political action conference. the second year in a row he's won. the poll is nonbinding but an early gauge of who conservative i mass want as the 2016 nomination for president. he led the pack at 31%, followed by senator ted cruz with 11%. at 2:00 a.m. a break through on detecting alzheimer's disease. it's a first and senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen has the story in the 2:00 hour of "newsroom." "reliable sources" starts right now. good morning. i'm brian stelter, i have a jam packed "reliable sources" ahead for you. here's what's coming up. when vladimir putin is your boss, it takes guts to say take this job and shove it. >> i am resigning. i probably won't be taking any trips to russia any time soon. >> the real story of how russia pumps propaganda into your living room. and speaking of tough jobs, how would you like to be a democrat working at fox news?

or a republican at msnbc? which is harder? who's meaner? an insider's account. also, a cosmic cure for the science war. climate deniers, evolution rejection, one man who may convince the up convinceble using tv. all that and much more ahead this morning. let me start with a big question for the media industry. who in the world would want to take on rogger aels. the king of talk news sits on the throne with killer ratings and a right wing agenda. every successful business seems to spawn imitatoimitators. maybe people are intimidated by the powerful ales and his boss rupert murdoch. a few have tried and failed and recently glen beck has shown some success expending his on-line network the blaze but even that is not currently rated

by kneelsen. maybe there is someone who has a shot at doing this. the founder of the conservative website news max, christopher ruddy, says he's ready to take on fox. i hope he has a helmet and body armor. he said he's launching news max tv in june and joins me now. thanks for joining me. >> brian, great to be on with you. >> tell us what your plans are? what is it that you're hoping to do with news max tv? >> well, perhaps saying that we are taking on fox might be a bit of an overstatement. i think news max wants to evolve its current internet business and join the world of tv everywhere. news max in many ways is bigger than fox news on-line. com score which rates the 60 million people that read news polit politics, typically has us one, two or three. we had 11.5 million unique visitors last month. we were ahead of fox news for

politics. by june, we're hoping to have about 15 hours of live programming. by the end of the summer we're hoping to be up to 18 or 21 hours. >> you told "business week" it will be a kinder, gentler version of fox news. tell me what you mean about that? >> fox is great at what it does and it has a really powerful audience, powerful message and audience. i think when rupert murdoch launched fox news in 1996, he was a genius for realizing that there was a huge market outside of the cnn world that was not being really addressed by the mainstream media. an that market is probably about 100 million conservative leaning americans. and i think fox news is taking in 3 or 4 million of those. there's clearly a lot of room for news max to come in where we're focused not just on

politics which fox is focused on, but a lot of lifestyle issues, health, news and fi innings inial. >> that's what you want to do differently, more than politics? >> exactly. we would like to be more informational. >> why do you think nobody has been successful at doing this yet? it's been 15 or 16 years since fox news launched and there hasn't been a complimentary channel like what you're describing. >> you should ask the guys that run time warner your company and a number of the other major media companies, comcast and others. when you see -- think about the statistics. the pew study shows 39% of americans say they're conservative, 37% say they're moderate. when you ask them on the issues what they believe. they're fairly conservative. only 23% of americans say they're liberal. that's a very small number. you have most of the major media networks fighting over that small market share. >> speaking of fox, we talked about what you like about fox. what do you not like about fox? what do you dislike or think

could be improved on? >> well, i think fox by its over admission has changed programming and is trying to get back to its original mission of being fair and balanced. i think the last election people saw it as very, very polarizing. if you look back at 1996 when fox started, pew says the republican party had a favorability rating of 65%. today, i believe the republican party is fighting for its survival and its favorability rating is 35%. obama has around a 50% favorable rating, the republicans in congress have an unfavorable rating of around 80%. so during these years that fox has dominated sort of the republican side of the news equation, i think there's been an overall effect that's not been positive for the republican

party. >> it sounds like you may agree with gabriel sherman's book about fox news says that roger ales has hurt the republican party. >> i think roger has done an incredible business. i don't know if he's hurt the republican party. but i don't think that all the voices that could potentially be heard for the republican party are being heard. people keep saying roger is a far right or conservative. i've never felt that roger aisles is that conservative. i think he's an american exceptionalist. he fiercely believes in american values and wants to promote those. i think some of the programming on fox has come across to a certain degree polarizing. i think the changes that they've made have helped them. i think you're seeing the ratings are way up. >> i tell you the reason i'm somewhat skeptical because cable and satellite providers seem to be very reluctant to add new channels to their systems.

they want to remove channels, not add them. how will you go about convincing comcast and direct tv and other companies to carry news max tv? >> i think we have a great brand, unlike a lot of people that come on television or cable, they oftentimes have no brand and no following. we already have 15 million people a month we're reaching, 49 million in our total reach on-line, so i think that gives us a powerful advantage. i also think fox has demonstrated there's a huge market. >> how will you pay for all of this? how will you finance this? >> news max has a very -- we're a very profitable company. our marketing budget this year is going to be in the area of about $0 million, so we -- $70 million so we have an ability to reach a lot of americans to tell them about our website, our new television channel. so i don't think money is going to be an issue. >> one of the surprising lines in the business week profile was you're now friends or friendly

with bill and hillary clinton. is that right? tell me about that? >> well, i was introduced to bill clinton by our mutual friend ed koch, the late mayor in 2007, we have become friends. i've recently got to know hillary clinton. i think she would make a good presidentpp p. they asked me about that. i'm not saying i'm voting for her at this point. i did notice a recent "usa today" poll said 25% of republicans would favor her, potentially favor for her as president in the next election and i think that one of the things about the clintons is that americans admire them because of their commitment to keeping america strong and free. >> we're coming off several days of the cpac conference. when you look out at the republican field for 2016, possible challengers to hillary clinton if she runs, who do you like and not like as much?

>> well, my favorite is jeb bush. i live in florida. i saw how he operated as governor. he did an incredible job as governor. he's very different than his brother. he appeals to all the constituencies of the republican party. but he's extremely forward thinking. he did a cover story for newsmax magazine and the headline was "growth is the answer." the republican party if it's to survive and that is a question in my mind, really has to become the party of opportunity and growth. we can't be the party of no. >> hearing you talk about thep arep party makes me wonder could you support hillary clinton in 2016 instead? >> i think it's a little early to make that decision. she's not the nominee of her party. she hasn't officially announced. i would certainly consider that but i would like to see who the republicans nominate.

>> do you think roger will support your effort here? >> i don't really think it's -- he should be supporting his network and what he does at fox. i don't think we're looking for support. when i do newsmax, we've never sought the support of fox news for what we've done and we've been i think a fairly good success online. so i don't really see roger aels being a major figure in what we do. >> should a network like cnn be a little anxious about a start-up like this also? >> well, i think we will pull from all the networks including msnbc. i want to have some really good, articulate liberals. alan dir show wits uses newsmax as his home page for his blogs. our readers don't agree with everything alan says, but he's really interesting, he's fascinating, he's unpredictable. i mean that's the type of thing i want to have on newsmax, not

predictability. where people can tune in and learn something and hear opposing views that are not necessarily personally attacking each other in interviews. >> christopher, thank you so much for joining me today. >> thank you, brian. >> time for a quick break here. but as soon as i come back, a story about breaking up with vladimir putin. it's hard to do. we'll tell you the inside story of just how hard when i return. back in two minutes. knows her way can run in high heels. must be a supermodel, right? you don't know "aarp". because aarp is making finding the career you love, no matter what your age, a real possibility. go to aarp.org/possibilities to check out life reimagined for tools, support, and connections. if you don't think "i've still got it" when you think aarp, then you don't know "aarp". find more surprising possibilities and get to know us at aarp.org/possibilities

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welcome back to "reliable sources." listen to this, right now vladimir putin's government may be pumping propaganda into the homes of millions of americans who have no idea they're watching putin tv. i'm talking about russia today or rt. it's a cable channel that is available in a lot of homes including mine in new york and many here in washington. we're not exactly sure how many. i tried to figure out and there

is no reliable number. rt claims it reaches 85 million people in the united states. it's owned and operated by the russian government. here in the u.s. a lot of reporters and anchors are americans. this week there was a lot of new evidence that rt is something other thanes just an ordinary cable news channel as the crisis between the united states and russia grew ever more tense, the tone of rt was clearly pro-russian and at times anti-american. as people began to notice all hell broke loose at rt. tuesday abby martin decided to break ranks. >> before we wrap up the show i want to say something about from my heart about the political crisis? ukraine and russian's military occupation. this week as i work here for rt doesn't mean i don't have editorial independence and i can't stress enough how strongly i am against any state intervention in a sovereign nation affairs. what russia did is wrong. >> that went viral right away. one day after that statement washington correspondent liz wahl simply walked out of the job. >> i cannot be part of network

funded by the russian government. that whitewashes the actions of putin. i'm proud to be an american and believe in disseminating the truth. and that is why after this newscast, i am resigning. >> liz wahl joins me now here in washington. thank you for coming in? >> thank you. >> when was the exact moment that you realized you had to leave russia today? >> wednesday was the turning point. i saw censorship like i've never seen it before and, you know, certain parts of my questions being edited out. stories that paint the opposition as strictly pro-fascist. the right wing parts of the -- characterizing the opposition as a whole like that, and i think that's dangerous and i think that throughout this conflict, that's the line that he wants or the picture that he wants to portray. >> you say he, you mean putten. >> >> vladimir putin. >> it's not as if he was editing questions out. who was?

>> the news director. the news director actually i had an interview with congressman ron paul and the news director wrote very specifics questions. i have them here. very loaded questions. i could read them but i would have to go through my e-mail. i didn't go by them because they were absolutely ludicrous but i did ask some of my own questions. one of the questions i asked used the words russian military intervention and when it was played they cut out that line because as we know, the kremlin doesn't want us to see it as military intervention. they want to see their involvement in ukraine as -- >> to you -- >> as a humanitarian crisis. >> absolutely. >> take me back a few years. you had been at the channel almost three years. what was the pitch from rt when they offered to bring you on board? >> i was a little curious. what's this rt about. the way they pitched it to me, we tell -- they told me this would be an opportunity to tell

stories that the mainstream media ignores. and to me, that sounded as a journalist and i aspire to be a journalist and further my career, that sounded great to me. their motto is question more. and so, you know, obviously i knew that -- i knew the geopolitical stances of russia. i knew kind of the conflict there. i knew it was state funded. and -- but i didn't realize, perhaps i was a little bit naive, i didn't realize the extent to which it would actually be used as a propaganda machine. >> did you notice it right away once you arrived? >> i think i noticed it in a way that they -- that the stories that are presented, that they're picked in a way that tend to be anti-west and pro-kremlin to put it simply. >> i've seen you say in other interviews you've seen american bashing going on there. let me play a clip from one of

your former colleagues a segment called propaganda watch. >> the general picture you get is that of the u.s. mainstream media jumping on anything verified or unverified to provide russias a as an aggres u.s. officials continue their self-righteous tirade while being engaged in actual active aggression around the world with innocent people dying every day. drone strikes are from violence in countries that were destabilized by the u.s. >> it's absolutely -- you should be -- the motto is question more. you shutly should be investigating -- absolutely should be investigating things, corruption, things like that, but when it's done in a way to promote the -- the objectives, the foreign policy objectives of a dictatorial government, i think that's when it gets kind of troubling and i mean, there's

been alarm bells all along but with this crisis in crimea, the censorship and the propaganda was hyped up to a degree that i've never seen it before and at that point, for me, that was a red line. >> what did you do after that resignation? we see that at 5:30 p.m., up on youtube immediately. what did you do? did you talk to your bosses, clean out your desk, what happened? >> after that, my -- the fuse director said, liz, can we talk. i went into the office and he said why did you do that? i said i feel uncomfortable with -- i voiced my concerns many times. i was unhappy about censoring that interview. i feel this is a propaganda machine and this is not something that i want to be a part of. >> it sounds like in this case there haven't been repercussions since wednesday? in terms of rt has come out and i mean they're -- >> criticized you. >> yeah. >> stay it was a stunt. it was a political stunt.

>> self-promotional stunt. >> self-promotional stunt. all i can say is that's not true. i mean i didn't know what was going to happen. i didn't know what the fallout was going to be. i knew that it was something that i had to say. i mean i think you go into journalism, i don't know if this is a kninaive of me to think journalists should try to remain as objective as possible. i think i -- you know, it's about disseminating the truth and certainly there's a discussion that can be had on all ends of the spectrum of journalistic objectivity, but for me, when it was so, so skewed and so far from being objective, i think the viewers and the world needed to know what the truth is about this. >> thank you so much for being here. >> thank you. >> time for a quick break here. in a moment let's talk about the hardest job in television. maybe the republican who appears on msnbc or is it the democrat

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ferguson. welcome back to "reliable sources." i'm brian stelter. we who love tv news know if you want a conservative point of view turn on fox, liberals turn on msnbc. it's simple, right? well, except you can find democrats on fox and you can find republicans on msnbc. just in different ways. it was an interesting piece in the columbia journalism review about this week. i want to read a quote from it. while the liberal hosts of msnbc

often secure conservatives those debates happen with villains not in the studio, lamb basted by proxy in news clips. in fox they happen in person with a real live liberal who is often on staff. it got us thinking about what it is like at fox and msnbc when guests or commentators are in enemy territory. i wanted to bring on two people who know about that. sally kohn a left leaning community organizer, that job title used against you at fox and at cnn, she' peered on fox until a few months ago and ben ferguson a conservative talk radio show in dallas who appears on cnn regularly but in the past before signed at cnn he refused to appear on msnbc. thank you for being here. >> great to be with you. >> good to be here. >> bds ben, first to you back in the days when you weren't signed to any thatnetwork. >> wasn't worth it. it wasn't close to a fair tight. usually three on one and at best you got cut off, they did not

want your opinion to get out. they wanted to use you as a punching bag. so there's a certain point where you're saying, is it really worth it from a guy's perspective to get your hair done, put on makeup, talk for 30 seconds, and get yelled at and for me, i mean, it better be worth my time if i'm going to put makeup on for goodness sakes. there's a certain point where i'm going, i'd rather sit around and watch sports than be their punching bag for a half hour. >> sally, do you feel the same way ben does when you were at fox? >> i don't enjoy putting on makeup. i have to say, it was often three on one. my favorite was 15 on one in a hannity panel he brought in a crowd of anti-obama care opponents. >> focus groups. >> and me. so it was 15 against one. and, you know, i mean look that time it felt a little bit absurd. >> what's the value to being in that room at that time. >> in that exact moment i'm not sure. i think i got points -- you get points for going into the fight but look, two points.

one, someone has to be there in the conversation, right. in a show like hannity it is a partisan show, conservative show, and from my perspective as a liberal, progressive, i want to be in the conversation. i don't want that to go unquestioned, unchallenged first of all. first and foremost. second of all, in the case of fox, we know they have a tremendously large audience. they are not all strong right wing conservatives. there are a lot of moderate republicans, lot of moderate democrats. if my goal of being on television is to change people's hearts and minds i want to reach those. >> ben you hear that logic. it would apply to msnbc. not every viewer of msnbc is a hard core democrat, hard core liberal. what do you make of the idea you have to reach out to those people? >> i think reaching out is one thing and having a grand debate, i love having a great debate about the issues and truly having a fight over whatever the news that topic of the day is. there's a difference between what sally experienced and what

msnbc does. most of the time they don't have a republican there. they take a sound bite and destroy you with a sound bite sometimes taken out of context. if you go over there you're not really welcome. other showss, i would agree, at least people are nice to you, welcoming, they want you there, appreciate you there and want to hear your viewpoint whereas at msnbc they don't like you, they almost feel like you're just a random person that we're going to destroy for a couple of minutes and we're going to shut you down and tell you to stop talking and don't interrupt me. >> pretty terrible. >> that's one of the reasons -- >> yeah. it's, you know, i'm okay with defending what i believe in. i'm not okay with being a punching bag where you automatically know going in, they really don't want you there. they just need you to fill the box on the screen and you're the bad guy. >> both fox and msnbc struggle to get people who perceived to be from the other side of the ideological table. it is always a challenge. my experience is very different from ben's on both sides.

conservatives and liberals being treated nicely and appreciatively on both channels. >> this is a point rachel maddow has brought up. she can't get republicans to come on even though she tries hard to book them. >> i think there's some reality to that. i think there's some reality to, you know, the sort of self-interest of pundits, right, and where do they want to go. there isn't a lot of reputation of tea party voices on msnbc. so i think you're right, ben. they become characterized. >> fake republicans when on msnbc or fake democrats when on fox? >> yeah. but when you have hosts over there that use some of the vile language that some of their former hosts used to, for example, talk about sarah palin or some of the things that, you know, chris mathews has said about some conservative tea party people and shocked those same won't come on your show, i mean there's your sign. i mean there's a difference between mean spirited and just being respectful or appearing being mean spirited.

some of their hosts are flat out mean spirited towards tea party members, conservatives, whether congressmen or senators or pundits. >> do you hear nasty things about the president ob fox? do you feel the same language is used on fox as on msnbc? >> we're going through a media moment who have republicans calling the president weak and feckless. to suggest the mean language is only coming from the liberal side of the ledger is absurd. we can all pull our favorite examples of outrageous things that any host ever said. i don't think it's that simple as black and white. >> thank you both for joining me. this is great. >> a pleasure. >> thanks. after a quick break i am talking to a wonderful guest. the one man who just may be able to fix what tv news so often screws up. getting science right and replacing denial with facts, neil degrasse tyson is here. you won't want to miss it. honestly? i wanted a smartphone that shoots great video.

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welcome back to "reliable sources." we know we live in a politically divided country, where almost anything is fair game for snipers on both sides. science, shouldn't science be immune? after all it's called scientific facts for a reason and yet there are millions of climate deniers, evolution deniers, vaccine deniers. in a speech on climate change president obama summed up the war on science this way. i don't have much patience for anyone who denies this challenge is real. we don't have time for a meeting of the flat earth society. >> many americans agree with them. many other americans see science as an attack, attack ob their values or religion or on what they believe to be true. which brings me to my next guest, so excited he's here. he may be the man who can end the war on science. at least he's got a better chance than you or i have. he's neil degrasse tyson,

director of the hayden planetarium in new york and tonight fox will be premiering his series "cosmos." a prime time network television show about science. pretty amazing. neil, welcome to the program. >> thanks for having me. >> i want to talk all about "cos mos" in a moment but do you think there is a war on science and how do you think we can broker a peace? >> our civilization, our civilization is built on the innovations of scientists and technologists and engineers who have shaped everything that we so take for granted today. so some of the science deniers or haters, these are people telling you, while they're on their mobile phone, they're saying, i don't like science. science is -- oh, gps just told us to go left. yeah. okay. so i don't -- so it's time for people to sort of sit back and reassess what role science has actually played in our lives and note and learn how to embrace

that going forward without it we will just regress back into the cave. >> "cosmos" seems like an example of using the media for good when it comes to science. i talked about climate change and how there aren't two equal sides when it comes to climate change and sometimes the television and media pretends it is that way. what responsibility do you think members of the media have to portray science correctly? >> i think the media has to sort of come out of this ethos that i think was in principle a good one, but doesn't really apply in science. the ethos was, whatever story you give, you have to give the opposing view, and then you can be viewed as balanced. in the clip that you showed of the president, you don't talk about the earth with nasa and then say let's give equal time to the flat earthers. science is not there for you to cherry pick. i said this once and it's gotten a lot of internet play, i said the good thing about science is

that it's true whether or not you believe in it. all right. i guess you can decide whether or not to believe in it but that doesn't change the reality of an emergent scientific truth. >> give me an example of how you on this show tried to show the truth of science. >> no. i mean everything is the latest science tivg understanding of everything. that's just a given. the real messages of the show, now that you see the what the science is, how does it matter? how and why does it matter to you? what context. so the science is context allized if you will. one of the most stunning visuals is the cosmic calendar where we take the 13.8 billion year history of the universe and lay it on to a football field sized year at a glance calendar and the value of that is, we all know what a calendar is. we know how far into the year june or july is. if i say the big bang was

january 1st and it today is december 31st when was our galaxy formed, the milky way, that was formed march 15th. >> i love the special effects you use. let's take a look. >> let's go back as far as we can to the very first moment of the universe. january 1st, the big bang. when the original "cosmos" came on the television 30 some years ago we could have only dreamed about graphics like this. how do you take advantage of technology to present scientific truths in the way the original couldn't? >> that's a flame proof suit i was wearing so you know. and that is the only moment i don sun sglass. if you have to do it for anything the big bang would be it. it's not just how stunning the visual effects are, it's at the end and during each program, there's a thread that moves

through it. and by the end of the program there's a tapestry woven and that tapestry has you in the center of it. >> what sort of pressure do you feel to make sure it's entertaining, make sure people actually tune in for something like this. >> the nature of that question presumes that the real science and real entertainment cannot be the same thing unless one compromises to the other. >> that's fair. >> that -- the question presumes that. i can tell you that every night i look up at the universe, i'm entertained. every time i see saturn and imagine surfing its rings i am entertained. every time i think of the gruesome death of falling into a black hole becoming spaghetti-fied i'm entertained. >> i'm entertained hearing you describe it. i don't think of them as what do you have to give up for one to get the other. i think it's just maybe the story, hasn't been stolds the right way. >> do you think a program like this can heal the divide that exists about science? >> i think what it will do is give people the proper

understanding of what science is. there are people who already like science. we got them. and power to them. then the people who don't know they like science. all right. they have a little flame inside of them of curiosity which we're going to fan that flame and it will rise up within them. then another category of people, the people who know they don't like science. they got no flame at all. so we're going to go in there light it and show them the majesty and the beauty and glory of science and how it is come -- how people searchers for cosmic truths over the centuries and millenia have arrived at our understanding of our place in space and time and this is glorious knowledge we should celebrate and not shun. >> and i know i'm rooting for you. i think a lot of people are rooting for you because they want to see a program about science succeed in a mainstream way. thanks for sharing that with us. >> thanks for having me. >> we have a lot more ahead. stay tuned. [ male announcer ] this is kevin.

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this next story is one i wish we didn't have to cover again. we first talked on this program about the al jazeera reporters imprisoned in egypt and we covered it in february with christiane amanpour. they should have been released by now but instead put on trial and accused of aiding terrorists. this what is we're seeing. journalists in cages. it's awful. it's simply awful. ever since they were retained

back in december al jazeera has been campaigning for the release. cnn jurmgists are helping out doing something frankly i've never seen done before. they've been doing live reports on al jazeera about the trial because al jazeera's reporters aren't allowed in the country. think about it this way, the journalist who would normally be covering the trial are the ones on trial. cnn correspondent sarah sidener told me about this remarkable arrangement. >> thanks for joining me from abu dhabi? . >> thanks for having me on the show. typically cnn and al jazeera compete every day. how did this come about where you were on their air telling viewers about this trial some. >> they contacted cnn, they talked with the manager. it did go up the chain. it was a discussion and then i was brought into the discussion ultimately i was told look, this is up to you. you know what's going on on the ground. you know certain things that we may not know. let's talk about this and see if this makes sense to do this.

if there are any other concerns you might have. i talked to the crew. we decided it was the right thing to do. of course they identified me as a cnn correspondent on al jazeera air. was it a strange thing to have happened? i was surprised when i got the initial e-mail saying that would you do a live report for al jazeera. at first i thought it was a mistake and then realized what had happened and how this all sort of came about and i was happy to do it. >> one of our colleagues, reza sayah helping out with reports this week as well. i guess this underscores the gravity of what's going on there, that i can't remember this happening before, with two networks helping each other out. can you recall a time where this has happened? >> no. i can't. i know the bbc also did a report before i did one as well, so i know they also were asked and agreed. i think what's happened is, because of the situation and because the situation is so

unusual, i certainly have never been in this position. many of the other journalists were surprised to see me popping up on al jazeera i know in egypt. but all the different networks doing straight reporting, telling story, what's happening there, competition is one thing but they looked beyond that and thought it was a fair thing to do at this point. >> the trial has been adjourned for several weeks now. what do we know about what's being done to help the men that are being held there now for months? >> reporter: yeah. i had a conversation with his brother, who is there. we know that the family members are there, some of them staying there at their own expense. and plan to stay throughout this entire ordeal. peter's brother talked about how difficult this has been for the family, sort of tearing the family apart, seeing the conditions that he and the others are in right now. but we know that the embassies are involved, the australian embassy, mohammed fami is both a canadian and e egyptian citizen

so the canadian embassy also involved. they're saying we were able to talk to them. they were in cages in court, which is how it's done in egypt. it takes people apack sometimes when they see that, but that's how trials unfold there. you've seen the leaders of egypt in those same kind of cages. they talked about the fact they were getting help from their ems but they needed much more support from the government. many people cannot understand why they are still in jail and will be in jail for so long now. it's been more than a month, brian. >> such a disturb thing for any journal tois see the pictures of fellow journalists in cages there. thank you for informing us about it. >> reporter: you're welcome. thanks for having me on again. when i get back from this break, i'll tell you about a story i spent days trying to figure out this week, a fake story that made it onto major networks including one that should have known better. [ male announcer ] did you know

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finally this morning let me show you how a single press release about pot generate sod many dead wrong news stories. you may have seen these headlines on the web this week. it seems like they were everywhere claiming the first medical marijuana ad had aired on tv. this was supposed to happen in homes with comcast cable. by thursday i'd seen it on television, it was mentioned on cnn and there was a story on the "nbc nightly news with brian williams." >> the spot has so far sparked some attention so far.

it's airing just in new jersey. it's only applicable, of course, in the 20 states where it's legal. >> nbc is owned by comcast. but comcast says these ads have not aired. so what's happened here? well, a company called marijuanadoctors.com duped reporters with a very confident, very serious-sounding press release. it said they had begun to air television commercial that looks to be the first-ever marijuana commercial on a major network. press release said comcast agreed to air these ads locally in new jersey on a&e, fox, history, and cnn. so they put out this press release on monday and comcast messed up by not denying it right away so lots of news organizations treated the press release as if it were fact without doing more digging, without realizing that ads for medicinal pot have been airing lo coe lowe cal markets like california for years. i wrote about it in "the new york times" back in 2009.

this unfortunately is the power of the press release in an age where lots of websites need all the clicks they can get. comcast eventually figured out what had gone wrong. they said, "all commercials are subject to final review by comcast spotlight prior to airing and during that process it was determined that this spot did not meet our guidelines." so basically marijua marijuanadoctors.com thought its ads were going to run but didn't. a spokesman for the company got back to me on friday and confirmed that. yet if you google marijuana ads right now you'll still see dozens of these stories uncorrected, not to mention that "nbc nightly news" segment. sometimes news outlets even make mistakes in stories about their parent companies it seems. that's all for "reliable sources." our media coverage continues all the time online. we have a ton of stories and the "reliable sources" blog on cnn.com this week. we'll see you right back here next sunday at 11:00 a.m. eastern time. up next a news update from atlanta then "state of the union" request candy crowley.

>> good morning. i'm erin mcpike in washington. "state of the union" with candy crowley begins in one minute. first our top stories. a vietnamese aircraft's spotted oil slicks. search boats have been deployed to the yair. malaysian military officials say radar data indicates the plane turned around before vanishing. because of that, they're asking crews to expand the search area. ukraine's interim prime minister flies to the u.s. this week to meet with president obama just a few days before crimea votes on if it will become a part of russia. the prime minister has called it an illegitimate decision. and today russian presidenten vladimir putin discussed that upcoming vote in separate phone calls to british prime minister david cameron and german chancellor angela merkel.

meanwhile in russia, a paralympian athlete dedicated her first medal to an independent and peaceful ukraine. ukraine has won six medals in the paralympics. at 2:00 eastern, a new drone that has a stun gun attached. what would this be used for? we'll take you thrive south by southwest in texas for the answers. that's in the "newsroom" with fredricka whitfield at 2:00 eastern. i'm erin mcpike. "state of the union" with candy crowley starts right now. an evident tragedy wrapped in mystery. today two of the 239 people aboard a plane which disappeared between kuala lumpur and beijing used stolen passports to buy tickets. >> our focus right now is to find the aircraft. once we have found the aircraft, i think the investigations on any speculation on a sinister motives will assist us when we look at