>> fox senior vice president, bill schein said in a statement, beck was offering his own views, and not those of fox news channel. beck's broadside came during a period where the birthers have been getting air time for their ludicrous time that obama is not an american citizen. questions that have been pressed by the likes of rush limbaugh and cnn's lou dobbs. and that controversy led dobbs to take a very personal swipe at msnbc's rachel maddow. so is some of the cable commentary getting out of line? should there be a line you can't cross without getting fired? and why are we still discussing this skip gates arrest? joining me now, amanda moore, and michelle cottle, senior editor of the new republic. is calling the president a racist simply out of bounds? >> yes. >> and yet, there doesn't seem to be any great uproar about it.

>> i don't know. that's the part that surprises me a little. but there's a lot -- i guess it would be funny if it weren't so, and here's a word we've heard a lot of lately, stupid. here is a man who has a white mother. here's a man who was raised by two white grandparents, who obviously adored him and who he adores. here's a man at so-called white culture than glenn beck is, and yet we have to hear this kind of commentary. it's quite remarkable. the only thing i would say about this, there's a long history of people towards african-americans. i was reminded in 1851, there was a doctor named samuel cart wright who coined a term to describe what he was called a syndrome of runaway slave who is ran away from abuse i have treatment. he said this was a mental illness. it was part of this long tradition of trying to path ol eyes people who speak up on their own behalf. >> is it enough for fox to say,

oh, this is just glenn's opinion. fox news gives him a platform. >> we have the situation where we have people who are on news channels, cable news channelses, who are known as personalities. they said, he was voicing his opinion. lots of commentators say things that lots of people disagree with and i think they have a right to say it. >> does this one disturb you? >> it does. i don't think it would be printed in the "washington time times", for example. and maybe glenn beck realizes that, because i didn't see him repeating that on his show later that day. >> michelle, i interviewed glenn beck back when he worked for cnn's headline news, and asked him about his inflammatory statements, he said, i'm just a rodeo clown, portrayed himself as an entertainer. so how does he get away with this? he doesn't seem to be paying any kind of price. >> when you're talking about political punditry, it does not serve you well to go out and talk nuance, or it does get you the big, committed audience. normal people have lots to do with their time. what you have with glenn beck is

the crazier he gets, the more obsessiives he draws and these people sit and watch every word and go to every speech and buy every book, and it's great for him and great for fox, and they're not going to do a thing about it. >> so playing to the base, so to speak? >> yeah. base. >> and the big stars in cable would not draw a needle in the broader network universe. but it's great for selling books. >> right, you get 2 or 3 million viewers in cable and you are a superstar. and you worry, you basically, you can make a very nice living cat catering to those people, even if everyone else says, racist? how can you call the president a racist? especially a president that seems to avoid or neutralize racial issues, kbeexcept in thi case. i mentioned lou dobbs and the birthers, people who against all available evidence insist or question whether or not barack obama was born in the united states. in fact, he was born in hawaii in 1961. let me show you a little bit of

what dobb has been saying on this issue, and he got some unexpected support from fox from bill o'reilly who was disagreeing with a guest about whether or not dobbs should be kicked off cnn. >> a lot of questions remaining, and seemingly the questions won't go away, because they haven't been dealt, it seems possible, to straightforwardly, and quickly. >> cnn ought to do something about it. >> look, i don't mind you coming out and saying you disagree with him, it's totally absurd, it's wrong to exploit it, he's playing upon faears, there migh be a racial component, although i don't believe lou dobbs is a racist is all. >> he says he continues to raise questions about why doesn't the white house just clear this up? it's not responsible to say, lingering questions remain about whether or not barack obama is an american citizen? >> when i was thinking about the coverage of this story, i was like, why is this being talked about now? it's been on the internet and we've been getting e-mails

forever. and i trace it back to the republicans that are sponsoring a bill, to require future presidents to produce documentation of their citizenship. >> which is clearly a shot at obama. >> right. it started in march, but got ten more cosponsors recently, and i think people are using that as a reason to cover it across the networks. and i think that's wrong. >> but that makes me uncomfortable, that someone should be kicked off the air for covering some stories. some stories with more depth and more duration than others, because i think they're a particular interest to my audience, and they make something uncomfortable. >> leave aside the question of somebody being banished from the airwaves, the associated press yesterday said that lou dobbs has become a publicity nightmare for cnn. brooks jackson, a former correspondent of this network, says he's an embarrassment. he says he's just raising the questions. but when you raise the questions in the face of what the cnn network itself says is a settled question, in other words, there is really no dispute, no factual

dispute that obama is says, don't you therefore raise questions about yourself? >> there are other rem dishere. if cnn wants to continue to use him as a commentator, per se, that seems reasonable to me. newspapers have op-ed pages and opinion pages. the difficulty then is reporters appear on his program, he's required to answer their questions, he's put in the power of position of being a host. you're blurring the lines for all the other people that work on this network. that's the problem. >> i don't think there's any question that dobbs is in the opinion business, and he was criticized for his position on the birthers by msnbc's rachel maddow. lou then took a shot back at rachel. let's show you that. >> today on his radio show, cnn host lou dobbs called me a "tea bagging queen," because i made fun of him on this show, for helping into the mainstream the off the deep end wing nut racist conspiracy theory that barack obama is secretly foreign and therefore secretly not really president. a "tea bagging queen," what kind

of queen would that be, exactly? >> you know, i would like to ask, what in the heck was he talking about, anyway? a tea bagging queen. >> he's the one that introduced that term into the media sphere when she was making fun of the tea party protesters. he slammed it back against her and she's offended. now maybe she understands why the tea party protesters were offended when she said. >> but we're just calling names at this point. >> the average person must be watching this, must be watching this and saying, this is like a high school spit ball fight. >> o'reilly and keith olbermann, you know, would go at each other like this. this is not the first time this has happened. cable news hosts decide that they need a nemesis, and it jacks up their ratings if you can have somebody on the other side to get your followers fired up about being ticked off about. >> this is like a hip hop beef, where they sell records by beefing on each other. >> let me now take you back to the heartstoping drama of last

thursday where cnn and msnbc has countdown clocks, kicking off the minutes until we had the white house beer summit. of course, henry louis gates and sergeant james crowley, meeting over brews with the president. boy, this story just took on a life of its own. here's what some of the coverage looked like. >> breaking news tonight, the beer bash. just wrapping up at the white house. >> was there any warmth, could you see, in the body language? >> didn't look like an especially warm moment. >> i'm told that the interaction between these two men was actually quite warm. >> we can report that president obama, as expected, drank a bud lite. >> sat around, drinking a little brew, chatting, but nobody could hear what they said. there were also snacks. >> let me ask you the broader question, michelle martin, why are the media still talking about this two weeks later and what's your reaction when people say, this is such a distraction from the real issues. >> there are so many strains to this. we have talked about this. first of all, it's august. i mean, we're normally talking

about shark attacks and jelly fish infeations, so it's august. thing two, this actually is about something different. it really is. these interactions between african-americans and latinos are a very deep strain in our society. it's like constant back pain. and for a lot of african-americans to say, this is a distraction, they're saying, why sympathetic that so profoundly affects me, why can't it engage the broader public? on the other hand, we all are a race, we think we're experts, so we feel inclined to opine about this. is this constructive in the long-term, constructive -- it's one of those only time will tell issues. shelby steel told me, race is a free market, people can say what they want. >> right. obama suggested the media were hyping this. he said it wasn't really a summit and fascinated by the fascination. excuse me, when invited these two guys to the white house? >> yeah. he is the one who's interested in advancing this dialogue. he said as much in the

prime-time press conference. he wants to talk about it. he convened the summit. photographers came. i think this is something -- he's all been interested in exploring racial issues. his first book is about struggling with his identity as a half black man, "dreams of my father." i think he wanted this conversation and a convenient distraction from the health care debate. >> i disagree with that. i don't think he wanted it -- >> but the fact he stepped in it with the word "stupidly." >> and if he wanted to have a constructive, serious discussion, you would go inside the white house doors and have no cameras. many of these guys with their shirt sleeves and beers, posed like they're at a photo shoot for oprah. >> but modelinging civil discourse is not a bad thing to do. how many times have you been invited to a party in washington where there are no people of color there. i've been many to many rooms where my husband and i were the only black people there in this day and age. so modelinging civil discourse is not a bad thing. >> but then you cannot be

unhappy when people sit around and parse body language. >> they were warm, not warm. >> i don't know why everybody's picking it apart. >> wasn't there sort of a comical gaffe between the volume and intensity of the media coverage and what we're actually allowed to see at this photo op, which was a 40-second appearance before the camera that were kept 40 feet away. i mean, it was almost surreal. >> they know how to work the media. they are extremely good at putting forward the tableau that they want to without actually having anybody in there with the microphones to -- nobody needed to report out what was said. otherwise, it's kind of a false, you know, exercise in general. >> but then you had sergeant crowley afterwards holding a news conference to say, this was a productive discussion. it sounded like he was discussing the salt talks with the soviet union. we've agreed to have a telephone conversation about meeting again. >> but he camps out on his lawn again. they wanted to get this over with. i think crowley held a press conference so they wouldn't be

hounding him later. >> i don't blame him for holding a press conference, but i'm saying it became like an international negotiation. >> we discussed the movies, we want to know how the redskins are doing in the fall. >> but let's also mention, this is high stakes for this man. his career is on the line here. the fact of the matter is, the initial caller to the police did not mention race at all. the police report magically says, there are two black guys breaking in, so it raises a question about his own voracity. he's got some rehabilitation work to do, as out henry louis gates, as does president obama. i think this is an example of a rare misstep on the part of the administration, at least politically. from a substantiative standpoint, yes, this is an important issue to have. the issue of law enforcement treatment of minorities is a serious one. but for the president to prolong the issue in the way that he did was, i think, a rare misstep and a lack of discipline on his part. >> well, he had some help from those of us in the news business who obviously thought this was a lot more interesting than health care. here's my two cents, did we overdo this relatively minor

incident in cambridge? of course we did, we overdo everything. but i found it interesting when i heard about african-americans who said they had been pulled over by the police, the confrontations they had, what they told their kids about. but minorities look at this issue of dealing with the cops very different than white people do. and though people did demigod it, i think we stumbled our way into a revealing conversation about this. but if i hear one more anchor call this a "teachable moment," i'll gag. when we come back, sarah palin says, we make stuff up. is that her final swipe, or making the media her permanent punching bag? if you're taking 8 extra-strength tylenol...

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we represent what could and should be a respected, honest profession that could and should be a cornerstone of our democracy. democracy depends on you. and that is why, that's why our troops are willing to die for you. so how about, in honor of the american soldier, ya quit making things up. >> former governor of alaska, rhetorically, addressing journalists on her last day in office last sunday. michel cottle, she has every wake to take a whack at the media, but what was she talking about there? >> she very pointedly did not say what she thought we were making up. but bashing the media is the last great refuge of any desperate politician. it doesn't even matter what team you're on. >> why does she need to be desperate? she's leaving office? >> she's leaving office with the

impression she didn't do a great job. she can talk about how this is for the sake of alaska, all she wants to, but the sense is, she kind of was a disaster, off and on, for the entire time she was in the spotlight. so she has to have somebody to take a hit at. so why does she look like a disaster, because we were mean to her. >> even this week, there were rumors starting -- and i do agree, up in alaska, i think she sometimes confuses the blogs and other reports, but there were rumors that her marriage was in trouble. >> let's be explicit. this was a blog in alaska called alaskareport.com that said she was getting divorced from todd. >> a guy who describe s himself as a cnn stringer in his bio. >> but, that's not the mainstream media. so i don't think that is an example. >> but things can start on the blogs and real journalists start calling to see if it's true or not, and i think that's what she's so irritated about. >> you're a blogger, you don't think journalists should check

out what's on the blog? >> yeah, definitely, but there's a confusion how they work together, and now she's doing these preemptive statements, putting them out on facebook, so that's why people don't understand why she's so upset. >> name names. if she feels she's been ill treated by any particular media outlet, name names. we saw this during the republican convention when there were all these blog rumors about her child. okay. that was nasty, that was unfair. i don't know one single mainstream media outlet who reported this. >> -- talks about it to this day. >> what are we supposed to do about the blogs? >> this is what she's doing about it. >> -- the blogs that print these vicious, racist comments about the obama children. so name names. if shelves she's been ill treated, she has access to fw t twitter, facebook, name names, so the rest of us can evaluate the truth or validity about her

claims. . >> there were times that there was some ill treatment of governor palin. that campaign ended nine months ago. she's leaving office, and i'm just kind of wondering, does she want to continue to fight this war and build her career with the media as the whipping boy? >> of course. >> why not move on? >> why not move on? what's she going to move on to at this point? look, her support is dropping even among the base. she needs to get people fired up. and like i said, if there's one good bogeyman for any politician who needs to kind of reinvent herself, you just blame it all on the media. >> i think she's very well positioned to become a talk show host. because then she can pick fights with people, without any accountability. >> ironically, becoming part of the media, if that happens. do you see that as a -- >> i don't think being -- being a media person is in her future. i think she wants to be the leader of something? is it the president of our country? no, i don't think so. >> a lot of the pundits are

operating under the assumption this is just the first shot of her 2012 campaign. she must have been known when she stepped down as governor of alaska, she was diminishing her chances, so i don't think we should make those assumptions. >> i don't know that i believe that everyone plots their lives in this severe fashion. i think she's a very intuitive politician. that's part of her gift. she's very intuitive, and i don't think she knows what she's going to do next. >> she just might to take a break for the next two or three years. she has a very young child to raise. >> i think she should invite all the television cameras to alaska and sit down and have a beer with katie couric. michelle cottle, amanda norton, michel norris, thanks very much for joining us. tmz reported way before everyone else that michael jackson's death had sparked a criminal investigation involving drug use, but many news organizations faces back. tmz's harvey levin faces off with two other journalists about

whether his website can be trusted. and at noon eastern, jessica yellin talks with christine romer about whether the painful recession is finally ending. but i did. you need to talk to your doctor about aspirin. you need to be your own advocate. be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. you take care of your kids, now it's time to take care of yourself.

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i think i'll go with the basic package. good choice. only meineke lets you choose the brake service that's right for you. and save 50% on pads and shoes. meineke. i'm jessica yellin and this is "state of the union." here are the stories breaking this sunday morning. the remains of the first american lost in the persian gulf war 18 years ago has been found and positively identified. military officials say they belong to navy captain michael scott speicher. his jet was shot down on the first night of the war. tips from iraqi citizens helped them find his remains last month buried in the iraqi desert. we now know the name of one

of the three american hikers arrested in iran after crossing the border from iraq's kurdistan region. he is joshua fatal and lives in this park in pennsylvania. his mother told cnn the family is only concerned with fatal's welfare. iran's state-run media says the men were arrested after they entered the country illegally. president obama's top economic adviser predicts 2010 will be a milestone year. this morning on "state of the union," christina romer said she's confident the administration's economic recovery plan will create or save millions of jobs, but she adds, any major unemployment turnaround requires robust economic growth, which she says is not expected until the end of 2009, at the earliest. that and more ahead on "state of the union." hi, howie. >> hi, jessica. you know, "the washington post"

has a video series called "mouthpiece theater," where they pontificate with pipes and smoking jackets, but went too far with a routine about beer suggestions for politicians after that suds summit at the white house, which they said hillary clinton should drink mad pitch beer, ouch. these are two smart guys. that was pretty dumb. they have apologized and the video has now been taken down. sometimes humor can cross the line, jessica. >> it's one of the lessons reporters learn, even live chats, can get pretty dangerous. be careful. i want to tell you about something coming up on cnn, which is our second 100 days report card. now folks have a chance at home to grade the president on how he is handling everything from the economy to, and i think, your viewers will like this one especially, question number nine, grade the performance of the media. oh, yes. we get judged as well as anyone else. >> do i get a shot at that? >> yes, we would like you to go online and vote, but i'm not

going to actually hit any of the buttons, because i'm an impartial reporter and i can't be voting for anything. >> i will give the press a c plus. i think in the last two or three months, coverage has been good on the complexities of health care, the act or lack thereof of the sotomayor hearing. but the first three months going back to the inauguration, i think the coverage ranged from positive to gushing. too much about the dog, the vegetable garden, going out for burgers. >> fair to say we're trending upward? >> certainly compared to the first three months, absolutely. be interesting to see what our viewers think. thanks very much, jessica yellin. 2 1/2 weeks ago, the michael jackson investigation took an ominous turn. we learned that from not any major news organization, but from tmz. the gossipy website reported on july 14th that the l.a. police department was treating the pop star's death as a homicide, and was focusing attention on jackson's doctor, conrad murray.

the site had already reported that authorities found vials of the powerful anesthesia propofol at jackson's home. some television programs credited the scoop to tmz, which is owned by cnn's parent company,time warner, but it wasn't until monday when the associated press matched the story through its own sources, that it really took off. >> according to this associated press source, the doctor at michael jackson's side when he died, was dr. conrad murray. >> according to the associated press, michael jackson's personal doctor, conrad murray, gave jackson a powerful drug before he died and authorities believe thal drug killed the singer. >> and get this, an unnamed source tells the associated press that michael jackson used propofol like an alarm clock. >> that opened the flood gates for more stories, crediting tmz. >> the website tmz reporting that emergency responders to michael jackson's home the day he died found the singer hooked up -- hooked up -- to an i.v., dead. >> tmz is now reporting that

when paramedics arrived at jackson's home, he was already dead. >> by tuesday night, the authorities had moved in and so had the nightly newscasts. >> in los angeles, police and federal drug agents made a house call today on a doctor. michael jackson's personal physician. >> police and federal agents raided the home and office of dr. conrad murray. >> so what role is tmz playing in the jackson case and why are many traditional news outlets still wary of its reports? i spoke earlier about the man behind tmz and other journalists following the investigation. joining us now from los angeles, harvey levin, founding and managing editor of tmz.com. sharon waxman, the founder and editor in chief of the rap.com, and here in washington, amy a artitsinger. harvey, why did much of the media ignore your earlier reporting on the michael jackson investigation and wait for the ap? >> i'm not sure it was ignored.

i think there were some people who didn't do it. and i think part of it is that this was a little bit of a watershed moment, because i think there is a transition, frankly, between traditional media and digital media. and i think that five years ago, there really wasn't a news operation online. well, the world is changing. and i think it's hard, in some ways, for some traditional media, especially traditional media that's having trouble now with an audience kind of accepting that and dealing with it. i think this is a reality of technology and just of what has happened online in the last five years. >> let me turn to traditional media. amy, when you see a story from tmz, especially one that relies on unnamed sources, are you comfortable putting that in your column? >> it really depends on the situation. frankly, we tend to be pretty cautious. my editors tend to be cautious with the stories they're going with. frankly, tmz should not be hurt. when the ap came out with their

story in the past week, based on one anonymous source claiming that the doctor had hooked michael jackson up to propofol, we didn't go with that either. my editors took a pass on that -- >> why? >> because it was one, single, anonymous source that was unknown to "the washington post." and that was -- that's just, there's too much tension, there's too much competition, there's too much potential for a lot of loosely attributed material to be coming out. >> although you won't be surprised to hear that most of the media world went with the story based on the ap's anonymous source. >> sharon, when you covering hollywood for "the new york times," did you occasionally chase stories from tmz, or did you kind of look down your nose at the operation? >> oh, tmz didn't exist when i was at "the new york times," covering for hollywood. but now, we've been also chasing the michael jackson story. it's not as single mindedly as tmz, but i want to take issue with what harvey just said. i do agree that there is -- we're certainly in a time of

transition, but i think that online media sources, such as therap, there are those that are considered as credible, certainly, as traditional media and that has a lot to do with the people who are doing the reporting and the methods in the reporting. >> you seem to be implying that -- >> harvey, i would say it has more to do with the sort of tabloid methods versus reporting methods that are not tabloid. and so i think that there's a problem when there are some stories that -- >> i'm not sure i understand that. i'm not sure i get that. >> well, i'll explain it. i will explain. when there are stories on tmz that are correct, but then there are stories that are on tmz that are just thrown out there and are not followed up, and i'm not familiar with your corrections policies. you can't say, harvey, that the way you guys report stories is the same way that "the new york times" or the newyorktimes.com or therap.com, for example,

reports something. i'll give you an example -- >> let harvey respond first. >> yes, we do. we actually have been around for 3 1/2 years, and if you look at the history of our stories, everybody, from "the new york times" on down, has quoted us thousands of times. i mean, with the mel gibson case, with the britney spears case, with heath ledger's death, with all of these. so it's been done for years now where everybody has quoted us. secondly, our standards are as rigorous if anybody else's. everything we have is lawyered, everything we have is researched. and i think the funny thing is is that when you look at what happened here, from the very beginning. and howie, no disrespect to cnn, because it's a great organization, but when we reported that michael jackson died, the "l.a. times" then reported, no, no, he's in a coma. we knew he was dead, but what happened was, then people -- >> we've talked about that. i'm going to come back to you -- >> but cnn actually said, cnn actually said, the "l.a. times" is reporting he's in a coma.

so they had to make a choice. >> since you mention the "l.a. times," on july 19th, after tmz reported that the l.a. police department was conducting a homicide investigation, that paper ran what i would call a knockdown piece, saying that sometimes breathless coverage is belied by the fact that a senior law enforcement official, unidentified, of course, said there were unlikely to be any murder charges. this was remote, this was unsupported by the facts. was that story wrong? >> well, it may well be wrong. i can tell you right now, it's interesting, because even today, i looked at some of the traditional media talking about this as a manslaughter investigation. that, again, inaccurate. if you look at the, you know, the search warrant talks about manslaughter, but that doesn't mean the charge is going to be manslaughter. a, there may not be a charge. based on what i'm hearing, there probably is going to be a charge in this case. but it could be second-degree murder, and it's being discussed in the d.a.'s office. so murder is a possibility. as much a possibility, frankly, as manslaughter. so it's inaccurate to call this

a manslaughter investigation. >> all right. let me get a question, amy, and then i want to come back to you, sharon. i know an example or two you want to raise. law enforcement sources, unidentified law enforcement sources, they sometimes float theorys or information to journalists off the record to put pressure on potential targets or witnesses. so shouldn't we all be wary of that? >> we should all be wary of that, of course. granted, if it were "the washington post" we're talking to, their own law enforcement sources, you know, it's all case by case. it may be something that you feel better about, but newsrooms are having these debates all the time, whether this source is good enough, whether you're getting played here, for some reason or another, whether the fact that you're getting played even matter ifs it's true. >> but sometimes it's not trued. i'm thinking of richard joule, who was accused of participating in the olympic bombings, and it was not true. >> i have a question for harvey.

when you talk about your methods versus traditional media methods, or i would just say, professional reporting methods, tabloids pay their sources. doesn't tmz pay its sources? >> no, we don't -- we don't pay sources. we pay for a couple of things. we pay for video. we pay for photos, which, frank ly, everybody, does. we will pay a tip fee. we very rarely do it. >> what's the difference? what's the difference? what's the difference? >> i'm surprised you don't know. the difference is, if you pay for a tip, then what you can do, and you have to do is, you start anew. you have to find out, is this story true or not. so you use exactly the same journalistic skills that you would use if you didn't have a tip. we won't put a tip up. we have to then look at the story, find out if the story is real, source the story, put it through legal, put it through research. i'll tell you where it becomes wrong. and this is what some of the networks are doing.

when you pay for an interview. in other words, if you paid somebody to go on television and to say, well, i'll give you $200,000 if you talk to me. then what you're doing is you're skewing the facts and saying, make it really good, make it worth my money. and then you can't rely on the information. >> we're getting short ton time. >> i'm going to argue that that's a very fluid lie, once you start paying for information, number one. number two, i absolutely agree with you, with what the broadcast networks are doing, they're trying to pretend that they don't pay for things, like that fantastic debbie rowe special. but i'm looking at tmz now, because we're breaking stories on the michael jackson thing, but then you had that story, debbie rowe is not the biological mother. that story had no named sources and fell like a stone to the bottom of the ocean. that's a huge allegation, and i said at the time, that if that turns out not to be true, that's going to really hurt tmz's credibility. >> short on time. a quick answer from harvey.

we're almost out of time. >> i mean, first of all, you need to see the way this whole thing gets played out, because there is more to this story because you think. and there are some legal documents here. it's just going to be interesting to see how this story ultimately gets played out, if it gets played out in court. >> and whouhow about the story michael jackson is not the father -- >> i've got to take it back. sometimes "the washington post" will quote other newspapers based on their unnamed sources. is there a different standard for an online operation like tmz? >> it takes a while for any new publication to establish credibility. and tmz established a lot of credibility when it broke the mel gibson story and other stories like that back in 2006, 2007. a year later, a colleague of mine had to write a very embarrassing correction because they had taken information from tmz that turned out not to be true, and it was "the washington post" that got the angry phone call from the prominent individual, not tmz. i don't want to trash tmz on the basis of this, i have to write

corrections too sometimes, but my stock goes down when that happens. >> thanks very much for joining us. and after the break, he may still be in high school, but miles miller is holding his own as a member of new york's grizzled press corps. that's next. thththththththththth

we've put some young journalists on this program over the years, got to appeal to that key demographic, but not quite this young. miles miller has written for the "new york daily news" and other publications, appeared on c-span, and is the political editor for the children's organization press line. he's also 15, a high school student in the bronx. not long ago we decided to find out what he's got. miles miller, welcome. >> hey, how are you? >> when i was 15, i was basically interested in basketball and girls, and not necessarily in that order. you seem to spend all your spare time doing journalism. do you have any fun?

>> i do have fun. i mean, i think that journalism is a fun career aspiration for me, but the program i work, children's press line, not all the kids are interested in journalism, but we are a unique program, where we can get kids interested in the process and from there, they make their own career choices. but i really do think i have a lot of fun in journalism. and i feel that i make a lot of good friends in the business doing it. >> all right. when you g down to city hall for the mayoral press conferences and michael bloomberg calls on you, how is it he's recognizing you, you've got all these big shot reporters there from the big tv stations. what's your secret? >> i made an effort to make a name for myself and make a name for my organization. i'm one of the only reporters who actually still goes to city hall and says the name of the organization they work for. so i'm miles miller, children's press line.

i went with a team back when i was an editor, but now i'm affiliating with our younger reporters, ages 8 to 15. and i really think that it's important for young people to start asking questions. >> you've tried consciously and deliberately to make a name for yourself. it sounds like you've already learned the self-promotional skills for a journalist. >> hey, i mean, i think that -- i mean, it's something that's needed, but it's also needed that my organization, children's press line, we really are the only advocates for young people in the youth media field. i mean, we are the ones who give kids 8 to 18 the opportunity to actually ask questions of their politicians, who are the ones making legislation for themselves, or making legislation for the people who are in their communities. >> a quick follow-up on bloomberg. the mayor gave you an award. i wonder if that might make you a little bit more sympathetic to mike bloomberg? >> well, he actually didn't give me the award, he introduced the award, children's press line, actually, gave the award to me. and no, i'm not sympathetic at all.

i mean, i think that as a journalist, i'm very objective. i make sure that all my questions are asked from a point of view that don't have my opinion in it. and i also make sure that the reporters that i manage are asking questions that are not objective either, because -- i mean, that are objective, because i feel that that's the integrity of journalism. we've lost integrity a lot, and i feel that we are the ones who are going to bring it back. >> do you think that the media, generally, the big news organizations that bring us news, television, radio, newspapers, magazines and all that, do you think they kind of miss the point or ignore the young person's point of view? do they seem like a bunch of middle-aged hacks to you? >> i wish there were younger faces on our nation's televisions. children's press line is ready for the opportunity. give us a time -- >> it sounds like you're ready for your close-up. >> you know, we have a number of reporter who is came to our training last week at air america and the training is so that kids can be reporters for

the "daily news" with children's pressline. and we went through the newspapers and we saw that every story that dealed with or dealt with kids who were in the paper was about either violence or about kids graduating, but nothing about the true stories that we actually report on. kids playing, you know, soccer in fields that are messed up or syringes found in playgrounds >> so despite the fact that you and your friends and colleagues are obviously young and haven't had a chance to have had that much experience, you feel like you and some of you could step right in and be reporters for the "new york daily news" or local tv stations? >> i do. we have actually proof that we can do that. we had a reporter work with us, actually work for the cbs "early show," she was a special correspondent with harry smith and she asked tough questions. and i think that big media is giving us a wonderful opportunity. >> i've got half a minute, that's a phrase you'll recognize if you go into tv. you went to both political

conventions last summer. is all of that kind of a heady experience for you at your relatively tender age? >> yeah. with our predecessor organization, children express, since 1976, we've been going to the conventions. >> i'm talking about for you personally. you keep talking about the organization. what was it like for you to be in minneapolis and denver with all the big shots? >> yeah, it was wonderful. an honoring experience. it was typically something that kids my age won't be able to do, but i really believe that i was able to sort of help my reporters ask the right questions and when my reporters weren't around for stuff, when it was like stuff that was really important, that i was able to use the skills i had as a reporter to ask tough questions to sebelius, to a ton of politicians. >> i have a feeling we'll be seeing a bit more of you, perhaps when you get a little older as well. myles miller, thanks so much for joining us. >> thanks so much. >> i think he's got a future. up next, hillary clinton, back in the news. why are the media fixated on one question that has nothing to do with foreign policy? t.

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sometimes it's pretty obvious when journalists are wrong. we say candidates are likely to win and they blow it. we say there are probably weapons of mass destruction, and there aren't. we say a players washed up and he hits the game-winning homer. and sometimes we just hope everyone kind of forgets that the thing we were obsessing on never quite happens. >> within minutes after barack obama won the democratic nomination last year, the chattering classes began chattering. would he offer the vice presidency to hillary clinton? how could he not? it would be, everyone said, a dream ticket. >> does there have to be a yes or no on the issue of hillary clinton before you get to the others? >> so in the spirit of kennedy

picking johnson and reagan choosing bush, why not pick senator clinton? >> you look great together. i mean, here's two good-looking people. >> well, okay, that didn't happen. and after the election, most of the pundits were convinced that the president-elect wouldn't put his bitter rival in the candidate, at least until word leaked that the former first lady might be tapped after all. >> hillary clinton is being considered for secretary of state. >> i want to go back to this hillary clinton thing. >> what's the latest on her possibly becoming the next secretary of state? >> let's go back to hillary clinton for a second. >> senator hillary clinton has decided to accept the job of secretary of state. >> this is not quite a done deal yet. >> but the press pot shots kept growing louder. wouldn't hillary compete with obama for the limelight? wouldn't she battle joe biden for foreign policy supremacy? and what about bill? how could obama possibly bring the former president with his worldwide connections and array of potential conflicts into the

inner circle? well, all that seems like ancient history. we've barely heard a peep from bill clinton, who has dramatically lowered his profile. secretary clinton has kept her head down and done the unglamorous work of diplomacy, generating stories about how she's been utterly eclipsed. hillary resurfaced last week on "meet the press," where the questioning ranged from iran to israel to afghanistan. so what clip got played the most? when david gregory asked whether she might run for president again? >> the answer is no. >> but you didn't say never? >> well, i say, no, never, not at all. i don't know what else to say. >> are you saying you wouldn't entertain another run? >> i have no absolutely belief in my mind that that is going to happen, that i have any interest in it happening. >> so if you're keeping score at home, hillary didn't get the job we thought she might get. she did get the job we thought

she wouldn't get, she's been a team player when we thought she wouldn't be, and now we're worrying about whether she will be running for president in 2017. the upside, you won't know for years if we're wrong. not long ago, this man had limited mobility.

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okay, it was a slow news week. but as the "new york post" was the first to note, before the couple appeared on the abc program, they danced over to nbc to pretape a segment for the "today" show, which wound up airing first. so much for gma's exclusive. >> talk to me a little bit about the choreographies, late-night rehearsals? >> we really only did one rehearsal. >> how long did it take to get it all done? >> not very long. the wedding procession, we had one rehearsal. >> when "gma" learned that the "today" show was planning to have jill and kevin back next week, they kicked the couple out of their hotel and canceled their flight home, letting nbc pick up the tab. the couple may be newlyweds, but they did ask rather promiscuously. and jessica yellin, as inturn things back over over to you, the sunday morning get involved in