people behind the ark say it will benefit more than just our furry friends. it's expected to create 150 jobs and generate rent for the new york and new jersey port authority over the next three decades. thanks for being part of my program this week. i'm see you next week. good morning. i'm brian stelter, time for a jam packed news filled reliable sources. there is a "new york times" controversy this weekend, the paper correcting the same hillary clinton story over and over again. we'll talk about what went wrong. a popular news and gossip website is in meltdown moelt mode. can gawker reinvent itself? its founder is here and will exclusively reveal his plans coming up brian williams returning to air, but is it delayed? he is part of the expected changes at msnbc. we'll talk about those changes with the network's former chief later this hour. we begin with the countdown, the countdown is on. let's put that clock up on the screen we're 11 days ten hours

from the first gop debate with donald trump versus the rest of the party. check out this brand new cnn/orc pol poll out this morning showing trump in first place among republicans with 18% support, jeb bush following with 15%. well so much for the predictions made here on this program and everywhere else last weekend that trump's kban would implode after he insulted john mccain. it seems like he's doing better than ever. the new poll also shows trump is the gop's most wanted the candidate voters most want to see at the debate. he is guaranteed a spot on the stage. but what about the rest of the pack? fox news is holding the debate on august 6th and fogs is only going to invite the top ten candidates top ten in the polls. that means six will not make the cut. it's decision that's angered a lot of people including some of the candidates. they say fox is basically hoeing its own primary whittling down the field of candidates. fox says it has no choice. cnn is doing similar for its

debate in september. if the first debate were held today, here are the eight that would almost certainly be invited according to "the washington post" while these eight would be fighting for the last two spots on the stage. it's kind of like musical chairs but the players all want to be president. what is the state of the debate? let's ask chief strategist and communication director for the rnc sean spicer in washington this morning. sean this must be enormously stressful for you and your party. you candidates governors, businesswomen, successful people that aren't going to make it on the stage in 10 or 11 days. >> i will correct something you said. first, we do have the largest number of quality candidates that either party has ever had in history. we're very proud of that. i think both fox and cnn should be commended for the fact that all 16 will be on the stage, just not on it together. there will be two different segments in each case. for all those people who say let them deb beat, they will. the first ten will be on one

stage and the other six on another. >> but they're going to be at the kitddie table. fox will put theirs on at 5:00 in the afternoon while the leading ones get prime time. you can't pretend they all get the same treatment. >> i think both cnn and fox have gone the extra step. the most number of people ever in debate stage in the history of either party is ten. fox and cnn not only matched that but said we'll have a second debate for the others. i think that's a huge step. a big, big deal. there's 114 people running for the republican nomination right now, brian. when you look at trying to figure out how to accommodate just the top 16 both of these two networks have done an extremely good job of being as inclusive as possible. >> did you just say 114 people. >> there's 114 people registered with the federal election commission seeking the republican nomination. but another interesting stat for you is as of -- when that debate

happens, there will have been 28 candidate forums around the country for all these folks to talk to voters directly from cpac to the sirius xm. there are 25 of these from new hampshire, south carolina florida, where people have been able to sit down talk to the candidates directly one-on-one get tons of free media coverage. a lot of interaction with voters leading up to this first debate. >> for sure. these network debates do matter most. i wonder what you think of this. is it the party's fault that so many people are run? shouldn't the republican party have tried to manage or shape this race so you didn't have 16 people in the race? >> i think the last thing anybody wants is anyone in washington telling them who should be running and who shouldn't be running. >> touche to that. a sound bite from lindsey graham one of the candidates who seems like will be excluded

from the debate. here is what he says about it. >> i'm curious as to what you think ability not having a place in the debates. >> i think it sucks. i think it sucks. the rnc, they're not helpless here. the bottom line is i think the criteria in july of 2015 makes no sense. you're testing celebrity and name i.d. give us all a chance early on to make our case. i'm not worried about how you manage a tv debate i'm worried about how you pick a nominee. >> sean what's your response to lindsey graham? >> with all due respect to senator graham he will be on stage. in a normal historical guideline guidelines he wouldn't have had an opportunity to get on the debate stage. thanks to both fox and cnn, all the top 16 will have an opportunity to be on a stage and debate. >> yeah sort of. kind of. when you split them up like this people think it just gives them much lesser treatment.

>> brian, i think you have to look at the alternative which is to say okay, if you're in 15th or 16th place, the odds of you ever making a debate stage prior to this cycle were zero. so when you're at that number in the polls, normally you'd get nothing. i think that's where people have to stop and remember. if you're 15th or 16th you want to be up there with one or two. i get that. at some point number one and number two say we have a right to debate among the top folks as well. again, i think people have to remember all 16 candidates will debate in both the first debate in august on fox and the september debate on cnn. i think that is something to keep in mind. the alternative is get nothing. >> let me ask you about somebody you probably don't want to talk about, donald trump. am i right about that, by the way? are you comfortable talking about thealking about the leading candidate? >> more than comfort. >> there was a lot of debate

about rnc chairman talking to trump. last week you put out a statement about the john mccain comments really condemning trump for saying what he said about john mccain. i guess i wonder if you're in a really difficult position when it comes to the leading republican candidate for president right now? >> i would say both myself our chief of staff, a lot of our top staff and the chairman obviously are in constant interaction with all the campaigns. that will continue. but with respect to senator mccain i think what it came down to was us clarifying our position on how wu we felt about one of our previous nominees and his war record. that's all we did, reflect the statement that we believe senator mccain served extremely honorably and he is a war hero and there was no question about it. >> let me play you a portion of cnn's interview jake tapper's interview with rick perry, the latest example of another candidate criticizing donald trump. here is what rick perry said.

>> as he has come forward, we got to see the real donald trump, i got some real problems with that. i think that what he is saying and what he is doing is not necessarily moving the cause of conservatism forward. >> how does the republican national committee feel about these candidates going at each other, ridiculing each other, in donald trump's case, insulting other candidates? >> i think a couple things. one, we have to keep our eye on the prize. if we -- hillary clinton is being core nated as the democratic nominee, we need to remember that's who our focus needs to be on. i understand it's going to be the nature of any primary for folks to discuss the differences between those themselves on policy issues. i think that's fine. the name calling needs to stop. we have to remember what ronald reagan taught us his 11th commandment, thou shall not speak ill of another republican. what chairman priebus said the other night we have to remember where our focus. >> that's why i surmised that

you might be uncomfortable about donald trump because he keeps the name calling going on on twitter, the press conferences and speeches? what's wrong with candidates attacking each other? that's what politics is. any sense that this is not the history -- why not let the attacks continue? >> i think we can remind people of what it takes to win. %-pournumberwurngoalis to take the white house back. you can do what you want it's a free country. there's a part of the country where candidates debate why their policy positions are better than the other. i understand that. i think we have to remember that calling each other names is not exactly helpful and the long-term goal. >> you're looking ahead past all these debates, looking past these primaries and looking to the general election? >> i am as hard as that is some days that's always where the prize is. >> absolutely. sean thanks for being here. >> you bet, brian. thank you. >> here is a postscript to all

the talk about the republican debates, this morning bill kristol, the senator tweeted how's the schedule of the first democratic debate coming up? i'll let you know when we hear about bernie sanders versus hillary clinton. if he's not going to be the next president, i've got an idea for donald trump's next job. much more right after the break. stay with us. it's a fact. kind of like shopping hungry equals overshopping.

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welcome back. when you make a mistake, make a correction. it's an easy thing to say. this week it was hard for "the new york times" to actually do. my next guest says the times seriously mishandled this. read this bombshell first paragraph published late on thursday in the times. it says two inspectors general have asked the justice department to open a criminal investigation into whether hillary rodham clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private e-mail account she used as secretary of state. look what the story says now. the word criminal is gone, and it doesn't say hillary mishandled the e-mails at all. these are big changes to the story. but the times dragged its feet before adding corrections. the information was attributed to anonymous government officials who were apparently wrong. now the word criminal is attached to clinton regardless of the changes. you might have notice thad donald trump used that word repeatedly when he was talking to jake tapper earlier this

morning. somewhat the lesson we should learn from this times screw up. mike or res ski used to be a deeply managing editor at the times and now the head of news at mpr. i used to work at the times as well. we both know how the newsroom works. this went on late in the evening. presumably the clinton campaign started complaining about it. the changes were made in the middle of the night without a correction. what's your reaction to this dust-up? >> first of all, brian, it's important to put on the record what's right here before we get into all the things that went wrong. the democracy must have journalism organizations that are aggressive about trying to hold public officials to account. i'm convinced the editors and reporters at the times were honestly trying to do that. it's very important. it's very important in the process of fixing what went wrong here we not defanning journalists who want to hold public officials to account. that needs to be said because we don't want to throw away what's important here as we try to

understand what's wrong. what did go wrong? i think two big issues here. the first is our increasing reliance on anonymous sources. i was a washington correspondent 20 years ago, we used lots of anonymous sources. but it's become more and more basically the default position to use anonymity, even to government officials who are doing the public's work. it's one thing to give anonymity to someone who has information that we truly can't get in any other way and that's vital for the public to know. that's not what this is. that's one issue. the other is when you make a mistake, you really must correct it quickly, which they did. they corrected it quickly. >> they made the change but they didn't say this is a correction. they didn't label it and identify it as a correction. >> right. at other news organizations, there are very specific standards on that and a lot of experience on that. i think the simple way to say it is you don't make silent changes in major stories.

>> there's no way to be silent. if you quietly change something, try to sneak it in politico is writing about this by 7:00 the next day and it was all over the place. that's why we're talking about it. they tried to do it in a quiet way. i think the times response would be we're trying to make sure we had all the facts before we write the correction. the worst things in the world is having to write a correction to your correction. at the same time this does seem like it was mishandled. >> i think clearly what we needed to do in the first phase of this was having decided the headline at the top of story, the use of the word criminal was inaccurate. they needed to immediately flag the fact that they changed it even if they couldn't explain fully why and what the need for the change was and what the ultimate correction needed to be. they needed to instantly flag the change. you know the associated press which has been facing this problem for a hundred years has very specific rules about how to do this, and that's because they've learned from long

experience long before the internet that in the course of doing a story, you're going to always have to make changes. if you put a story out, you're going to learn new facts, discover things you didn't get right. you're going to discover new information that may change the story. the ap has been doing this for a hundred years. i reached out to the standards editor of the a.p. i said how do you deal with that? >> what did he say? >> they have very specific rules for dealing with this and i actually brought along the standards they've set. they boiled it down basically to a sentence. it says when mistakes are made they must be corrected fully, quickly and ungrudgingly. the written rule at npr where i now work says we don't make silent corrections to our stories. we make corrections to help keep the public accurately informed not to absolve ourselves of our mistake. when you make an error, you have to correct it right away and say

you've corrected it. >> we wouldn't be talking thabt at all if hillary clinton hasn't had a private e-mail server which has become an ongoing controversy and will continue to do. as journalist we hold the times to a highest standard because it is the best in the land. it wants to be held to the highest standards because they want to hold the government to the highest standards. >> it should be said that the reason we know there was this private e-mail account, private e-mail server is because "the new york times" reported it. >> that's right. same reporter michael schmitt who worked on this story over the weekend. mike thanks for being here. >> my pleasure. good to talk to you. >> coming up on the program, the campaign trail is not the only place that donald trump is making waves. there's reports that maybe he's causing a rift between fox news chief roger ailes and rupert murdock. could this be part of a larger trump media end game? we'll talk about that in just a moment. stay with us. can a business have a mind? a subconscious. a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of

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welcome back. donald trump is the news media's best friend and biggest critic. he soaktion up attention on one hand and then scorns the outlets he feels are insulting him. we'll talk about his relationship with fox news in a couple minutes. his latest battle this weekend was in iowa. the trump campaign denied press credentials to the dough moin register t state's biggest newspaper. the campaign said the snub was in response to an editorial calling on him to quit the president race. trump weighed in and we'll play this sound from him in a moment. this is a very interesting example of trump retaliating against the press that he thinks is unfair to him. i want to hear from two people who know the state better than anybody. the register's former david yepsen first, the former chief physical columnist for the dough

moin "the des moines register." the editorial page of the register is separate from the news page. donald trump either doesn't know that or doesn't care. >> well that's what makes his action in snubbing the paper, the reporters so strange because he took an editorial unfavorable to him suggesting he get out of the race and elevated the discussion. the editorial writers all across the country tell people to quit or resign or whatever every day of the week. what mr. trump did by this was elevate this and i don't think he wanted the do that. there are, in fact a lot of people who think his candidacy is counterproductive, is hurting the republican party and republican chances against the democrats. so it made no sense. he has every right to say who he doesn't want to have but it didn't make any political sense for him to elevate a negative editorial the way he did. >> well the flip side of this craig, is the conservative base in some case openly resents the political press, believes the

media has a clear liberal bias. do you think that's what trump was aiming at what he was getting at with this criticism? >> i think trump did want to elevate this issue. i think trump elevates a lot of different issues that come his way. i think we've seen the impact of that over the last six weeks that he's been a formal candidate. so i think this is another thing that actually helps donald trump. the other thing, i kind of disagree with david about, this isn't a columnist at "the des moines register" who decided to write an article. it didn't just say he should drop out, it said he was unfitting to be president of the united states. this is a pretty hard hitting editorial from the editorial board of the newspaper. when it was reported it was reported that "the des moines register" says you should get out. look i publish articles all the time and i know when i hit the publish button there's ramifications for everything that i write. i think it's kind of nonsense

"the des moines register" doesn't think there's going to be some sort of blowback for basically telling a candidate they're not fitting to be -- they should do us a favor and drop out. that's not the real of the newspaper. it's one thing if a columnist wanted to write that but the editorial board wrote this. i think the actions of the trump campaign with them, not credentialing them i think it's an appropriate response. by the way, there were reporters there from the register that covered the event in oskaloosa yesterday. they weren't har rased by the trump staff. it's kind of ironic that carol hunter -- they're all calling the trump campaign people in iowa saying look we still want you to do the register soap box at the iowa state fair we still need you to have a good relationship with our reporters. the editorial board is completely different. if those reporters and an editor

like carol hunter are upset, they should be upset with their own editorial board. >> let's hear david's response. >> well editorials are opinions by definition. they opine about lots of things. it seems tricky if you can't take heat from "the des moines register." republicans have been upset with "the des moines register" a liberal newspaper, for a long time. it's part of the texture of iowa politics. if "the des moines register" tweaks a republican which happens all the tierjs you don't see republican candidates in the state reacting this way. he did elevate the discussion that he should get out of the race and i don't think he needed to do that. craig does make a good point, though the register reporters were at the event yesterday. >> that's right. >> mr. trump knew they were there. it looks to me that the trump campaign sort of backed off on this thing and wouldn't have allowed register interns to be there, the register reporter to

be in the overflow area. the register has a fine story this morning about it. this is an early flap in the campaign. >> one of many i suspect. david, craig, thank you both for being here. >> thank you. >> good to be here. here is an interesting question could trump be causing a rift at the highest levels of the fox news channel. reports are he may have come between roger ailes and the chief of the whole company, all of 21st century fox, rupert murdock. mark has written about this actually written for murdock's "new york post." mark thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> how much credence do you give to reports, "new york magazine" and elsewhere that murdock -- we know murdock is uncomfortable with trump, tweeting his criticism of trump but roger ailes is supportive of trump and wants his campaign to keep going? >> two things. it's fascinating as people on the outside looking into this force of nature that is fox news channel to think, wow, there

could be this fight. but if you think about it from a step back murdock, this incredibly powerful billionaire mogul is forced to use twitter because he has no power inside this fantastically powerful news channel, what the history tells us is roger sales, having built this monster of a news channel, is largely given the reigns to do whatever he wants. >> fox has been throwing cold water on these stories. fox news can help or hurt trump a lot. what do you think down the road -- looking a few months down the road if president trump is not in the picture, is it possible that a cable news jobl is in his future? >> that's tempting. i'm sure cable news executives would be thinking how do we harness this phenomenon that donald trump has unleashed. >> my sense is if you van interview with him on cnn or fox or msnbc, your ratings are going to rise, at least for those few

minutes he's on. >> the flip of a cable news show hosted by trump, that would put him in a different perspective. i don't see him as a guy who would like to have a guest on and ask questions of the guest. he prefers to be the subject. >> you're saying maybe he's not going to be in this chair, maybe a regular contributor on fox or cnn or elsewhere. >> what would he do? would he say i can't call in to "morning joe" anymore? what is huge enough, to use his words, for donald trump after this when he is the front-runner? what is big enough. >> that's a good point. when it comes to fox, roger ailes and trump have a long relationship they're friendly. i'm not sure roger ailes likes to have egomaniacal or big ego type people on his staff. same thing at cnn. you can imagine trump, either a show or contributor, it would be interesting to watch him. will viewers see that as a

turn-on or turn-off. and then msnbc, they're starved for ratings. >> i'm sure they'd love to have trump the hour unplugged. the problem is if you think about it, he is so unplugged, he has no filter that most people in television have sort of an innate filter that keeps you from saying the things that will get you fired. he's already said things talking about mexican immigrants being rapists, talking about john mccain that would certainly have gotten him suspend friday an msnbc hosting gig. it would be very hard to imagine how do you keep going with this guy saying all this stuff which is -- at its essence what makes people so fascinated by him. he will say anything. >> mark thanks for being here. >> just raising the theory of trump as cable news host. we'll see what happens. when we come back gawker media, a meltdown there, the resignation of two top editors caused a lot of attention this week. of course a lawsuit from hulk hogan still pending. what is going to happen to

gawker? the founder nick denton joins me for an exclusive interview in a few minutes. ♪ if you can't stand the heat, get off the test track. get the mercedes-benz you've been burning for at the summer event, going on now at your authorized mercedes-benz dealer. hurry, before this opportunity cools off. share your summer moments in your mercedes-benz with us. staying in rhythm... it's how i try to live... how i stay active. so i need nutrition... that won't weigh me down. for the nutrition you want

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♪ tum, tum tum tum...♪ smoothies! only from tums. big changes coming to gawker media. it owns jess bell dead spin and flagship gawker. there's been nothing short of a revolt at gawker. i've never seen anything like that this week with yelling and finger-pointing at staff meetings and now the possibility of more resignations. let me back up and tell you what happened. the site posted a shocking story about a married media executive related to a former obama administration officials. it talks and how he was attempting to hire a gay escort who apparently blackmailed him. it went online and the negative feat feedback critics using vile. we're not going to show the

post. it's not appropriate. you can see some of the reaction. the next day nick denton chose to delete it. this week his two top editors resigned. more writers might jump ship in the coming days. this has gotten the taiwanese three dee animation, boundaries between church and state, news and advertising being crushed. gawker is facing a $100 million lawsuit from hulk hogan. they're trying to move it to a more mature media business. that's what it's about. if gawker is not a snark ki gossip site what is it? nick denton is the founder and ceo of gawker media. welcome back to the show. >> good to see you. >> this blog post went up on thursday night. did you know about it? >> i knew about it. i knew the team was working on the story. >> how could you have not

insisted on reading it before it was published on your westbound site? >> i have to say i thought it would take more time to go up on a friday. >> you thought you'd have time to read it thought you would be involved? >> i thought it would be more time for the editorial team to discuss it before moving forward with the story. i didn't see the point of the story as it was described to me. i made that clear, and when i saw the story later on, it was very very clear, not just from the universal reaction which was condemnation from our peers, but anybody with any kind of humanity could see this was not a story worth doing. >> you decided to take it down. there are reports there was a vote among your business lead rs and most of them supported you. why was it put up to a vote? >> this was my decision i ordered the post taken down. >> it wasn't a vote? >> the colleagues my executives supported me in my decision, but it was my decision. i am the founder of the company. i was the editor of gawker.com.

i am the guardian of the editorial ethos of the company. this is counter to what i want us to be doing. therefore, i had it taken down. >> gawker sort of has this reputation as being a place where anything goes. if it's true you publish it. here is part of the interview about hulk hogan. >> knowing what you know now, knowing all the legal costs already, would you have still published the video? >> i'm glad the decisions that taken on publishing taken at the time and i'm glad that we only really look at whether the story is both true and interesting. this story was true and interesting and we'd absolutely publish it again in a heartbeat. >> this was a sex tape involving hulk hogan, now he's suing. we can get into the lawsuit. what you said is what we look at is whether the story is true and interesting. is that still true? >> i think the difference between tony craggs the

executive editor who resigned on principle in this matter the difference between him and me, for tommy and some of the more hard line editorial staff, truth itself is the only necessary defense, and the belief is that nothing should ever be taken down if it is true. as i said in that quote, i believe that it's not -- it's necessary for something more than just simply truth to be operative in a story and truth and the interests, interest to our peers, to our audience is essential. >> would you publish that tape now, now that it seems like gawker is changing its editorial philosophy? >> the hogan story is an entirely different story. the hogan story, this is a story about a public figure massive global celebrity who talks incessantly about his sex life. >> we learned he was fired by the wwe, that helps your case. >> it shows motivation that

maybe explains why he's been so forceful in fighting this particular case. but the facts of our dispute with hulk hogan are clear, the law is clear and we look forward to the chance of defending this story in the courts. we will continue to publish stories like that. >> that's what people are wondering and we will continue to defend stories like that. i'm proud that we defend and publish stories that many other media organizations will not touch, not because they're bad stories, but because they're afraid of persecution. we would out a public figure -- i personally have been involved in stories about tim cook the ceo of apple. >> that was before he spoke publicly about being gay. >> correct. two years before. and stories about anderson cooper. >> again before he spoke publicly about it. you're okay with publishing those kind of stories. >> someone who is a public figure who talks about their

personal life interviewed by journalists. they don't get to say, oh you can't ask questions about my personal life. you can't ask this particular question. a lot of time journalists go along with the pr campaigns of celebrities. we don't and we won't. >> so what is going to change then? it does seem like you've decided gawker needs to be a bit friendlier. >> i think we could calibrate a bit. the company is no longer the fly by night blog shop it was. we're moving into new headquarters tomorrow on fifth avenue north of 14th street. the company has more than 100 million global readers per month. it is one of the four successful online media companies to emerge from the last few years. >> a lot of advertisers. aren't you thinking more about advertising and making sure they're comfortable at the site? doesn't that affect the editorial structure? >> we have never and will never take down a story because of an

advertiser's pressure. we are committed to running stories -- the real story and the story behind the story, precisely that's what at trarks our audience. that's what people come to us for. the advertisers who come to us they come from that audience. the editorial independence of the company. it's not just the principle, it's the core of our mission core of the company. >> you say that but your two top editors resigned. i asked them to come on the program and they declined. they resigned because of you meddling with the newsroom. >> both max read and tommy craggs are men of considerable principle. i don't think it was a story worth resigning over. i don't think it was -- >> are you saying they were too extreme about this? >> i have valued their passion and commitment to independent journalism. it has to go hand in hand with

trust from me in our editors to make judgment calls and in this particular instance the judgment call was wrong and i had it reversed. >> people who don't want to stay and work for the new gawker the slightly kinder gentler gawker, are you offering them buyouts, inviting them to leave? >> yes this weekend, yes, we're offering the staff members on gawker.com and senior editorial management a chance to leave if they don't like the future direction of the company as i've indicate zbld how many are you expecting to leave? >> i don't know. >> many you think? >> i don't know. i think probably fewer than one might think given the amount of discontent expressed last week. it comes down to people have to make up their minds. do i want to work at gawker media or work at some other company? we are committed to producing the kind of journalism that i think the boldest and freest writers of the web want to write. i believe most will want to stay.

>> but the door is open. that's an unprecedented move isn't it, nick? >> i don't think a company can be held hostage. >> held hostage? >> a company's ethos can be driven by the determination of some writers to go in a different direction. at some point we all have to decide are we in this together or not? all in or out? i think it's fair -- no antagonism antagonism doesn't need to be bad feelings. but if people want to pursue their own course that's different from the course i want to pursue, they should be free to do so and shouldn't suffer such bad financial consequences. >> bottom line gawker growing up you're saying? >> yes. >> thanks for being here. good talking with you. things seem to be going well for nbc news "nbc nightly news," the "today" show but what about msnbc? big changes on the way and we'll talk about those with new information right after the break.

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there's news about nbc news and for first time in a long time it's good news. the brian williamses controversy hurt the whole network. but lester holt is on a hot strike beating abc every week. there's a giant question mark ms nbc, its struggling cable news channel. the boss is planning massive changes. it's unclear which are staying and which are going and when brian williams is coming back. he's becoming a breaking news and special report anchor. once his suspension ends in august. he might not start until september now. he'll be waiting until the fall. here's what the channel looks like today. starts with "morning joe" has a lot of talk shows during the day and liberal tv at night. the afternoon shows are going away. ed shultz going away. al sharpton's show might be at risk too and persistent resume ores 8:00 p.m. may change as

well. rachel maddow is safe but one thing is clear, he wants less liberal opinion, more breaking news coverage during the daytime. by the way, there's one name on the tips of the tongues of so many staffers one of the biggest stars of msnbc's past. can you guess who? >> good night and good luck. >> keith olbermann put nbc on the map, went to espn but on friday signed off of espn and now a free agent. i want to ask two cable news veterans dan abrams who used to be the general manager of msnbc and 9:00 p.m. and john klein who used to run this channel, cnn. i'm told there's been no talks yet with olbermann but i'm sure they'll answer the phone if olbermann's agent calls. do you think hard news and provocative faces like brian williams are the answer now? >> look as you know one of the

things that msnbc staffers have been buzzing about is the possibility of keith olbermann coming back to msnbc. the first decision they have to make what are we? what are we going to be? what are we going to be during the day and going to be at night? if msnbc is going to continue to be liberal talk at night, then sure why not talk to keith olbermann among others. if not, it's a separate question. i think one of the biggest changes we'll see at msnbc for now is during the day. they had sort of written off breaking news. they kind of stopped covering breaking news -- >> going back to it and compete more directly with cnn it sounds like. >> absolutely. >> john is there room for three cable news channel, fox news what it does very well. is there room for cnn and msnbc to be doing breaking news in

2015? you're a digital media executive. everything is moving online. >> it's ironic that we think it's news when a news network decides to cover the news. that tells us how far we've come in the past 20 years. is it a strategy? the strategy they've got now is not working well. although they are not as far behind as people think. rachel maddow had a million viewers one night last week. >> having a hard time in the demo where advertisers care -- you used to preach and remember dan abrams talking about that years ago. is it possible to keep trying what it's doing? >> to break through in media today, digital television you've got to do it big and consistently. >> dan, do you agree? >> in a big way, it can work. >> look at the strategy that cbs morning show has used basically to say we're going to do more news and we're not going to care that much about the ratings.

meaning, the ratings were so low for cbs they felt they had nowhere to go but up and they were right. it's been good enough because they are happy about what they are covering. msnbc may decide to pursue a similar strategy which is to say if we can justin crease it a little bit and make us just a little more respectable, a little more accepted both on the outside and within nbc news that would be a win. that's a possible strategy but jon is right, if they want to really go for it and want to try to win, they are going to have to do something much bigger and bolder. >> and the election is a huge opportunity. >> that's right, 2016. >> this is the chance. i'm out ofime,i would loveto have you both back. we're going to keep talking about this remaking of msnbc. we'll be back here in a moment. stay with us.

can a business have a mind? a subconscious. a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of thought. can a business have a spirit? can a business have a soul? can a business be...alive? big day? ah, the usual. moved some new cars. hauled a bunch of steel. kept the supermarket shelves stocked. made sure everyone got their latest gadgets. what's up for the next shift? ah, nothing much. just keeping the lights on. (laugh) nice. doing the big things that move an economy. see you tomorrow, mac. see you tomorrow, sam. just another day at norfolk southern.

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televised version of reliable sources. check out my story on the week's business news more at cnnmoney.com/media. stay tuned, donald trump and rick perry on "state of the union" starts right now. breaking now -- >> beautiful. >> brand-new poll numbers show donald trump still leading the republican pack but jeb bush is hot on his tail. >> i'm in first place by a lot it seems. i want to run as a republican. i think i'll get the nomination. >> can he go the distance or will his own party take him down? donald trump's candidacy is a cancer on conservative. >> rick perry emerging as the leading voice on trumpism. he joins us. plus black lives