but it didn't, and as a result, we will never truly know. thank you for watching. thank you for watching. i'm fareed zakaria. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com good morning. i'm brian stelter and it is time for "reliable source os" the weekly look of the story behind the story of how news and pop culture get made. this morning we are covering the biggest media screwups of the year. a credibility crisis made worse in cases like brian williams. it is no wonder that the easiest way to rally a crowd is to attack the messengers. >> we all love the media. do we love the media? [ booing ] >> no, the level of dishonesty is up real. >> it is time for the media to

talk about the issues that are really impacting the american people. >> it is like they are campaigning againstt the media, campaigning gaiagainst the pres be few they liked everything that we they read and heard, we wouldn't be doing our job. and this year, triumphfes for journalisms as reporters faced dangerers around the world, and even here in the u.s. later we will go to the site of virginia where two tv reporters were killed. i will speak to the only survivor of the attack, and a woman who this is incredibly thankful to be spending christmas with her family this year. and since it is the last show of the year, we want to talk about some media resolutions. let's start with a panel of michael e reske and carol who is from the biggest news wire in the world. and jeanette ta coals who is the

editor-in-chief of teen magazine. michaelle, wh l michael, what are you seeing for this year? >> brian williams self-aggrandizing stories was truly, that part was sad, but the brian williams the anchor was announcing that brian wil y william s was going to be taking a leave of absence, and nobody was supervising. it takes people overseeing. >> editors. >> and yes, even the biggest e editors need an editor, and when you look at nbc, you can say that nobody was watching over the shop at that time, and they let brian williams go too far. >> and what is extraordinary at that story, too, it was playing out in plain sight, and people

at nbc apparently knew it was true, and nobody called it. that is the tragedy. >> and nobody said, stop. >> at this moment, it was in february when he was suspended. >> i was want to apologize, because i said that i was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by rpg fire, and instead, i was in a following aircraft, a nd we all landed after the attack, and this is a bungled attempt by me to thank one veteran and by extension all of the brave men and women who serve and they i did not, and i hope they know that have my great est respect and also now y apology. >> and now, of course, brian williams is on msnbc anchoring "breaking news." is that one of the most

embarrassing? >> well, that is one. >> there is a lot to choose from? >> yes, a lot of journalism going on and a lot of mistakes going on, but what is important is how you deal with the mistakes when they happen. you can't prevent all of them, but you try really hard to prevent them, but when you can't, you have to come clean. as clean as you k and as transparent as you can about what happened and there has to be continues kwesequences. >> are you feeling that will there is more than usual because of the pace of the internet age? >> well, there is a rigor to call out the mistake, and news organizations as a whole are more open about the mistakes. in the year i started in the business that we will not name, there were a lot of mistakes made, and ugh, and so now, the profession is much more rigorous now. >> i agree with that and now you are will see a many of the digital-only organizations adopting the standards to run corrections and editor's notes.

>> acting more like the old-fashioned organizations. >> and yes, at least trying to be transparent about what they get right and wrong and maybe it seems that more is going on wrong, but it is in more ways what is going on. >> and i am slightly more cynical, because we are called out on it more simply when people go to the twitter when we make a mistake, and we are forced to immediately respond to it. >> and that is not a good thing? >> no, it is fantastic, and a great thing, but that is why the discipline is hitting the profession. >> and because the audience is calling you a mistake. >> is it really a mistake if nobody nose it? but the story that struck fear in my heart and every magazine editor's heart was the "rolling stone" story. >> yes, the rape story on the uva campus. >> yes. >> and they went line by line through the errors, and the editor is not there and they have replaced the editor at

"rolling stone." >> and the way of dealing with a catastrophic story, and undermined the complete credibility, and yet, it is a magazine that has done some incredible investigative work. but what great damage control the bring in steve coal, the head of the journalism school, a and he reports back that the basic journalistic rules are broken. the fact-checker at every level. and so tragedy story that a storied editor gone, and the real opportunity cost of more people having doubts of sexuals a saults reported on college campuses. >> and johannjohanna, the both it was a breakdown of the editorial rigor. >> institutional. >> and i worry in the time of the deep financial stress and

deep cutbacks that kind of error become becomes more common. >> and let's talk about the finest points of journalism in the year? >> well, the outstanding image of the year if any of us doubt that journalism can move people is the extraordinary, and very distressing image of the 3-year-old washed up on the beach. that is the tipping point of how we all responded to the terrible migration story in syria. it is one tof the photos that stands along, and photos out of the depression, and stands alongside those black and white photo photos that the defined the trenches of the world war i. i mean, it was a historic photo, and it changed the conversation. >> and whether it is because of the terrible picture or not, history is changing in europe. the face of europe is changing because of migration. the food that we eat in the restaurant restaurants in europe is going to be a reflexion of the migration, and the stories that we tell, and the people who are

elected into office, and all of that is changing. the news organizations are trying to wrestle with it. these are big huge stories that news organizations would not try to wrestle with before. it bespeaks a real sophistication on the part of news agencies that we didn't see before. >> and one more, and you is to brag for the a.p. itself, and how about the a.p.'s investigation into the fishing industry in southeast asia. >> amen to that. >> and you freed slaves and people held against their will working. >> in all of the years i have been doing this, the impact was indirect, but this worked directly for the freedom of 2000 slaves are who are no longer kept on an island, and forced the fish. we traced the fishing that was caught, and the fish that was caught by those slaves all of the way back to supermarket ss the u.s. i am proud of that work, and the women, the women journalists who are responsible for it. >> congratulations. >> and fantastic work. >> we don't always hear about those stories when they go

right, and when there are not problems with them. >> sometimes the biggest stories in the world are really thing ths that don't happen all at once, and stories that ooze as i sometimes say. race, climate change, migration -- every once in a while, you will get a moment in time that captures it, like the horrifying photo of the child on the beach, but there is no one moment, and those are harder for us to cover. as journalists we are not as good at that as we are when something blows up, and we have to be >> and you will get the audience fatigue, because there are so many times that you can hear about it. because the news cycle itself ebb ebbs and flows according to the drama going on. >> and good point. >> and also, history being made, and what we have discussed and the society's view of lgbt or gay marriage and all kinds of personal shifts. we are trying to shove history in the making into a news cycle, and it does not fit, but we have to make it try. >> and describing the opposite of breaking news. like you say, oozing news.

but these are the stories that ke d fine o define our times. >> one thing that digital revolution is doing to disrupt journalism is making it stronger in this respect. the breaking news, even the a.p. can't keep up with twitter. >> yes. >> and god knows we try. but you really can't, so we have to get smarter, and deeper, because that is the way we remain valuable to the audiences, so it is pushing us to a good direction. >> and something like snap chat where there was the terrible tragedy at the hajj, and then suddenly, everybody is a journalist, and everybody has a c camera and an eye on the world, and it is a 1,000 points of view, and it is incredibly value to people watching, but also to the news organizations, and now all of the sudden the a.p. does not have 20 correspondents in a place, but 2,000, and then the problem is how to piece it

together and make sense of it. >> and the a.p. in days after that catastrophe to trying to get honest answers out of governments and counting the bodies. and the death toll was difficult to get. >> and it was triple what we thought? >> yes, and that is why the news organizations have to pivot in the ways that most of us have, because there are eyes and cameras and ears out there for the hing thises that happen. the events of god an man, right. we have to be the ones that go farther, and we have to give the people something that they can't get by just the happenstance of being there with a smartphone. we have to ask the questions. we have to find out things that people don't want us to find out. that is one of our greatest responsibilities is to, if just blood hound work. >> that is the mission, and it has not changed. >> it has not changed. >> michael, johanna and kathleen, stay with me. and now, what other media and journalism story ares were

the most viewed this year? stay with me for the top ten stories that i bet that you had forgotten this year. right after this. at planters we know how to throw a remarkable holiday party. just serve classy snacks and be a gracious host, no matter who shows up. [cricket sound] richard. didn't think you were going to make it. hey sorry about last weekend, i don't know what got into me. well forgive and forget... kind of.

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tand that's what we're doings to chat xfinity.rself, we are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. and this includes our commitment to being on time. every time. that's why if we're ever late for an appointment, we'll credit your account $20. it's our promise to you. we're doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. because we should fit into your life. not the other way around. welcome back. debate, shootings, scandals, a relentless news cycle kept the media buzzing in 2015, but ten moments stood out in the crowded landscape. we went all of the way back to

january, and these are the top ten media stories of the year. >> hello, everybody, thank you so much. >> late night's new look. stephen colbert taking over for david letterman, and then trevor knowles taking over for john stewart. and samantha b is also going to host a new show next year. the vanity fair picture showing the ten minute late night was a hit. the number nine, scandal and counting. josh duggar admitted he molested children including his sisters when he was a teenager. josh stood by the family when he was interviewed but then hackers broke into ashley madison database and he admitted to cheating on his wife, and in and online post he called himself the biggest hypocrite ever. and number eight, caitlyn

jenner's vanity fair cover spread awareness of transgender issues. it all started with an interview with diane sawyer, and then caitlyn received the espy. and then 35 women accused bill cosby of assault the headline was "bill cosby, the women, an unlikely sisterhood." cosby has not been charged with any crime and continues to deny any accusations. and number 6, the correspondent jason rezaian was convicted of a crime that everybody is calling

a sham. he is a pawn in the war, and december marked his 500th day in jail. and number 5, the imagine of a refugee washing up on the shore. it woke the world up, something that gallons of ink had failed to do. the heated debate of how to solve the problem remains unknown, but the picture remains a haunting toll on humanity. and then number 4, the live shooting on tv. the killing of alison parker and james ward were shocking. one was in the control room at the time. the murderer a disgruntled former employee posted a point of view angle on social media and then shot himself later in the day as police closed in.

horrific event, but a strong response of broadcast journalists posting themselves out doing their jobs just like allison and adam were out doing that day, and others pitched in to help them stay on the air in the following days that followed. and number eight, charlie hebdo, the satirical magazine that was stormed by attackers who killed several of them. they were seeking revenge of cartoons portraying the prophet mohammed. but the world struck back. it is not the only time that paris would mourn a terrorist attack in 2015. number two, here in the u.s., brian williams is kicked off of the u air. the celebrated nbc nightly news anchor was suspended without pay for six months in february after xexaggerating a story about a helicopter mission in the iraq war. and they found at least ten other embellishments in the

anchor's past, and lester holt took off. some thought that williams would not return at all, but he did in a new role covering breaking news on msnbc and he told matt lauer about the exaggerations. >> it had to be ego that made me think that i had to be sharper, funnier, quicker. >> and number one, the biggest media story of 2015 is donald trump taking over. it started with controversy. >> they are bringing drugs. they are bringing crime. they are rapists, and some, i assume are good people. >> but it was followed by the rising poll numbers and record debate ratings and talking heads in disbelief, and frustrated fact-checkers. even when the media calls him out, he does not back down. he is not afraid to pick a fight with the media, and making controversial comments about fox news' anchor megan kyn kelly or

mocking times' reporter with a disability. it is the reality tv effect on t the campaign trail. as primary heats nup 2016, the media circus will continue. the voters will have the last word on trump. >> yes, we are just getting started with 2016. up next on "reliable sources" the panel of top editors. i will ask them what was the toughest decision a they had to make this year, and what stories deserved a lot more coverage? the answers are right after t s this. ♪

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welcome back. without a doubt, 2015 has been all about the donald trump show. trump's incendiary comments about first mexican immigrants and muslims and some journalists kept him in the headlines. in fact, so much so that media said that trump is overcover and getting way too much attention. so what has been undercovered then? what are the stories that are are not getting enough attent n attention? is what did we miss this year? and back is my all-star panel, michael oreske, and kathleen

carroll and johan na coals. have we done too much on trump? >> well, as a news organization saying i won't do a trump story the i da, so it is a self-perpetuating thing, and audiences are tired of it, but because he is a frontrunner, you want to cover what he says, and it is controversial, and you owe the readers and viewers some fact-cha fact-checking about it, and you have to cover who he is and more than the side show. >> and michael, too much news is too much? and that is donald trump. >> i am sorry to say that we had some great withins that we didn't broadcast that we should have, but in some ways, i think that we have covered him too a little. particularly in the beginning of the trump phenomenon, we should have covered him more, and more particularly, we should have dug into the e phenomenon of trump,

and this not a one-man-show, and a corner of the country, a group of people who are angry and isolated and feel cut off and frankly angry and isolated and cutoff of what we think is mainstream media, too. >> and johanna, how does a leading women's magazine cover trump? >> well, we have covered trum, b but the one gift that trump has given us is that he has engaged a lot h of people who otherwise would not be interested in this primary season. >> true. >> and now you have suddenly record numbers off people watching the debates and young people watching the debates and arguing in the playground and on the college campus, and to me, this is exciting. have i had personally enough of watching about him abso-freak i ing-lutely. >> and so in terms of politics what do you wish that you had done more or of other news agencies did? >> well, i was intriged by the

cecil the lion story. we have a lot of stories are there, and you had obsessive coverage of cecil the lion there in zimbabwe and therefore because of black lives matter, it didn't get much coverage at all, because they are under the routinely dictator who has killed his people, and so zimbabwe is a complete ly forgettable story, where it was the sesle the lion, and it was hugely at odds. >> and what about you, michael? >> we need to pay moret attention to the servicemen and women returning from afghanistan. a small corner of the country fought these two wars, and we were shocked the other, just a few months ago when a colleague at colorado public radio brought to us real evidence that

psychiatrists at fort car sson colorado were pushing the service members out of the military, even though they seemed to be suffering from post-traumatic stress and other military issues, and could be as many as 20,000, and it is that we can't lose sight of them, and even though the country may want to move on, we can't lose sight of that. >> and also, the women vets coming back, they get no service, you know. there is no mental health that is about them, and no physical rehabilitation set up for them, and they are really doubly forgotten. >> yes. particularly. >> and at a time when the mi military says we want women in more roles, and then how to the deal with the system is not e equipped at all. >> and you can see for the first time this year ever, the elite

forces are allowing the women to take part, so that is an inkr incredible step forward, but how they deal with them when they come back is still very, very miserable. >> and kathleen, as the head of a large news organization, is there particularly a difficult decision that you had to make and stuck with me? >> well, the toughest decision that i have to make is the deployment of people, and treatment of people in daker zone, and there are so many. >> and so many. >> and last year was a bad year for a.p., and this year in c challa we have not lost anybody, but the toughest decisions are people to decide to go or not go, and how to help the people who have had those kinds of experiences recover are from them and process them and put them in their proper places. those are always bar none, the hardest decisions. >> and i agree with kathleen. and one thing to add there it is a tough decision either way. these journalists want to go. they want to go to see what is happening, and it is what their

chemistry tells them they ought to do, and you have to say no to them some of the time, but every time you say no, you are cutting off the audience from information they really need. i mean, these wars, and these dangerous areas are also places where important things are happening. >> and back to the conver asiant the top, brian, it is editors making decisions, and the decision has to be not this or that, and everyday, everywhere in the world, somebody is doing something foul to somebody else, and we are not in most of those places, and you so the balance what the story is to bring to the aud yeps and at what cost? >> is it trite to the say that they stopped anymore ep ed soeds of "newsroom" becaus i felt that aaron sorkin played out the issues so well. it is very enjoyable, and i was sorry they did it. >> and when is the last time i was in a newsroom when everybody was sleeping with everybody. >> i thought the editor was so

good looking. like me. >> and i have to confess, i could not watch, because it was too much like work. >> that is interesting too much like work. and johanna, you said that click bait versus high quality content, and trying to get a lot of people reading the website, and trying to pierce something that you can be proud of. >> the audience now has multiple choice, real multiple choice, and so to what extent do you want to stay true to what you do, and remain narrow, and then broaden out the world issues that we have been wrestling with. >> and this is one of the reasons that i am optimistic about the future, because in the world where there is an infinite amount of content, and the only way to distinguish ourselves, "cosmopolitan" the associated press, npr is to do something good or better or distinctive and that is hopeful thing, because the audiences come back to us, because we give them something. >> and i do think that good

brands and in this year, a particularly good year for the magazine magazines are able to do things that certain social media channels can't. so you have the caitlyn jenner cover on vanity fair, and 35 women who accuse bill cosby of the sexual assault on the cover of "new york magazine" and you can launch the kconversations o a way that you can't on social media, and that is a really good year for magazines actually. >> two things about that. the click bait, and the reader is going to get that this is one more that you would never believe what is going to be happening next, and that i will go away from that, but what we need to do is to avoid the idea that serious news is castor oil and it has to be taken with a spoon. there is a lot to make what we do more interesting, and that is the point that mike is making. it is important, and it does isn't have to be distasteful or terrible, and sit down like you are being punished to consume it, and we need to do more to make the things that we feel important engaging and interesting, and there is a lot

happening on the front visually with virtual reality and with pictures and slide showeds and more engaging ways of writing, and none of them have kittens in them. >> but you can use some lists, and number four is amazing. wait until you see it. >> and it can be substantive, actually. >> yes. and a lot of what kathleen said is that a lot of the things and the tools and the presentation means don't have anything to do with whether the journalism is good or bad, but it is what you put in them, the contaber s -- containers. >> and coming up, we will talk about the lone survivor of a live tv shooting. hear what she is thankful for. isn't it beautiful when things just come together?

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welcome back. i know that i'll never forget the morning that i saw this video, this horrifying video of a cold-blooded killing at smith mountain lake near roanoke, virginia. this is august 26th.

the victims were journalists. reporter allison parker and cameraman adam ward broadcasting live on wdbj tv when a former employee approached them and fired at point blank range. i mentioned mitt the top ten list of the media, but let me underscore how disturbing this was. at the time of the shooting, no journalist had been killed on assignment in almost a decade. and after the shooting, i heard from tv reporters across the country who felt they were much more vulnerable now while out on live shots. one woman survived, the woman that you see in the live shot with allison, and her name is vicki gardner, the president of the chamber of commerce there to talk about the lakes. she has had multiple surgeries and i met up with her recently.

>> reporter: when you were interviewing with allison, did you see the man coming up to the cameraman and her in the position? >> i did. i did. who would have guessed in a million years what would have happened. >> reporter: you didn't feel that he was threatening, but you is a him come out of the peripheral vision? >> yes, it is peripheral vision, and again, we were speaking l e live, and as he approached i could see it, and i was a little distracted, but wiz not concerned. when he opened fire, it was still very difficult to even understand and comprehend what was happen iing. i can -- it was something that one does not expect to the happen, and your mind very quickly goes into a lot of scenarios. but it was very horrific. >> reporter: initially, he did not shoot at you sh, but the cameraman, and dam, and the reporter, allison, and allison fled, and he chased her and did

you think that the threat for you was over? >> no, i dropped to the ground, and i had not been hit. i just laid very still, and he did come back and he did shoot me. it is my mental thought that he had run out of bullets. i think that he would have continued to shoot. b but, he had just one load of bullet, but i didn't hear him leave, so there was much concern there. >> reporter: and maybe that is what people misunderstand about these store tlas you can't process or understand or do anything about it. >> that is exactly right. as i relive this in my mind, was there anything that i could have done that could have made a difference, and absolutely not. had to just lay very still, and i thought that perhaps i'm not going to be here by the time help does arrive, because the

stores and everything did not open for two hours. and it was a matter of minutes before law enforcement came. they were the true heroes to put their lives in harm to protect mine. sflr a >> reporter: and you said that you did watch the live broadcast to see what was televised? >> well, the mind can play a lot of tricks. my memory, and i want to make sure that my memory matches reality, and you can convince yourself of a lot of things, but seeing it, and just having a clearer understanding of exactly what transpired and so, yeah, it was horrific to watch obviously, but it gave me great insight. >> reporter: and did you also watch the gunman's point of view, the sick video he recorded on his own body and then uploaded to twitter and facebook? >> parts of it. >> reporter: does part of you resent the fact that he wanted

the public to see it? >> i am in disbelief that anyone could do it. it is hard to even accept that a human being could do that. >> reporter: you have been interacting with journalists for many, many year, and does this make you think differently about journalists and about the exposure that sometimes they face when they are out doing a live shot or about the risks they might be taking without even knowing it. >> yes, that is true. who would have ever guessed that something like this happened, but it did the. the journalists are an amazing group of people, and they have a job the to do and they do it well. >> there is a disgusting phenomena after shootings that the these people on the internet say they are truthers, and that all of the shootings reported by the press are made up -- >> i have heard that. >> reporter: i it is appalling for me to see it, but what do you think when you see that? >> why would you give credibility to somebody who is

trying to create chaos, and we have a horrible situation where people have lost family members and how dare somebody come in and second-guess. yes, i saw a few of them. i did not take the time to the read them. i lived it. i didn't think that i needed to prove that the families that have lost, go to the funeral. just go to the funeral of those peop people. or for myself, i did have someone that wrote and said, if you could just show us pictures of your wounds. >> reporter: they wanted proof? >> they wanted proof. my proof was, delete. >> reporter: you know what happens after every shooting there is media talk about the gun regulations, and why there shouldn't be gun regulations. >> i sat back and thought about it, and we know that the gun regulation is taking place, but it takes time. and with most of the shootings,

mental health issues that come into play and may serve to prevent something horrific like thisp from happen manage the future, but also i think that immediately, tomorrow, today, that we can take a look at what we allow in our house. we have become desensitized. while i was in the hospital, i turned on the tv and the three shows that i happened to click on each and every one of them had a violence component to it which at that time i really didn't care to watch, but it made me think, e gee, is this, and have we become so desensitized to violence that it is now part of our entertainment, our daily entertainment? >> reporter: the attack happened four months ago at this point, and you are living with it everyday and you recently had a final surgery? >> yes, i have had three surgeries so far, and i think that it is overwith now, and it is the recovery and the physical gaining strength back, and mental, and all of the above. >> reporter: have the doctors given you a sense of when you can go back to work? >> well, we are still working

through that, and i'm still in somewhat the healing process. >> you are determined to go back? >> yes, i will be back. of course, i will be back. i am so look g fing forward to >> you will be going back to the lake and the building where this shooting happened and do you a hesitation of returning work there? >> i don't. it is a joyous place and again, something horrible happened, but it is not defining where i work. it was right outside of my window that this tragedy happened, and there is a w wonderful monument so to speak with a plaque on it in memory of alison parker and adam ward, and it is binoculars that was chosen and so rather than people coming in to point to the sight that, that is where it happened, they can now say, i can see what they were looking at and talking about and it is a focal point now with a positive nature to

it, and just the way it was done. i will be looking out my window and seeing that the everyday and seeing people every single day taking a look at our lake as a resu result. >> reporter: at the end of the year, what are you most thankful f for? >> broad range. i am so thankful first of all to be here and surrounded by the community that we have. it has been an eye-opening experience. i have seen the worst that society can do, and i have seen the best that society can do. 99.9% of the population out there is so positive and so helpful. when i think about the cards, the letters, the gifts, and the outpouring of support and prayers, it just is amazing. i would have never guessed that there was so much good in this world. i have seen it up close, and personal. now, gardener is raising money for a charity that her colleagues set up after the

attack. it is called vicki's vision, a vision of a community center that the community so sorely lacks. at this time, our thoughts are with allison and adam the's family, and also with vicki. >> and now, 2016 is around the corner, so what stories and changes do the media experts hope the see in the new year? i will ask them right after this. at planters we know how to throw a remarkable holiday party. just serve classy snacks and be a gracious host, no matter who shows up.

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welcome back to "reliable sources." to the part of the hour i've been most looking forward to. a chance to look ahead to 2016 to what stories and trends will define the year ahead. i'm joined by my panel of experts. let's talk about lessons learned from this year. first to you kathleen, is there a takeaway for you and your journalists this year? >> i think the most important

thing for us is to continue the conversation with audiences. >> to interact. >> it's a two-way conversation. they're yelling at us or engaging with us. we're showing more of what we do. we interviewed a killer recently as part of a series of stories we're doing on people disappearing in northern mexico. we did a separate story explaining to the audience how we got to him, why we believed him, and they can make their own choice about whether he was credible or not. that wouldn't have happened in years past. the onmedia is continuing to go away. >> journalism is all about process. journalists have always believed in process, but we never wanted to tell anyone about it. we were afraid to show the sausage making. i don't think we have a choice

anymore. >> look at programs that are pioneering new forms of story telling that way too. >> what one should be excited about is audience engagement. we have the kardashian family, six of them on our november cover. we said "america's first family" which obviously we said with tongue in cheek. we got 17,000 comments on instagram from people outraged by this. how fantastic that people felt so strongly that they could really come at us. frequently they hate you, frequently they love you, but you cannot ignore them. you have to engage. that's the challenging bit of being an editor. it's also the fun bit. >> my lesson from the year came from david carr, my mentor at the "new york times." his column was special because it was based on reporting.

if i'm going to go on tv and say what i think, it should be based on reporting, actual interviews and information we gather. that's what tv and the web -- >> i think we have to repeat that lesson over and over. >> it is easy to forget sometimes. >> it's a really important point this year, especially coming out of the campaign, but not only the campaign. i think journalists are under an enormous amount of pressure to pass judgments on people, on stories, on situations. ben smith, the head of buzz feed says we should call donald trump a racist. >> he recently told his staff it's okay. >> that sounds like name calling me me. that doesn't sound like assembling the facts so your audience can figure things out. >> there's also a sense in which many people can go direct to consumer almost. if you think of the way that

taylor swift wrote her letter to apple. >> that was an important moment. >> saying actually it's not okay that you're going to give three months free and not pay the artist. and amazingly for apple, which is not a company that necessarily responds that fast, they responded really quickly and said, we will absolutely pay the musicians. a lot of people found out about the music in a way they wouldn't have known before. i thought that was very exciting. she didn't take the traditional route of going to barbara walters or brian stelter, she did it herself. and i think it behoovs us to pay attention to that. >> the idea that every artist, every candidate is a media company nowadays. something we're going to continue to see next year. there's going to be a continuing move toward distributive journalism. and not necessarily through our

own websites and networks. what is an expectation for you all for next year? >> i would like to increase the diversity. we do try, but i'm conscious that we need to do it more. we need to reflect the reader base as accurately as we can. it's my sort of personal note to myself. i'm excited about having these extra audiences. it's exciting. it's not necessarily the same person who reads the magazine or sees us on facebook. it's great to have more people coming into the brand. >> how about a new year's resolution? >> it's to double down on the great content. i'd like to work with colleagues at the ap and all over the public media world special other places to try to restore the kind of journalism we used to have in state capitals. the single most damaged area of journalism over the last ten or 15 years has been the coverage of state and local government. we need to rebuild it for the

good of the country. >> kathleen, how about you? >> continue work we've had under way sometime. really blood hound work in every day across the report and make that part of our mission every day, somebody is going to tell you something new in every piece of ap content that you encounter, something that you didn't know before, that you couldn't find on social media. >> i think the element of surprise is incredibly important. you never want to switch on the radio and watch the television or news and it be predictable. >> exactly so. >> i love that notion that we should surprise our audiences every day. we'll leave it there. thank you all for being here this mork. >> thanks, brian. >> that's all for this special televised edition of reliable sources. you can resolve not to miss the biggest media stories of next year by logging onto

cnnmoney.com/media. have a happy new year and let's meet back here this time next week. now we're off to d.c. state of the union starts right now. the final push. just days before the start of 2016 the candidates are pressing the flesh and making their case in the early states. >> we're the only campaign who has a county chairman in all 171 counties. 160,000 volunteers. we're working to do everything humanly possible to energize and mobilize the grassroots. >> can cruz stop trump in iowa? our reporters give the view from the ground. plus preparing for november. >> what will happen if trump runs against hillary? it will be the largest turn out in the history of elections and a lot of those people coming out will vote for trump. >> who has the numbers to make it to 1600 penn.