for this week's "gps challenge" question we asked you which of the following was not added this week to the u.n.'s list of intangible heritages in need of preservation? the correct answer to the gps question was b, mexican tequila. that was the only one of the four not added to unesco's cultural heritage list this week. go to our website for more. thanks for being part of my program this week. i'll see you next week. stay tuned for "reliable sources." seems like sarah palin is in the news every 20 minutes or so, whether it's calling out the press or saying she could beat barack obama. that is when she makes up her mind about running. now it's her family in the news as well. bris on it on "dancing with the stars." bristol and willow for using derogatory terms on facebook. is this alaska family lapping it up or the media obsession too

far? in an intjoe scarborough be second host at msnbc suspended for making political donations. jimmy carter still carrying a grudge against journalists three decades later but also makes a surprising admission. part two of my interview with the former president. plus a royal engagement sparks a media loving on both sides of the atlantic. william, kate and a press that can't wait. i'm howard kurtz and this is "reliable sources." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com it's not shocking that sarah palin says she's talking to her family about whether she should run for president. what's remarkable she told us "new york times" magazine. she's commune indicated with the dreaded mainstream media and made this boast about 2012 with barbara walters. >> looking at the lay of the land now and trying to figure that out, if it's a good thing for the country, for the

discourse, for my family, if it's a good thing. >> if you ran for president, could you beat barack obama? >> i believe so. >> palin is intensifying her media presence with a new book and that new alaska series on tlc amid the state's natural beauty, allows her to make some political points such as when she fired back at author joe mcginnis who moved to the house next door. >> doesn't need to be seeing what i'm writing and reading. todd built a 14-foot fence and was thankful for that. by the way i thought that was a good example what we just did, others to say this is what we need to do to secure our nation's border. >> palin isn't the only family member soaking up the spotlight. her daughter bristol once known primarily for having a babe y as a teenager is competing on "dancing with the stars" and there are conspiracy theories about whether conservatives are voting to keep her in the

competition. >> anything you make of this? i hear a lot of people saying the only reason you're getting this far is because of who your mom is. >> yeah. >> and the tea party. what i think is that people are at home thinking that's exactly how i would be. >> yeah i think i'm definitely relatable to the audience out there and untouched and raw and vulnerable. no offense to anyone else but i'm not fake. people do connect with me because they feel i'm real, and i'm not typical hollywood. >> 16-year-old willow is the news for her facebook page. is palin manipulating the media? are journalists pumping her up because she is a great story. joining us here in washington, steve roberts, former "new york times" reporter, professor of media and public affairs at the george washington university, margaret carlson, columnist for bloopberg news and washington editor of "the week" magazine and matthew contenenti author of the book "the persecution of sarah palin." steve roberts, sarah palin

deserve this avalanche of coverage or she boosts ratings and web traffic? >> sarah palin in many way this is is unusual that the main stream media, the lamestream media. she's created her own network, pnn, palin news network. robert gibbs the white house press secretary saying she sits up there in alaska, issues. the tweets and we have to react to her. >> we don't have to react to her. we choose to. >> he feels he has to react to her. pnn is not really the story. she's really oprah. you know, that's what she's become with her own tv show, her own book. i mean, except oprah is not running for anything except queen. >> it helps to have fox news as a platform and margaret carlson i want to play sound from a radio interview that governor palin did with the bob and mark morning show in anchorage asking about the current president. >> we know that obama wasn't

vetted through the campaign and now you know, some things are coming home to roost, if you will, with his inexperience and his associations. >> sarah palin who almost never talks to reporters, except for those on fox is complaining the press didn't vet obama? >> self-awareness is not her long suit. you remember that the mccain campaign was at pains to say oh, we thoroughly vetted her, yes, we knew that her teenageded daughter was pregnant, we knew about troopergate, we knew all this, but in fact they hadn't had time to vet her and one of the, you know, problems she was not vetted. now she's using vetting as a weapon against obama. i mean it is, you know, it just is another amazing sarah palin moment. >> you could certainly say, matthew the media were way soft but in terms of vetting he talked to reporters which palin was reluctant to do.

>> toward the end of the campaign palin was report for reporters. it's a misunderstanding she was unavailable. >> she held a news conference. >> talking to reporterser have sups a news conference, we can get into the semantic distinctions, but listen, when you look to the future, and i think that's what we ought to be looking at here this is a problem for palin. is she a pop culture figure or a political figure and i don't think she's made that distinction or that choice in her head. she needs to if she wants to be president. >> the problem is she wants to have a political future as opposed to a celebrity future. >> right, but she's had recently to show to keep the political, to keep the celebrity going, she has to keep the political interests going and lately, she's done more about running for president. and i think she kind of pushed into that to keep it all going. >> stoke the fires around, second book coming up perhaps? >> yes. stoke the fires. >> that's why i agree, i mentioned the oprah paradigm because that you can make a lot of money as oprah and get a lot of publicity, but can you be

elected president? and i think karl rove, no one's idea of a liberal, has talked about this conflict, and as said she lacks gravitas and while making the money she can diminish her political appeal and 67% of americans don't think she's qualified. >> let me move the discussion along to family members because look, maybe it's a different way of president and all of us are done and she's figured it out. tmz has the report willow's facebook page. she says things to guys taunting her, you're fat as hell, you're so gay, she used the word fagot, bristol palin weighs in on words. my question should the media be picking this up? she's 16 years old and they're trash talking. >> i give all 16 years old a pass as a mother teenaof a teen

sarah palin however has put her family so much in the news not just with bristol but the whole family is on a reality tv show, that it is more fair for game. however, i would still give the kid a pass. >> it's interesting, when i spoke to palin last year when her first book came out she told me she didn't let the kids on facebook and something must have changed. >> or maybe she didn't know about it. >> she wouldn't be the first parent not to know it. >> the kids apologized, and unfortunately it's common language. >> let me pick up this point and that is my instinct, whenever the things come up is children of politician leave them alone. they got dragged into the spotlight. iffer this owe an a tlc reality show and bristol is "dancing with the stars" and some people are saying tea party people -- they're not running from the spotlight. >> this is an important point. we have had examples in

washington of very clear understandings between the media and political figures to keep certain children off limits, it was true of chelsea clinton and true of the bush girls in many ways. but once you use them as props, once you use them as part of your message, i'm such a good mom, help elect me president march great is right they change the rules. >> the question is, john sears, the old reagan head had a word, appropriateness. do you look at a political figure and think they're appropriate for high office. the more palin -- >> come back to the question of the media. is it fair for us to be dissecting and scrutinizing bris on it and willow if their mother is allowing them to be on public television? >> sarah says that's a no boy zone upsarz and willow is about to go. that was obviously scripted. reality shows are scripted and that is to, you know, say oh, listen, i can look at this and

laugh. sarah palin used willow in that scene for that purpose. i mean, that is what sarah palin is doing. >> what about the privacy question, are the media going too far? >> privacy is a loose concept in the age of facebook and even a 16-year-old should know the things you put up on facebook when you're the daughter of the most famous republican woman in the world are going to be highlighted. >> you invite -- you invite tv cameras into your living room to shoot a reality show, haven't you changed the rules of privacy, and you can't have it both ways. but that's what she wants. she wants it both ways, to be able to control everything that's said about her and she gets angry when other people write and talk in ways that she doesn't agree. >> i agree with that point. interestingly the new book is coming out, and gawker got excerpts and harper-collins, the publisher is suing gawker and getting an injunction against taking that post down but lots of people write books, bob woodward, the stuff leaks, it's

part of what happens. >> harper-collins is my publisher, too, but this is a perfect example of how her whole world view is. i get to say exactly whey want to say when i want to say it and no one can question me because she even said at one point, isn't it illegal to run excerpts? no, my dear that's good reporting is what that is. >> quick exit question, tina fey became increasingly famous doing sarah palin at the mark twain awards, this was not aired when pbs put on the awards program. >> and you know, politics aside, the success of sarah palin and women like her is good for all women, except of course those who will end up, you know, paying for their own rape kit and stuff. but for everybody else, it's a win/win. unless you're a gay woman who wants to marry your partner 206 years, whatever. >> should the producers have cut that out because it's too political? >> no, they shouldn't have.

and they claimed well it didn't get a lot of laughs, and i happened to be there and what happened was there was a lot of applause for the first part of that, isn't this great for women. so that the audience didn't hear much of the second part, because -- >> it was drowned out. >> it was drowned out. pbs coming up with the ex-kupss is ridiculous. >> let me get a break. when we come back joe scarborough suspended from making campaign donations. was this a misdemeanor or something worse? roger aqyles using rough words and having to apologize. (announcer) energy security. climate protection. challenges as vast as the space race a generation ago. and vital to global security. to reach this destination, our engineers are exploring every possibility. from energy efficiency to climate monitoring. securing our nations clean energy future

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and of course i have grouped as a google alert nra and nazis. npr and nazis. you can imagine my surprise when my googal lert hit paydirt. it's an interview in the daily beast with roger ayles who says about npr, they are, of course, nazis. [ laughter ] of course. i think you'd agree the most casual observer of nazi history can't hope notice the eerie parallels between adolph hitler and wait, wait, don't tell me. >> jon stewart talking about my interview with margaret carlson.

he says president obama has a different belief than most americans and jon stewart hates conservativ conservatives. >> roger ailes is always going to talk that way. he had a point. nobody in public life and nobody being interviewed by howie kurtz should ever make reference to the holocaust or nazis. this is like off limits, this comparison is off limits. however, it does mean that we're talking about it for a long time. >> unless it's simon weisenthal i agree. ailes apologized. i should have called them nasty and inflexible bigots. npr were disappointed that he added a new insult. >> i love nr, i appear on it regularly, they're certainly not nazis and i don't think they're

bigots. they made a wrong decision with juan but i think this is incorrect. >> this reflects the way people talk about politics. this is channeling glenn beck calling everybody a fascist and socialist. he was just using that kind of hyperbolic language which is inappropriate and far more than inappropriate, it coarsens the whole debate. he's smarter than that, and the other fact about npr, i also appear on npr, truth in labeling but if you talk about somebody who is fair and balanced, npr is far more fair and balanced than fox news. >> despite the liberal reputation. >> despite the liberal reputation. matthew continentti and a whole other group of conservatives appear on npr. >> keith olberman got suspended for donating to three congressional democratic candidates, violation of nbc policy, the latest to get caught

is joe scarborough, co-host of "morning joe" gave a series of eight donations, $500 apiece to friends in florida which is where he was a congressman, including his brother, by the way, he got suspended for two days the same as olberman and he apologized rather profusely, so steve should scarborough have been suspended? >> i think he should have paid a penalty. 'greed with the penalty actually, but there's a much larger problem here. you mentioned juan williams. juan williams was the confusion in who he was. was he a commentator, was he a reporter, and scarborough's case this is a former republican congressman from florida, we know that he's a political figure. we know he's been a partisan in the past. olberman makes no secrets of his views. in some ways. the flaw -- >> is there a distinction between somebody paid for a living to have opinions and come on tv every day or every night and opening up your checkbook and giving money to candidates but of course, i would say scarborough's was a lesser offense because it was state

races. >> right. >> so it was nobody he would interview on the show. >> no one should be doing this but the problem is that you have mixed traditional mainstream media, nbc owning msnbc, npr having juan williams with far more opinionated people, and you confuse viewers by not making it clear who these people are. >> it was a bigger problem with olberman that we kind of ignored in the press which is that he actually had someone on that he'd supported without saying so. that seems -- >> congressman from arizona. >> money is money but to use air time about the most valuable thing you can have, and you know, let us just shout out for one minute, joe scarborough gave a full-throated, un, you know, hedged apology which never happens from a politician, and i would say that joe scarborough as pointed out, he's still a politician. he's not like a journalist.

>> but he's employed by a news network to be a commentator. >> you mix the roles. 'poll gilesed. it's a rule, i think they will abide. i go back to the real problem to give people air time because you're supporting them. >> he broke the rules. olberman broke the rules, scarborough broke the rules. >> if you're a talk show show like sean hannity and karl rove they fine you. >> i think it's a stupid role. they broke it and should be punished. >> if you were running msnbc you'd abolish it tomorrow. there's a difference between playing the role of financing in campaigns. i'm giving myself the last word. thanks very much for stopping by this morning. coming up in the second part of the "reliable sources" joe scarborough is eyeing the white house, really? plus jimmy carter tells me he's still steamed over the way the press kicked him around but takes some of the blame.

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there was a time soon after he took office when jimmy carter was riding high. the longest of long shots he was elected after watergate by promising never to lie to us. he downsized richard nixon's

imperial presidency carrying his own bags and wearing a card began during fireside chats. as his administration ran into trouble he increasingly blamed the press. as he describes in great detail, "white house diaries" the press gave him a raw deal. i spoke to the president earlier from seattle. president carter, welcome. >> it's a pleasure to be with you and folks all over the world watching cnn. >> that's great. you left the white house 30 years ago. are you publishing this diary now after all these years because you're perhaps trying to change the shorthand verdict that your presidency was unsuccessful? >> no, that's not the reason at all. i was aamaze the 5,000 pages and i was really surprised, most of all by how many of the issues i had to face back in those days that are still on the desk for

president obama to address. both in domestic and foreign affairs, energy and health care and dealing with the budget on the one hand and foreign affairs, obviously afghanistan still. >> that's right. >> middle east peace process, dealing with china. i could do g down a long list, nuclear arms control. i thought it would be good to give the american public insights in the successes and failures, good and bad sides of a very action-packed and i think very successful administration. >> you write about the press in this book. what jumped out at me you did not want to go and be part of thee entertainment the at white house correspondence dinner, felt you were being blackmailed and had to is aby members of the white house press corps, asked superficial questions, more interested in their questions than your answers and said some of them were irresponsible and unnecessarily abusive. with the passage of time do you

feel that strongly about the white house press corps? >> i don't feel that strongly obviously about one side or the other of the white house press corps. >> looking back attenure. >> it was obvious the questions i got were pretty well predictable and superficial, and a lot of the reporters there wanted to be on television then. we didn't have 24/7. we only had the major news channels. >> right. >> back then, the three networks and they wanted to be on television, and give their question and they weren't very interested in the answers. >> you write about somebody who was on television at the time, dan rather, then with "60 minutes" before an interview he sent word he was not going to ask negative questions because you were right he wanted to restore his image to be more like walter cronkite but you say the interview was frivolous and

edited in a way that used all of his negative questions and brief snippets of your answers. you felt that was totally unfair an interview? >> i don't remember that particular interview but what i wrote at the time was accurate and i never did think what i wrote back 30 years ago would be published, but i didn't change any sentences or any meaning in the entire document. it's just a way i felt and the way i honestly made a judgment back in those days so i didn't try to modify it, to suit present opinion. >> i'm going to run through some of the other judgments you made and i guess you were not writing for history at that time, of other news organizations there was an nbc special on you that treated you with disdain and betrayal, you talk about the "the washington post" being childish and irresponsible. "newsweek" you called the most inaccurate periodical i read. i against you still read it. do you feel like the press just kind of had it in for you? those are some pretty harsh

phrases. >> well, i came in at a time when the press was in the post watergate period, and when two reporters in "the washington post" had become famous because they revealed secrets that had brought down the nixon administration and when i got there, shortly thereafter, i think a lot of the reporters were looking for something within my administration, might be scandalous or put them in the headlines. as a very notable investigative reporters. and there was kind of a bad atmosphere back in those days. that's one of the reasons that i was elected, because we were in the aftermath not only of watergate which i just mentioned but also the aftermath of the vietnam war, and the assassination of john kennedy and bobby kennedy and martin luther king jr. and the charge committee revealed american president and the cia had violated international law and committed murder to get rid of some more liberal leaders in

different countries than we wanted. >> it was a contentious time. >> i was in an atmosphere very similar to the way it is now the tea party, that is dissatisfaction with washington, and dissatisfaction with incumbents. >> you're saying there was almost a prosecutorial mentality in some of the elements of the media, people wanting to be the next woodward and bernstein because watergate was fresh in everybody's mind and the culture. >> i would use the word investigative rather than prosecutetoori prosecutorial. they were probing something they thought they could reveal on the top of the headlines. >> a discussion with katherine graham and ben bradley of "the washington post" wanting to know who you could talk to off the record. you did have that relationship with scottie ressen at the "new york times." what happened at the meeting? >> they were in the white house as my guest having supper and i asked a question because i had a good relationship with scottie.

i could talk to him about things off the record and he would make a good judgment about what to publish and what not to publish. i asked "the washington post" leaders the same question, and they spent the rest of the evening arguing back and forth about what they would do, and never could quite give me an answer, so from then on, for instance when i got ready to go to camp david with sadat, i would like very much to give a background story to the "the washington post" but i didn't have anybody with whom i could talk. i shared that secret information with scottie so he could prepare his story when the event finally took place, and he could be prepared for it. that's what i wanted but i didn't have that relationship unfortunately with "the washington post." >> i was going to ask you whether looking back you feel that you might have fared better at least in the court of public opinion if you had made more of an effort to court journalists and columnists and kate graham over for one thing. >> i don't think there's any doubt about that.

i should have had a much more assiduous desire when i got into the white house to court the friendly relationship and a compatible and mutually trustworthy relationship with the key members of the press corps. there's no doubt about that. >> why do you think you did not do that? >> it just wasn't my character, you know, i had been in an adversarial mode when i ran for president. i was an outsider looking in, and when i got there, i never was one that was part of an evening cocktail circuit, like some of my predecessors and some of my successors were. i think in retrospect, it was a mistake i made. >> just ahead, jimmy carter spills the beans on one of the strangest stories of his presidency, the killer rabbit. [ woman ] alright, so this tylenol 8 hour lasts 8 hours.

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now are move more of my meeting with former president jimmy carter. it seems the way they seemed at the time, those watching from the outside for example at the 1980 convention, i was there at madison square garden you talked about after your acceptance speech for renomination, that ted kennedy up on the stage didn't shake your hand. you say the press made a big deal out of it. somebody was watching, seemed like a big deal to me. he was doing everything he could to avoid having that photograph that would have been on every front page of you and him with your hands clasped. >> well, that's exactly i think what i put in my diary. i was vet willing of course to make up with him and have him support me in the general election, but kennedy was not prepared at that time to be reconciled in public and to shake my hand as a worthy opponent would do, once one of them is defeated. he fully expected in late 1979

to beat me overwhelmingly in some of the polls f3-1 ahead of me in the public opinion polls and i still beat him 2-1 as you may know. we never were able to heal the schism that divided the party. ronald reagan got less than 51% of the vote, the divided democratic party cost me a lot of votes. >> i wanted to ask awe a story that got a lot of attention, before cable news and blogs, the killer rabbit, supposedly you were in a boat and on vacation in georgia and say somewhat crazed rabbit attacked the boat. how much truth was there in that? >> well, basic story was true. jody powell told, but i don't know what jody told in the middle of the night in a bar after a lot of drinking this gone on. wild animals, you know, wild

rabbits, wild squirrels, raccoons, foxes and so forth, all of them know how to swim. otherwise they couldn't go from one place to another and cross a creek. i was fishing one afternoon and jody was there and a rabbit being chased by hounds and jumped in the water and swam toward my boat. i splashed some water with a paddle and the rabbit turned and went on and crawled out on the other side. and there was nothing to it at all. but when jody told it to his fellow, you know, drinkers, it became a very humorous and still lasting story, here it is 35 years later. >> and i'm asking you about it. >> still talking about it. but it was nothing to it. by the way after that a lot of people that had tame bunny rabbits threw them in a swimming pool and so forth around the nation and wrote me said that rabbit could swim, too. >> a lot of cartoonists had fun with that one. >> that was true. >> for all the contentious relationships you had as president with the press corps and as i say, you call some of

them out in pretty blunt language in this book, isn't it fair to say that journalists generally treated you a lot better in your post presidency? >> i think so. you know, there was a professional, academic analysis made i think about the university of nevada, i think it was indiana, by a professor that showed that i had the worst press coverage durg my 48 months in the white house than any other president in the post second world war period, but that's beside the point. i don't think there's any doubt that since i left the white house, the coverage has been much more balanced, you know, we do a lot of things like building habitat houses and trying to do away if w diseases in africa so they're much more admirable and much less controversial. >> cnn started six months before you left office, now cable news is a bigger operation, three 24-hour channels. you write afterwards in the book that these 24-hour news channels have come to rely on reporting

that often dramatizes or xan exaggerates each reported rumor or fact. radio television programs like political alignments have tended toward extremes." sounds like you're disappointed in cable news talking about exaggerations and dramatizations. >> the talk shows with glenn beck and others on fox news deliberately distorted their news and become highly competitive. my republican friends say that msnbc might be just as buy ased on the other side in supporting the democratic party, the liberal element. but that's part of give and take, and cnn more than others tried to play the middle to the detriment as far as viewership is concerned and profits are concerned. i think that describes maybe more than i, more than my recredentials warrant, what i think about, quickly the balance. >> you're a television view we are a fair amount of experience in the political game so your

credentials are good in my book. and i appreciate president carter taking the time to talk about his book, "white house diary." up next a royal hullabaloo, the enormous media frenzy over william and his new mate, kate. and while it can never be fully answered, it helps to have a financial partner like northern trust. by gaining a keen understanding of your financial needs, we're able to tailor a plan using a full suite... of sophisticated investment strategies and solutions. so whatever's around the corner can be faced with confidence. ♪ northern trust. look ahead with us at northerntrust.com. slow you down. introducing bayer am. its dual-action formula delivers extra strength pain relief, plus it fights fatigue. so get up and get going with new bayer am, the morning pain reliever.

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i haven't seen the press this excited since the days of diana, i a long awaited, i haven't been waiting but a lot have, the long awaited engagement of prince william and kate middleton has the media not just the british media but yanks in a full swoon. here's a look at the royal excitement. >> we have breaking news this morning. a royal engagement. prince william finally pops the question. >> big news out of england where the royal family announces there's going to be another royal wedding. >> we are feeling the excitement all the way over here. >> hearts around the globe are breaking tonight, england's prince william is out of play. >> it's the announcement royal watchers have been waiting for, and no sane person should care about. >> why are journalists going gaga over the story? joining us in new york, emily bell, head of the digital journalism program at columbia

university and long i am editor and reporter with "the guardian" and amy who coauthors the gossip column in "the washington post." isn't the coverage going a little overboard? >> yeah, well i can't understand why i've traveled all this distance from london to find myself besieged by wall-to-wall world coverage. i'm as baffled as you are on this one, howard. you have to understand the context at the moment, both on both sides of the atlantic, there's a lot of grim news, grim political news, and this represents an opportunity to try and replay you mentioned the days of diana replay of a royal fairytale that went badly wrong and for which i think certainly in the uk the press feels an enduring sense of guilt, and an opportunity if you like to make good on that, has sent newspaper editors who are also hoping that their circulations will rise and cable news channels are hoping their viewership will rise into

a frenzy. >> there is that extra motivation no question about it. amy, that's the british view. what excuse do you americans have? >> it defies all comprehension but the story is just huge. your montage didn't even get into the years' worth of speculation in the mainstream media especially on the web whether they're about to get engaged. there's been a watch for this engagement. publications doing stories about an eminent engagement and the engagement wouldn't happen they'll keep writing the story until it finally happens and it finally did. >> the newly engaged couple sat down with itv, tom bradby theber viewer. let's look at a little bit of that exchange. >> people are bound to ask, you leave university, been going out a bit and split up famously, all over the papers, what was all that about? people are bound to want to know. >> well i think to be honest i

wouldn't believe everything you read in the paper, but you know, in that instance we did separate for a bit. >> i think at the time i wasn't very happy about it but actually it made me a stronger person. >> emily bell, don't believe everything you read in the papers, ouch. but do you see an effort here, you alluded to the diana coverage, for particularly the famous raucous british tabloids to restrain themselves a bit at this time. >> yeah. i think that, you know, you forget that when diana and charles got married, which is 30 years ago, we were just at a point where the press really changed. it was the beginning of a very intense tabloid war in the uk, led by the redtops, the mirror, and the sun, who were trying to very much outdo each other. various sources have told me that you could add 20% to any edition of your paper by having diana on the front. we're only just getting 24-hour news, and i think that things

have changed. and the press doesn't look very restrained in the -- in that this story is absolutely all over everywhere, but i think the premium on those very personal and intrusive stories is dropping because the excluestivety on them has really dropped and that has to do with the internet and the internet economy. and i think there is a sense that the palace was really left behind in 1981. didn't realize that the world had changed. now it's much more savvy in terms of how it handles the press and exchanges access and we saw that with the tom bradby interview. >> it wasn't the most aggressive interview, but it's hard to be snarky about an engagement story, although that could change later on. this could be the high point for this couple. >> you saw this back in 1981, though, too. no one really seemed to think it was strange at the time that a 32-year-old girl was getting

engaged ed td to a 19-year-old. it seemed to me that the media was very much implicit in pumping this up as this ideal love story. >> which, of course, it turned out not to be. >> but right now you see making favorable comparisons in the media saying, oh, well, they've been together longer, she's older, this will work out better, but it seems to be very admiring coverage, but extremely extensive coverage. >> what about all this speculation about how much is the wedding going to cost and all these details that we can't possibly know? >> i mean, it's absurd. >> just filling airtime? >> we saw the same thing with the chelsea clinton wedding. people endlessly speculating on what this cost, what her dress would be, just to fill up air time because people wanted to talk about it. >> did the media play this up, all this business about the future queen and so forth, as a part of escapism? >> absolutely. this is a fantasy story, at a time what the press is really reporting in the uk is

incredibly deep cuts to the public spending, in exactly the same way that we've had here. so there is an element of fantasy, but i think it's right to say that nothing could really go as badly wrong as the charles and diana fairy tale. so whilst there's a heightened send of expectation around having an event which will be a national event in the uk and probably worldwide event, i think the long-term expectation is simply that the story is never going to be as good or as bad as it was for the two decades -- >> well, you might be right on that, but we will do our best to pump it up. emily bell, amy argetsinger, thanks for joining us this morning. still to come, is jobe joe scarborough running for president? the media monitor is next. [ technician ] are you busy? management just sent over these new technical manuals.

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time now for the "media monitor," our weekly look at the hits and errors in the news business. now, i like political speculation as much as the next junkie, especially if it involves a cable news host. so my antenna went up when "the huffington post" reported that new york mayor michael bloomberg could team up with msnbc's joe scarborough for an independent presidential run. howard fineman quoted scarborou scarborough's carefully quoted denial. here's scarborough describing the call with fineman. >> no. it's not going to -- i told him

no! and we keep going and talking, no, no, no, like the song, right? >> why'd you keep talking? why? why do you have to talk on the record? >> it's a professional courtesy. mike bloomberg and i have not talked about this directly or indirectly or super super secret indirectly. >> so if they haven't even talked about it, even super secretly, it doesn't sound like much of a story, but it got a screaming headline at the top of "the huffington post." maybe it was a slow news day. here's what i call chutzpah. sam zell, the chicago mogul who bought the tribune company and drove it into bankruptcy, popped up on cnbc this week about the merger of "newsweek" and the daily beast, where i work. >> you know, like two ants mating under an ant pile. it's not exactly major media. i don't think anyone has talked about "newsweek" being a force for at least 10 or 15 years. i'm not really terribly familiar

with the daily beast, but that's not exactly "the post" and "the new york times" merging. >> the next day, tina took vigorous reaction to zell's rocker. >> that the same zell that has taken the "l.a. times" to rock and ruin. i don't want to hear any media pronouncement from a guy who has more done to wreck journalism than zell. >> brown is my new boss and a lot are skeptical of the economics of the merger. but sam zell didn't just wreck the "l.a. times," he devastated the company that owned the baltimore sun and other newspapers. he will now walk away from the carnage of the bankruptcy proceedings. you would think a touch of modesty might be in order. and senator jay rockefeller declared the following about fox and msnbc at a committee hearing this week. >> there's a little bug inside of me which