although the air strikes had been going on for weeks, the allied ground assault began on february 24th, 1991, the cease-fire was announced after just 100 hours of fighting. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. hello, i'm sciutto in new york. "reliable sources" will begin right after this check of the headlines. ukraine's prime minister said today that the country is on the brink of disaster. he said russia's latest military moves amount to a declaration of war and he called it a red alert. ukraine officials say russian troops have taken up posts at bases in crimea, a heavily russian region of ukraine. ukraine's military is now getting ready. the country's defense minister says they do not stand a chance against russian troops. moments ago on cnn, ukraine's opposition leader, vitali klitschko issued this stern warning to russia.

>> the main point right now the russians have to take away the rush yap forces from crimea. it's the main point. crimea is ukraine territory. we talk independence of ukraine. it's all military forces have to remove from ukrainen territory. >> and now these very strong words as well from u.s. secretary of state john kerry. he's calling it an invasion, quote, it is an incredible act of aggression, really a stunning willful choice by president putin to invade another country. russia is in violation of the sovereignty of ukraine, russia is in violation of its international obligations, russia is in violation, kerry says, of its obligations under the u.n. charity, helsinki act, in violation as well of its obligations under the budapest agreement. he goes on to say, secretary kerry, you don't behave in a 19th century fashion by, again

he uses this word, invading another country on completely trumped up pretexts. nato ambassadors are expected to hold an urgent meeting today on the situation in ukraine. our own erin mclaughlin is live. you have u.s. officials, secretary kerry calling this an invasion. what exactly are nato officials considering there? >> hi, jim. earlier today the nato secretary general gave a brief statement to the media in which he called on russia to deescalate tensions. take a listen to what he had to say. >> what russia is doing now in ukraine, violates the principles of the united nations charter. it threatens peace and security in europe. russia must stop its military activities and its threats.

today we will discuss their implications for european peace and security and for nato's relationship with russia. >> now there are two meetings taking place today here at nato headquarters. the first meeting, a meeting of the north atlantic council. that's the primary decision making body for nato. that meeting we understand is still under way. that will be followed by a meeting by the nato ukraine commission. that meeting taking place at the behest of ukrainian officials. the commission was formed in 1997 with the aim of strengthening military inside the ukraine as well as improving ties between kiev and western europe. now many people see the involvement of nato as inherently provocative. others saying that nato cannot afford to idly stand by and watch this unfold without at least exploring options. rasmussen in calling today's meeting -- rasmussen in calling

today's meeting, at least appearing to agree with the latter sentiment, though whether or not this removes beyond rhetoric remains to be seen. william hague moving the united kingdom beyond rhetoric and at the airport, heathrow airport, before taking off for the ukraine, he announced that the united kingdom will no longer be taking part in preparations for the g-8 summit that is scheduled for sochi in russia. jim? >> undoubtedly difficult conversations going there the brussels. reminder to our viewers military options at least at this point have been taken off the table. "reliable sources" starts in two minutes with a look at how the media is shaping the debate on gay rights issues. ♪

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oh what a relief it is it's time for "reliable sources." here's what's coming up on the

show. supreme court justice clarence thomas has not asked a question in eight years. why aren't more reporters asking questions about that. does race play a role? then when president obama is on cnn and msnbc, why does fox news have bill nye the science guy on? and watching the oscars on your phone? it may be a break-through, do movie stars look as good when they're two inches tall? we've got all of that and a lot more on the show this morning. but first, a statement and a question. we've seen a dramatic change in america's attitudes towards gay rights in the last few years. here's the question, how much has the media influenced that change. let's back up a moment and look at what happened this week. another landmark week for gay rights. the governor of arizona vetoed a bill that would have given businesses the legal grounds to deny services to gay people. in texas a federal judge struck down that state's ban on gay

marriage and in kentucky a district judge said the state must recognize gay marriages that were performed in states where they are legal. of course, these battles all across the country are far from over. look at how much has changed. republicans mitt romney, john mccain and even some fox news stars, all spoke out against the arizona bill. how much of a role did we in the media play here. look at this research conducted by the pew research center last summer around the gay marriage debate. it found that stories emphasizing support for gay marriage were five times as common as stories emphasizing opposition. so is the media coverage of this issue shaping america's changing attitudes? or is it merely reflecting those changes that are happening anyway. joining me to hash this out is ben shapiro columnist and editor at large for bright bart.com and follow mass frank the author of "what's the matter with kansas." thank you both for joining me. >> sure thing. >> thanks so much. >> tom, this cuts to the heart of what some people complained

about for decade, the idea that media is biased in the case for liberals. is that the case and what else accounts for the changing attitudes we've seen in all of the polling in recent years? >> i've always been a big doubter of the liberal bias critique, although maybe this issue is different. if you go back and look at the long history of the bias critique goes back to we know when it started, spiro agnew in 1969 basically invented this as a way of getting back at the news media of the day that was, you know, that he thought was opposing the vietnam war and that sort of thing. and it's, you know, it's gone on and on over the years and the hilarious thing is that the media is objectively much less liberal today than it was then after years and years of this stuff. but, you know, this is a very interesting question. does the media reflect or does it cause? and people debate this all the time in sociology and history, all sorts of other disciplines. i used to argue about it myself.

>> ben, where do you stand on this? do you feel that the press either responsibly or irresponsibly encourages acceptance of gay marriage and laws that encourage gay rights? >> as far as the bias of media whether it's reflective or genretive the fact it reflects l.a. and new york and generates feeling elsewhere. people tend to reflect the situations in which they live. the media is largely based in coastal large cities, liberal cities, and therefore their bias is reflective of those cities while changing the rest of the country. >> is the press in this case an enemy of religious freedom then? we saw so much criticism of this bill from reporters and from commentators and from corporate interests? >> absolutely. absolutely an opponent to religious freedom. the press believes that essentially religious individuals should be forced to abide by whatever the press's standards of morality are. you've seen people like tony cornhighser on espn suggest this law would force people gays in the state of arizona to wear

yellow stars or gays and lesbians wouldn't be able to attend nfl football games. this has nothing to do with the law as written and designated to create the perception the american people are a bunch of bigots looking to crowbar gay people in the streets. >> doesn't sound like the america i know. hyperbole is common in the presence. >> hell i deal in that stuff. that's what i do, man. can i just -- >> commentary and then the news media and those are two different things. >> can i take a step back here? i'm from kansas and my -- the thing that got me writing what's the matter with kansas when they had the debate over the theory of evolution in the state of kansas and the media all over the world went absolutely be zeshg, making fun of kansas. it's a replay of the monkey trial down in tennessee in the 1920s. it was a classic media set piece and everybody was laughing at kansas and then, you know, the local conservatives struck back saying yes, they didn't describe

what we were doing precisely to the letter. they didn't get it exactly right. they had a point. but in the grand scheme of things, the media had that story right. i think they have this one right as well. >> sorry. thomas admitted the meeting is biased and skews the story but in general they have the story right. explain how a law that doesn't mention homosexuality is about allowing restaurants to have a right that trumps federal law which this does not and how this law is going to allow restaurants to randomly throw gay people out of their businesses in a way they weren't able to before in the state of arizona? please explain that to me how that's accurate. >> it's not a law. it got vetoed. i don't know if you heard about this. >> a bill, correct. >> yeah. so i didn't read that one but i did read the bill in kansas, you know. the actual law itself, the proposal itself, the bill that got vetoed the other day and they had one in kansas and a bunch of other states, that's, you know, the really interesting thing. where did this come from? who developed it. that sort of thing.

you know, it was sort of my opinion is that it was all sort of gined up as a kind of culture war set piece to rally the troops, get something for people to feel persecuted about, get the voters worked up about the onslaught of, you know, liberals and the trial lawyers and the outside judges and that kind of thing. fen fa then falling back on liberal bias is salvage a game that's been lost basically in my opinion. >> ben, when you come on television, when you write columns, do you feel that you are being persecuted or do you feel you are being, you know, put in an uncomfortable position because everybody else seems to believe the opposite of what you believe? >> i'm happy to be a liberal. i spent my life in los angeles in cambridge, i like being in liberal areas and duking it out. no question that the media is bias to the left and no question that the media is very much in favor of government that gets to control what religious people do

with their private businesses. i mean, and do i feel persecuted in that way? let's see. if the government decides it can tell me to violate ply own religious presets because the government has a greater good it is attempting to pursue without evidence that greater good is actually a necessity, anybody who compares the plight of 2014 g gays to blacks is absurd. we still have freedom of speech and i'm happy for you to be on the air, for you to be on the air thomas. i think there are more people like you than me. >> awesome. >> you mean the press? >> that would be the craziest thing in the world. i'm always the odd man out. i mean, if you know the day -- >> yeah, right -- >> i shouldn't go down this road but i have spent my entire life having extremely unpopular views, unpopular opinions, and i agree, thank god for the freedom of the press. this is, you know, that's -- it's a wonderful thing. >> i'm actually not even, you know, on the side that you

probably think i'm on but as far as being on the defense, being from the right on a left network like cnn, of course i'm on the defensive and i go in with game planning for it. it's not the same thing as going on fox news which, obviously, leans to the right. >> tell me about how you plan for it? i'm curious. we're on the most meta show on cnn. how do you plan for it? >> well, what i do is i assume that i'm going to get a certain set of questions from folks like you, brian, i generally do get, and with all the veiled implications there in. don't you feel persecuted going on a leftist network being that i see myself as a victim. don't you feel when you come on a leftist network being attacked because, you know, you're just a little intolerant. these are the way these conversations go. i'm glad brian that you haven't done all of those things. you've done some of them. of course when i go in i would be foolish not to think about the questions i'm going to be asked before doing so. >> and, of course, i have to say cnn does strive to be nonpartisan. i understand you feel it doesn't succeed at that all the time.

at least it tries. ben and thomas, thank you both for joining me for this one. >> sure thing. >> thanks so much. >> i have to take a quick break here but i want you to think about something during the break. do you ever notice how often tv anchors say this could be another watergate? they say it a lot, right? we've called in the expert, the guy one half of the team that uncovered the real deal. carl bernstein will tell us if there is another watergate out there. back in two minutes. you can always do something mg 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. and feel better about doing it. better it with benefiber. abreva can heal a cold sore in as few as 2 1/2 days when used at the first sign. without it, the virus spreads from cell to cell. unlike other treatments, abreva penetrates deep to block the virus, to protect healthy cells so cold sores heal fast.

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welcome back to "reliable sources." let's talk about something we hear all the time on tv news programs. could this scandal be the next

watergate. it happens a lot especially with the big stories that dominate coverage on our competitor, fox, the right leaning network of choice, seems to be an obsession with benghazi. trying to count the number of times they compared it to watergate and ran out of time. they do it a lot. on the left msnbc, it's chris christie all the time. listen to hbo bill maher give rachel maddow a hard time with that. >> i have been in love with msnbc, which i am still in love with msnbc, but i tongue in cheek said i'm going to have to break up with you because you've become obsessed with another man, chris christie. >> i am obsessed with christie story unapologetically and will continue while amazing things in that story continue to happen. >> this is an actual scandal. it's not watergate. he's not the president. he's not even a guy who ever himself said he was going to be running for president. >> you heard that word, watergate. is it as big as rachel maddow

seems to think it is. i brought in the best possible to ask, one half of the team that broke watergate open, carl bernstein, now a cnn commentator. welcome. >> good to be here. >> i was curious whether you agree more with bill maher or rachel maddow. >> i'm probably in the middle for a number of reasons, not least of which is that we're dealing here with ideologically driven cable networks. and that is not about rep per toirl decisions. it's about a lack of context. the christie story is great and important story. should it be the lead every night on a real news broadcast? of course not. is rachel maddow's broadcast a news broadcast? no. it's a commentary broadcast by and large and a point of view. i think that we've got much too much ratings driven by story rather than by actual content of

the whole report over the course of a week or a month or a year, but rather, we're moving in cable news toward what story will drive the ratings on a given day and that exaggerates and makes it impossible to have a context. >> cable news was not invented during the actual watergate era. do you think if there had been cable news white have lessened the stories in people's minds? would it have heightened people's interests. >> i think history almost never works. i'm not going to go there. >> when you hear bill maher and rachel maddow use the word watergate you probably stiffen your back a little bit. >> as i said on this broadcast before, calling what happened in new jersey bridgegate is unfair to the governor of new jersey. at the same time, i think he's in a hell of a mess. that he has not been as open and forthcoming as he has claimed to be. that there's ongoing

investigations. at the same time he could open up his files the same things his lawyers are deciding to turn over to the investigations, he could open it up to the press. and also, bill maher's point about this is just about a little bridge closing is wrong. because this is about the governor of a state who was the frontrunner for the presidential nomination, just as hillary clinton is the presumed frontrunner for the presidential nomination, and should be scrutinized and weight happened here is, that the allegations here are about the governor of a state and those closest to him putting people's lives in danger. people who had the ambulances, people's livelihoods, this kind of use for vengeance of a governor's office is a big story and ought to be. it is not some kind of minor

prank. >> we did hear him criticize the media again this week let's play the tape of governor christie speaking about that. >> you folks are the only people at the moment who are asking me about this. i've been to two town hall meetings in the last two weeks and there hasn't been one question on this. i will be dammed if i let any of this stuff get in the way of doing my real job. >> the governor there is implying the public doesn't care about this. only the press does. >> either the governor is being totally disingenuous or worse, totally out of touch with his constituents. i was in monthchair, new jersey, the other night and that's all people there wanted to talk about, what's happening with chris christie and the bridge. look, trying to make the conduct of the press the issue, is an old tactic, it's not going to work here. the problem is the conduct of the people around the governor and perhaps the governor himself. >> continuing to see more of these -- >> we'll find out what the answers are going to be.

>> seeing more of these dribs and drabs, not huge developments but dribs and drabs. new text messages from the governor's aides making jokes about causing traffic problems outside a rabbi's house and all flights to tel aviv being delayed it's just a joke but does speak to a pattern of behavior, doesn't it? >> it isn't a joke. there's no question about the awful aura of governor christie's office and the way his aides operated. that's a matter of fact. it's not a matter of opinion at this point. they're despicable in the way any they acted. >> despicable, that's a strong word. >> they are in the way they acted and talk and have talked. the question is, what does that have to do with governor christie? why did he allow people like this to work for him and were they authorized to do the things they did and when did he learn about what was done? those are the questions he hasn't produced satisfactory

answers yet. but at the same time, he deserves fairness in the media and he deserves fairness in the prosecutorial inquiry and we'll see where this story goes. we don't know the answers yet. it does not make people in the media happy to say we don't -- do not know the answers yet. we ought to be saying that a lot more in our coverage of all kinds of things. >> one of the most honest things we can say is that we don't know. >> exactly. come on. we don't have crystal balls and we also don't do enough reporting. so this is a story -- there has been good reporting on the story by the local newspapers, weeklies as well as dailies in northern new jersey and that actually is what rachel maddow has been basing a lot of her commentary on the stories produced by local media. >> one thing you can tell, what are the signs that a scandal is something a politician can't recover from?

what signs do you look for? >> i tell you -- >> i'm not i'm not very good on how the citizenry responds to, quote, scandals. what happened in watergate is that as evidence became more and more undeniable that richard nixon had really presided over a criminal presidency and that it not only was about watergate but it was about a basic unconstitutional means of behavior, vengeance at his enemies, ordering break ins, fire bombings, saying terrible things on his tape recordings, as it became apparent to republicans that his conduct was indefensible, then this started to move and change and citizens along with it. to what extent i can tell how things work, that's part of the process. we've got a new equation, though, in our politics today that's very disturbing.

and that is that more and more people are not open in this country to the best obtainable version of the truth. which really is what reporting is about, what good journalism is about, and instead -- >> do you mean close themselves off? >> let me finish. instead they're looking to cable news, looking to the web, to find information that girds and that supports their already preconserved notions and ideologies and prejudices. that's different than at the time of watergate. many more people i believe were open to the best obtainable version of the truth then and we now have a kind of a two-way process in which we have these media outlets on-line, in cable news, feeding these prejudices, feeding these ideologies, without interest in truth and we don't know the extent to which the citizens are responsible, the media is responsible, and the political system is responsible, but they're all

irresponsible in this unwillingness to make truth and truth is hard to determine, but to make the best obtainable version of the truth the object of what they're doing. >> carl, thank you so much for being here. >> good to be here. >> time for a quick break. when i come back, a supreme court controversy. some call it an outrage. is justice clarence thomas doing his job? you'll want to hear this. don't go away. here's a word you should keep in mind "unbiased". some brokerage firms are but way too many aren't. why? because selling their funds makes them more money. which makes you wonder. isn't that a conflict? search "proprietary mutual funds". yikes!! then go to e*trade. we've got over 8,000 mutual funds and not one of them has our name on it. we're in the business of finding the right investments for you. e*trade. less for us, more for you. the fund's prospectus contains its investment objectives, risks, charges, expenses and other important information and should be read and considered carefully before investing. for a current prospectus visit www.etrade.com/mutualfunds. this is the first power plant in the country to combine solar and natural gas at the same location.

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for when you get married, move into a new house, or add a car to your policy. personalized coverage and savings. all the things humans need to make our world a little less imperfect. call... and ask about all the ways you could save. liberty mutual insurance. responsibility. what's your policy? welcome back to "reliable sources." supreme court justice clarence thomas is an embarrassment and demeans the court, those strong words from cnn's senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin. he writes for the nos"the new magazine and his piece about this. it has been exactly eight years since clarence thomas last posed a question during oral arguments. the other eight justices ask questions all the time of the lawyers presenting their cases to the court. it's how they figure out what

the holes in the legal argument might be. according to jeffs this means thomas is tuned out. why do we hear so little about this in the press. joining me is jeffrey toobin and here in new york, jamal greene, professor at columbia law school. jeff, let me start with you, why do you think we don't hear more in the press from reporters other than you about this lack of questioning from clarence tom mass? >> i think the people who cover the court take it for granted and it is true that justice thomas, he votes like the other justices, he writes opinions in the way the other justices do, he writes the same number give or take, and the oral argument is certainly not the most important part of being a supreme court justice but it is an important part and to me not asking questions nfor eight years is a dereliction of his job. >> in your column you called it a disgrace. >> well because the only public thing that supreme court

justices do other than render their opinions is hear argument and, you know, there's a reason why the phrase "your day in court" resonates for so many of us because, you know, when you're in court, you expect that the judge will hear you out, the judge will engage with your lawyer, and if you think about nine justices behaving the way thomas does, if you had nine justices who never asked questions, people would be outraged. i think the fact that thomas doesn't do it is something worthy of comment and that's why i talk about it. >> jamal, do you agree if all nine acted this way it would be news worthy but not in this case? >> well, i think it would be newsworthy if all nine acted this way. that's in some ways exactly the point. is you've got 30 minutes to make oral argument at the court for each side gets about 30 minutes and you've got eight other justices who are very active asking questions who are, in fact, in some ways asking too many questions, the lawyers can

barely get a word in. i think there's something defensible about one of the justices simply saying look, i'm going to listen to what hear what the lawyers have to say. >> this is always a sensitive thing to bring up but i wonder, do you think this has anything to do with the fact he's the only african-american on the supreme court? is that -- this some element of political correctness that leads this not to be talked about? when i read jeff's new yorker piece i was shocked it had been eight years since a question was asked. >> i don't see it as being any kind of political correctness. the people who cover the court are aware of this and in swome ways take it for granted. >> it was interesting, something i didn't expect, this piece got a lot of attention especially on social media and a lot of conservatives who, of course, like justice thomas accused me of racism in singling out justice thomas. i, of course, don't buy that but i thought, it was interesting about the sensitivity of these issues. i assure you if there was some other justice, man, woman,

white, black, who didn't ask questions for eight years i would be talking about that justice too. but, you know, i was really struck by how that theme of how i was racially insensitive came up in social media among people who were criticizing me. i thought it was crazy but, you know, everybody is entitled. >> i do think that there's as jeff suggests a bit of a racial subtext in the criticism of justice thomas for not speaking. i don't think jeff does this, but i've certainly heard in talking to other law professors and the blogosphere and so forth people think the reason he doesn't speak is because he's not bright enough to sort of engage in the call low question with the other justices and i think that's not true. i mean i have a'met the man. he's a bright man. >> and he has said that others should take a cue from him talk less and listen more. >> i think there's something to be said for that. the modern supreme court where everyone is talking all the time, is extremely active, it's actually a fairly recent

phenomenon. really not until about the 1980s did we start to see the court get this active. look back to the warren court, to the 19th century and see benches that are totally silent letting the lawyers say what they want. i'm not suggesting that that's the ideal, but the notion that there's something not being said on this supreme court strikes me as not very likely. >> i think jamal clearly makes an excellent point there, and, you know, one of the reasons it's so outrageous, frankly, that justice thomas doesn't say anything, is that he has such a distinctive and important point of view on the law. he is by far the most conservative member of this court. he unfairly is criticized for just following along justice scal scalia. that's not true at all. he's well more conservative than justice scalia. it would be worth letting the public hear that in the court arguments as well as in the written opinion. >> we're in the midst of one of

these renewed pushes for cameras in the courtroom. do you think that would affect the dynamics we're describing involving justice thomas? >> it might actually. it's one thing to have a reporter like me write a column every once in a while saying justice thomas doesn't speak but if you had cameras showing day after day, month after month, year after year all the other justices talking and thomas not talking i think it would add to the pressure on him to talk and add to the embarrassment that's yet another reason why unfortunately i don't think there are going to be cameras in the courtroom any time soon. >> jeffrey toobin, jamal greene, thank you for joining me. >> thank you. >> before we go to break one timely note about the supreme court. we were just talking about why there are no cameras in the highest court. turns out there was one briefly. look at this video taken on the sly an unloaded to youtube this week. no electronic devices are supposed to be allowed in the court but a group that supports campaign finance reform snuck

one in as a form of protest. all spectators are screened with magnetometers before entering not clear how they got away with it. i'm glad they did it's interesting to see a short glimpse inside that room. a whole lot more "reliable sources" ahead. we'll be right back. [ female announcer ] you get sick, you can't breathe through your nose... suddenly you're a mouthbreather. well, put on a breathe right strip and instantly open your nose up to 38% more than cold medicines alone. so you can breathe and sleep. shut your mouth and sleep right. breathe right.

welcome back to "reliable sources." it's not often that we hear president obama talk about his childhood, talk about what it was really like on thursday when he kicked off a program called my brother's keeper he said things like i got high and i made bad choices an the line that stood out, sometimes i sold

myself short. that's a personal subject for barack obama. how tough it is to beat the odds if you're a young black man in america. at the event a big laugh when he pointed out the two members of the media over my shoulder who were in attendance. >> if i can persuade, you know, sharpton and o'reilly to be in the same meeting then it means that -- then it means that there are people of good faith who want to get some stuff done, even if we don't agree on everything. >> he's talking about al sharpton of msnbc and bill o'reilly of fox news. if you were watching msnbc or cnn at that hour, you heard obama's joke live. if you were watching fox news, you did not. fox chose not to carry the president's deeply personal comments live, despite the fact that o'reilly thought it was important enough to attend the event and rupert murdoch thought it was important enough to tweet about it on thursday. a later of the day o'reilly

devoted a chunk of his show to the initiative he did praise it, but he described what he would do differently. >> you're going to have to get people like jay-z, all right, kayne west, all of these gangster rappers to knock it off. that's number one. they idolize these guys with the hats on backwards and the terrible rap lyrics and the drug and all of that. you got to get these guys. >> bill o'reilly, obama adviser, who would have thought. i love how he stretches jay-z's name out like four syllables long. jay-zp. back to the speech. something of a pattern at fox news, they sometimes skip presidential events while other networks are showing them live. sometimes fox says the speeches are predictable political events. i reached out to fox and the executive vice president of news said the following, decisions are made all day long about what should be on the screen at any given time. as with every other event, we stream live news on our website

to back up the top story. so does this famously right leaning network avoid giving air time to a left leaning president? my next guest monitors the cable news channel constantly, he's the media reporter for politico and joined me earlier from washington. dylan, thanks for being here. >> such a pleasure. thanks for having me, brian. let me ask the obvious question, if mitt romney was the president do you think fox news would be broadcasting more of his speeches? >> absolutely. if you go back and look at when fox news broadcast speeches by george w. bush you'll see that they did so a lot more often than they've done for president obama. now does fox news need to broadcast every single speech or address or press conference that the president gives? no, probably not. i think it's also fair to say that msnbc probably overdoes it. i mean if you turn on your television and you want to see if obama is speaking you can probably go to msnbc and if he's not there then he's probably not giving a public speech. >> of course the average age of

the fox news viewer is over the age of 65. the vast majority is white. i think the data from earlier in the year shows in the demo, the 25 to 54 demo that matters so much, only 2% of the audience is african-american. do you think that plays a role in the decisions about what to cover an when to cover the president's speeches? >> sure. i absolutely -- i do. i think the key issue is that fox news trusts that their viewership doesn't really care about obama. now sometimes fox news will cover an obama speech and, in fact, give it even more coverage than the other networks if obama has to come out and say -- defend bad jobs numbers, account for something he's received a lot of pressure for. i will say in terms of why o'reilly chose to cover this, i don't want to question o'reilly's intentions, don't want to suggest that i know what his motive was, i certainly don't. i think for the fox news viewership, they

do sort of -- fox news loves to address this issue of race in to america and love to address it toward that older white audience and maybe trump up these causes for concern regarding, you know, the so-called gangster culture. so i think that was sort of in a way to talk about those problems was a strange sort of appeal to that old white audience and sort of a very perverse and troubling way. >> some big media news involving cnn that happened this peerg. piers morgan said he'll be ending his nightly show, "piers morgan live." it will be ending sometime in the coming weeks, no end date yet. something he said to "the new york times," david carr, who broke the news, he said, look, i'm a british guy debating american cultural issues, including guns, which is very polarizing, and there is no doubt there are many in the audience tired of me banging on about it. i asked him to talk about it with us.

he said, i'm still negotiating with jeff zucker, the head of cnn, over a new show, one that plays much more to my strengths, big interviews. but it's clear sometimes in the coming weeks "piers morgan live" will be ending and there are all sorts of reasons, people's speculation about why the show is ending. what's your take on why it's going away? >> well, a number of things are at play. i mean, what pierce said, there's probably some truth to that. i certainly think americans don't like being -- certainly american who is support or are against gun control don't like being talked down to by a dismissive brit. now, there might be a bigger problem as well, which is just the nature of the television industry in general. you know, piers morgan's ratings weren't all that much worse than larry king's when he left. i think is there still a place in cable news for this sort of one-on-one interview on a nightly basis when there isn't always major news and sort of major bookings for these

interviews. and, you know, the other question that i think cnn has to think about is, you know, the age in which the bookings define the show, we might be be seeing that coming to an end. right? if you look at the two most popular shows on fox and on msnbc, those are shows with the least bookings because they have outsized personalities sitting behind the desk. you have bill o'reilly at fox news, mrachel maddow at msnbc. piers morgan just might not be the right size personality that american viewers wanted to see in that share. >> dylan byars, thanks for joining me. >> my pleasure. thanks, brian. >> quick break here. when i come back, something will happen tonight with the oscars that has never happened before. . hey guys! sorry we're late. did you run into traffic? no, just had to stop by the house to grab a few things. you stopped by the house? uh-huh. yea. alright, whenever you get your stuff, run upstairs, get cleaned up for dinner.

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finally this morning, a media note about tonight's academy awards. you might be able to watch the oscars on your phone. if you're not near a tv and you want to watch the red carpet coverage, yo oar in luck. this is the first year abc will let people watch a live stream on computers, tablets and phones. in the past, the backstage cameras and stuff like that, this year, the actual telecast will be well cast. of course there is a catch. there always is. the oscars will be part of that

same tv everywhere scheme and many media companies have adopted it. you'll have to log in through a cable or satellite provider abc has a deal with, and it will only work in the specific big cities where abc owns tv stations. it's taking far too long for this tv everywhere idea to live up to the name. all of the cable providers and channels are partly to blame for the delays. but this is progress. you know, the oscars are the second biggest tv show every year behind the super bowl. and now at least some people don't have to watch it on tv if they don't want to. that's all for this televised edition of "reliable sources." you can always watch all of our segments on cnn.com. we've got so much more on the web including my own oscar ballot for tonight and ball lots for many other cnn anchors and reporters. hope to see you back here next sunday at 11:00 a.m. eastern. stay tuned for a news update from cnn headquarters in atlanta then "state of the union" with candy crowley.

good morning. i'm erin mcpike in washington with a czech of our top stories. ukraine's prime minister says the country is on the brink of disaster and russia's latest military moves amount to a declaration of war and called it a red alert. officials say russian troops have taken up posts at bases in crimea. secretary of state john kerry said today on cbs' "face the nation," this is an invasion. >> it's an incredible act of aggression. it is really a stunning, willful choice by president putin to invade another country. russia is in violation of the sovereignty of ukraine. russia is in violation of its international obligations. >> and president obama spoke to russian president putin about the situation for 90 minutes yesterday. more than 100 million people could be at the mercy of a major winter storm pushing east right now. it already has proven deadly in

pars of the u.s. this weekend. at least one person died saturday and 20 more were injured after accidents on a major denver interstate. the storm now threatens to dump more snow in cities across the midwest, southeast, and northeast through monday. and we're hours away from the oscars, but will the storm affect the show? our meteorologist tells us just ahead. "state of the union" with candy crowley starts right now. russia must stop its military activities and its threats. >> this is the red alert. this is not the threat. this is actually the declaration of war to my country. >> in order that was the nato secretary-general then the acting prime minister of ukraine