem met tick slur against him, ailes denies it, and he also denied it. why would both men deny it if it was written down in legal documents. >> i detail this episode in

granular detail based on documents. david confirmed this in documents at the time. there was an agreement -- >> why would he say now it's not true? >> an agreement both men signed to settle their dispute with nbc. there are provisions they're not allowed to talk about in the future. the fact that 17 or 18 going on 20 years later they're changing their story, doesn't change the fact that i have seen the documents from real time in which david zaz laugh confirms it. i will say roger ailes in real time denied it. ailes' lawyer who represented him in the time i interviewed him denied it. readers can make that judgment for themselves. but the fact that they've changed their story years later, i think readers should focus on what was happening in 1995. >> an interesting detail i was surprised by in the book. you say at one point that ailes set up an anonmuss blog called the cable game to take shots at his rivals. seems he has been focused on his public image even behind the scenes. >> i want to talk about a couple things here. first of all, secrecy is

paramount to understanding ailes. a chapter that goes back to his time in the mike douglas show where he talked to a colleague and said, you can have your back against the wall, and you can talk your way out of anything and that to me was a revealing moment and it was when ailes was in his late 20s many years ago because dodging and weaving and always having maximum options has been ailes' strategy. so using secret blogs to push his message out there. another thing he does which was fascinating to me, is he has a secret e-mail address that he e-mails fox talent and producers when he wants to push his right wing messages. >> why would he need a secret address? >> the official roger ailes address is for official company wide communication. he wants plausible deniability so when he wants to push something on to the channel he sends it from a fake e-mail address, it's the name of his maternal grandfather so if it leaks he can say that's not me. it's plausible. i think that's fascinating his

mind works at these deep levels with always being able to achieve his ends remaining behind the scenes. he is the quintessential man behind the curtain and this book for the first time goes behind the scenes, got all the insiders to talk, pulls back that curtain and we can see once and for all who roger ailes is, and what fox news is. >> you say you have all these insiders but so many of the quotes are anonymous. tell us why they have to be anonymous and readers should trust you these quotes are real. >> exactly. two things. first of all, many sources are on the record and as you mentioned at the top of your show including roger's brother but to the anonymous sources you cannot write this book without using anonymous sources. i did use anonymous sources -- >> why is that. >> roger ailes as his closest confidants have told me is more nixonian than richard nixon. i was fascinated to learn this, onest of the most powerful people inside fox news is his executive assistant a woman named judy.

she sits in an every major meeting, attends every major meeting and sits there taking notes. when roger ailes says something explosive, what one executive said to me, what one producer said was that roger ailes, judy will roll her eyes, first thing she'll do is roll her eyes. >> dismiss it as a joke. second thing, she's going to write down what roger said and then the third thing she's going to do is take notes of every person who is in that room. so if that -- >> you think that's an attempt of intimidation. >> i know it is. my sources it tell me. so when ailes says something explosive, if it leak, he has a record of everyone who was in that room to go sfwinterrogate. that shows the degree to which he has been able to control this organization. i had one senior person tell me they made a joke at a cocktail party once after they had left the building like i'm -- i should write a book about fox one day. within 24 hours, that person got a menacing phone call from a senior fox executive saying we hear you're thinking of writing

a book about us and he had to furiously back pedal because it was a joke. that's the fear that emanates from this building. >> does sound like you're describing a villain and if you worry about sounding unfair to this man who has built this incredibly valuable enterprise. >> i'm a reporter describing a character, a subject that i have intensely reported on for three years. you know, roger ailes' story is an amazing american story of power. he rose from modest means from a factory town in warren, ohio. grew up middle class. rose to the highest corridors of power in american culture. that's an amazing story. whether people think he's a hero or villain i want them to read the book and come to that conclusion. what i think he is is a fascinating and powerful subject. he's an american original. >> gabe, thank you for being here and sharing your reporting with us. i'm sure we'll hear more about it this week and you'll be talking about it for weeks to come. >> thanks for having me, brian. >> there's so much to talk about as you can imagine. the influence of media on politics and the proliferation

of roger ailes' style outrage on television. two other authors have been listening and they'll join me with their reactions, next. what you wear to bed is your business. so, if you're sleeping in your contact lenses, ask about the air optix® contacts so breathable they're approved for up to 30 nights of continuous wear. serious eye problems may occur. ask your doctor and visit airoptix.com for safety information and a free one-month trial. yeah... try new alka seltzer fruit chews. they work fast on heartburn and taste awesome. these are good. told ya! i'm feeling better already. [ male announcer ] new alka seltzer fruits chews. enjoy the relief! smoke? nah, i'm good. [ male announcer ] celebrate every win with nicoderm cq, the unique patch with time release smartcontrol technology that helps prevent the urge to smoke all day long. help prevent your cravings with nicoderm cq.

welcome back to "reliable sources." you know those were some pretty strong accusations from gabriel sherman. fox news is a prime example of what my next two guests call the

outrage industry. they wrote a book by that name the subtitle "the outrage industry: political opinion media and the new incivility." jeff re ber-- jeffrey berry and sarah sobieraj. thanks for joining me. >> thank you. >> thanks. >> jeffrey start with you, what was your reaction to what gabe was saying about fox news? >> sounds like an interesting book and one that's well researched but i have a fundamental disagreement with his perspective on fox. fox would continue to do the same thing. fox is the most profitable part of its parent corporation 21st century pox. it makes more profits than any other part of the business and this is not a very inknow vative business. they follow a template, talk radio, on the blogs, and on fox and msnbc it's all the same. they're going to continue to do the same whether ailes is there or not. >> sarah, your book, you co-wro co-wrote, it argues this industry has grown because it is

profitable. is that something you see changing any time soon? >> no. i think what happened is that there was an earlier era when there were few options in the media. as a viewer you had the major networks and far fewer options in terms of radio. there was no internet. now when we have endless cable stations and expanding options, seemingly daily on-line and on radio, different forms of radio, what makes more sense now is to try to reach people through niche markets. they're looking for views that are maybe unique, perhaps objectionable, something that would not have been used before. we see media landscape that's growing, not shrinking. i don't think there's any reason to think reaching out to slivers of the public is going to be less successful from a business standpoint. >> not just cable news or fox news, one of the revelations in the book is that roger ailes tried a few years ago to get rush limbaugh to come back to television, and do a show on fox. rush limbaugh declined.

talk radio as you're describing as cable news, is it not? >> talk radio is the biggest part of the industry in terms of audience size. rush limbaugh by himself has 15 million listeners a week. talk radio dwarfs msnbc and fox on the tv side. >> and it gives a good example of the expansion because in the last -- in a 15 year span the number of talk radio all news, all talk station, tripled in the u.s. so that's an area that's growing as music dwindled. >> and those stations are predominantly conservative. your research from what i've read suggests that conservative media outrage has been more successful than liberal media outrage, there are many examples of both. why do you think that is? >> well, part of it is, personality type. conservatives seem to find the yes, and no, black and white, this is the way it is, this is the truth, that kind from talk radio and conservatives more

than liberals who tend to be "50 shades of grey" and more tolerant. on the talk radio side there is almost no liberal talk radio. virtually all conservative, about 90%. liberals don't find it as appealing. the other part is demographic. among all liberals in the united states, a very large chunk are african-american or hispanic and there's the -- they have their own media universe and many prefer the ethnic media rather than what you hear on talk radio or on msnbc and fox. >> liberals are also much less distrustful of the mainstream conventional media. that's another factor. sort of historically we've seen that. but there's less aversion to "the new york times" or "the washington post" or a major network on the liberal side so they're consuming a broader array of media generally speaking. >> sort of an addiction here, something that can be done to break this addiction to outrage?

>> i think the addiction is an addiction on the part of the producers who are gaining a lot of profits from this. >> oh, you know, we love to blame the producers. >> i think if you were to see -- it's incredibly profitable that production costs are low and audiences are high and it does well. when msnbc shifted from a more neutral political standpoint to being overtly left and adopted the lean forward strategy, their ratings improved significantly. all right. so it is, in fact, profitable. so i think that's a big part of the addiction. the audience does also enjoy it. the numbers are great. and fans seem to really appreciate a place to tune in where they find their views validated, where they feel reassured in a climate where in our day-to-day lives we don't feel comfortable talking about politics much. >> i think that's a crucial word you used, the word fans. professor jeffery berry and sarah sobieraj, thanks for being here. i appreciate it. >> thanks for having us. >> thanks, brian.

>> and remember i'm always interested in what you think of the show. this has been a busy one so far. look me up on facebook and twitter. my user name is brian stelter. the scandal you could not escape this week. chris christie facing the media over a bridge controversy. was it a game changer in the way the national press covers the new jersey governor? no matter how busy your morning you can always do something better for yourself. and better is so easy with benefiber. fiber that's taste-free, grit-free and dissolves completely. so you can feel free to add it to anything.

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welcome back to "reliable sources." i'm brian stelter. when fuse broke of a political scandal surrounding governor

chris christie and a few closed lanes on the george washington bridge christie went into damage control mode and the national media had a unique opportunity to join local new york and new jersey reporters at a marathon nearly two-hour press confere e conference. the governor turned contrite and humble. described by some as a media darling called local and national reporters by their first names. no small feat for a governor of a history of bullying reporters once in a while. how will he fair with reporters going forward? joining me michael crowley, deputy washington bureau chief of "time" magazine and time's cover story about chris christie the boss known as the master of disaster. your cover story about a year ago. one of many that we've seen of governor chris christie. how would you describe the press's treatment of him up until this scandal this week. >> i think he's had very good treatment and i think there's been a little bit of a chris christie bubble in the media.

he's benefited from some really for him wonderful political dynamics. his response to hurricane sandy as a matter of pure political theater was perfect and in a way it was like a miniature version of rudy giuliani after 9/11 and people in his state lufbds it. i think it was appropriate for the press to say he did a really good job because he was rewarded and had a smashing re-election victory. there are other factors we can get into. >> if you watched msnbc this week they would say until this week christie has been the darling of the beltway media. do you think that's true at all? >> i think it's fair to say he's gotten favorable press. in addition to the things i've mentioned he has other qualities that the national media maybe will say the beltway media loves. one is, this at least veneer of authenticity, straight, blunt talk. it was crucial it to the rise of john mccain many years ago. this sense he's telling it like

it is. his critics will say that's phony and stylistic but i think that's part of it. the other thing is he does sometimes unexpected political things like when he sort of chummy with president obama late in the election campaign in 2012, after hurricane sandy, he was infuriating a lot of republicans and let's face it, there's no denying nat media loves it when a politician kind of breaks ranks with their party and there's bipartisanship and a man bites dog story like that. i think he's benefited from that. i think now the table is turning a little bit. little blood in the water and may be a sense on the part of some reporters they need to overcompensation. >> i was struck how he was calling on so many reporters by their first names. let's roll the clip of that. >> david, kelly, michael, angie, marcia, john, beck, charlie, melissa, terry, phil, bob, matt, ryan, david, michael, josh, elise, melissa, luke, john, luke, david, kelly, marcia,

david, matt, matt. >> it makes him seem like a nice guy and out of the cozy relationship to reporters. >> my sense is that in new jersey, he has a pretty good relationship with the local beat reporters in particular. an interesting essay in politico your viewers can look up by a guy that's covered him a while who talks about profane, dishy, off the record sessions with christie over beers. a little tenser with the national media. he can be weary of reporters who want to parachute in and write about him and disappear. i think he's appropriately a little more guarded about people he doesn't know. and i do think that if he should run for president, the dynamic would be very different, very quickly. the stakes are so much higher and reporters have a much lower incentive not to burn someone on that national stage as opposed to a statehouse beat reporter. >> the cover of the new yorker we'll see tomorrow, christie playing in traffic, one of so many examples of the criticism that we're seeing, the satire we're seeing, and because this is on newsstands this week,

a lot more like these. what do you see in the coming week on the bridge scandal story? >> it's hard to say where the bridge scandal story goes now. a lot of these e-mails were dumped out yesterday. people are trying to figure the what they mean and amount to. looks like there's going to be more public testimony, subpoenas, investigations and, you know, the big question is, will this lead us -- will there be any evidence christie knew what was going on and then the story really blows up on to a new level. it's possible it kind of peters out and we see a lot of embarrassing e-mails among state function naries. something people need to keep in mind is the bridge scandal comes at a moment when there had been other negative stories about christie bubbling up. the book "double down" talks about that opposition research file that romney campaign had that went through a bunch of things in christie's past allegedly that don't look good. i'm sure reporters are chasing that. >> cooperate fully with the people that were vetting him, right? >> yeah. that was one of the big red flags apparently for senior

romney people he didn't answer some of their questions. they felt he wasn't being forthright. a bunch of items in that list that had nothing to do with this bridge scandal. "the new york times" had a wonderful report several weeks ago that had many other instances of alleged retribution, many were on a smaller scale. i think one politician who had maybe a foreign politician had his security stripped allegedly by christie's office. he had some security guards. he enjoyed as a perk. they took it away because he had done something christie didn't like. i think there's now, again, not just this one story but a growing sense that boy, there might be a lot to this guy and the press, i wonder, i wonder if the press may be thinking we spent a lot of time talking about how funny he is and blunt and straight talking but maybe time to dig more. >> pretty easy story for the press to cover. new jersey so close to washington and new york, the resources are here, they can be there in a few hours. another reason why this story got so much coverage this week. easy live shots of the george washington bridge and things like that. >> for your viewers tuning in curious about how the sausage

gets made it's one of those facts of life. i really think that in the new york media market, there's a geographical proximity factor. >> yeah. >> what politicians do they get on their local news every night who is at the front of their consciousness probably helped to build the guy up in the first place, now may be part of the hits he's taking now and may continue to take. so it's a good news/bad news situation for him. >> michael, thanks for taking time to be with us here. >> thanks for having me. >> after the break we'll turn our focus to the middle east for the latest on a disturbing story you should know about. three reporters who are being treated like criminalses. back in a moment. is the better choice for him,e he's agreed to give it up. that's today? [ male announcer ] we'll be with him all day as he goes back to taking tylenol. i was okay, but after lunch my knee started to hurt again. and now i've got to take more pills. ♪ yup. another pill stop. can i get my aleve back yet? ♪ for my pain, i want my aleve. ♪

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welcome back. turning overseas to a story with serious implications for reporters around the world. this morning three journalists who work for the al jazeera news network are held in egypt. they've been there since december. this week egyptian prosecutors announced they would be keeping correspondent peter greste, producer mohamed fahmy and producer baher mohamed in custody for an additional 15 days. the journalists are accused of having ties to the muslim brotherhood. al jazeera has publicly condemned the arrests calling for their team's immediate release. with me now to discuss the latest developments in new york, shareef mun sour, middle east and african coordinator and in manchester, england, bernard smith, the cutter based

correspondent for al jazeera english. let me start with you on this, what are your colleagues accused of having done and what is al jazeera's response to what seemed like some pretty dramatic allegations? >> well, essentially these three colleagues of mine were journalist doing a journalist's job just journalist journalists peter has been there covering over the christmas period, mohammad had been there for all last year. they were picked up in the middle of the night at the end of december, from a hotel in cairo. they haven't been charged with anything yet. they have been detained and they have been periodically interrogated by the prosecutors, some of the allegations are that we edited stories in a way that made them sympathetic to the

muslim brotherhood and in ways that suggested that egypt was on fire. >> it sounds like they're taking al jazeera and turning it into part of the political debate and what's going on in the country right now? >> it's well known that egypt has an ax to grind, and there are issues between those two governments. but al jazeera operates independently of cater, but unfortunately, because of our guys were the only physical presence of al jazeera in cairo, it seems they have decided to pick them up. >> you spent a lot of time in cairo, have you ever experienced anything like this yourself on the ground there? >> last summer in the crackdown on those protests in cairo, it

was a very fee bril atmosphere. foreign journalists were against the military backed interim government. they were saying that egypt was in turmoil and we weren't towing the line of the domestic media, so it was a difficult place to operate, certainly, last summer. >> has the arab bick has not had a physical presence there since last summer either. they came under scrutiny from the british -- the english channel was the only physical presence there, hence it was our guys that the egyptian

authorities picked up. >> does this bring in something broader about how the interim government is doing and how they're treating the press? >> the egyptian government had been responsible for an increased number of attacks and journalists unprecedented in the case of egypt, and i'm talking not since mubarak, 1982. six journalists being killed throughout the year, including three in one day. egypt was also for the first time among the top ten most dangerous for journalists this year. coupled with other detentions and intimidations and public attacks against journalists, you can see that the government is serious about anyone who's critical or independent in

egypt, including journalists who are telling a narrative that doesn't go hand in hand with the egyptian government's story for what's happening inside egypt. >> what can be done to get these men freed and to improve the climate, sharif? >> a lot of things, including public pressure, media pressure and foreign government pressure. those journalists include people who have other nationalities like the nationality in the case of family as well. what they are facing is not criminal charges, they are calling them terrorists, they are linking them with the muslim brotherhood as a charge for something they do as their own work as journalists. so on the government side will have to keep interrogating them, holding them without charges or not. and of course anything like this

that we do will also be useful for the case. one of those journalists is denied medical attention right now and he has a presustained injury in his shoulder, he has not seen his family other than once, briefly and he hasn't had a chance to have legal representation. all these are immediate steps that can be taken even while in custody to improve their situation. >> any news today on their condition? how often are you getting updates? >> we know that peter is well and is being well treated. mohammad is in a different prison, but we just want the egyptian authorities to release them as soon as possible, they were just journalists the way

that all other journalists who are trying to report both sides of the story. we're going end the program today on a much lighter note that changed one family's life. here it is, but i went long with author gabriel sherman. hey kevin...still eating chalk for heartburn? yeah... try new alka seltzer fruit chews. they work fast on heartburn and taste awesome.

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well, that's all for this televised edition of "reliable sources." we have a story about television broadcasters lawsuit against arrow.

i look at the record ratings for the pbs drama "downtown abby." and a very big deal for the women's website pop sugar. it's getting on to tv in a deal with the tv guide network starting tomorrow. you can see that and a whole lot more on the "reliable sources" blog. we'll see you sunday at 11:00 a.m. eastern. state of the union with candy crowley begins right now. a leading presidential possibility trips on a bridge, and iraq may be slipping away. today, how did he do? >> i'm heartbroken about it and i'm incredibly disappointed. >> another potential 2016-er, governor martin o'malley, gives us his read on the