television topics. ann curry appears to be on her way out at the "today" show. why was her partnership with matt lauer such a flop? "20/20" sits down with rielle hunter. >> do you think he wanted the baby? >> i think that he thought the timing was terrible. >> do we really need to hear more from john edwards's mercurial mistress? and erin sorkin's the newsroom debuts tonight. >> i didn't know people didn't like working for me. >> do you care? >> of course i care. anybody would care. but honestly, i don't. i do. i am a perfectly nice guy. i have the focus group data to prove it. >> does it capture the craziness of television news? i'm howard kurtz. this is "reliable sources." we want to begin by showing you live pictures of tahrir

square in cairo. egyptian authorities this past hour announcing that mohammed morsi, the candidate of the muslim brotherhood, has won the presidential runoff election. thousands of people there favorable to the muslim brotherhood cause celebrating that announcement. candy crowley will have a live report later this hour. it's not that the media have utterly ignored fast and furious, the justice department sting involving guns in mexico that tragically resulted in one agent's death. it's been mentioned at least 30 times in "new york times" i stories and 40 in the "washington post." as the cases ebbed and flowed and republican congressman darrell issa has demanlded more and more documents, the case has been a fixture on conservative websites and on fox news. when president obama invoked executive privilege to withhold the documents and issa's committee voted that eric holder should be held in contempt, the story played out in very different ways on the cable networks. >> not only is the administration not willing to provide requested documents in the fast and furious

investigation, it seems their testimony is also less than truthful. >> tonight, is president obama hiding something? if so, what and why? >> republicans are trying to take out president obama at any cost. today the united states attorney general was collateral damage. >> joining us now to talk about the way this highly partisan battle has been covered in new york, amy holmes. anchor for the blaze on gbtv. in washington, washington correspondent for the new yorker and now cnn contributor. were the media a bit slow on this fast and furious investigation or has it simply become a classic, idealogically driven con tro searcy? >> there seem to be these controversies that both sides become really, really interested and obsessed in. and pound the media for not covering. at a certain point it becomes inevitable it gets widespread attention because it plays into the back and forth between the republicans and the democrats. for a long time this issue was isolated to the conservative

media because it was essentially there wasn't much administration response. so there wasn't this sort of food fight nature that, you know, cable and the newspapers thrive on. once you have issa pushing the contempt vote in his committee and you have the white house responding, you have -- you know, you have your classic left/right partisan spat. that gets a lot more coverage. >> amy holmes, is that right? it's a sleft/right partisan spat and you have accusations of a cover-up it's easier for the rest of the media to sink their selective teeth into? >> i think once the white house got involved with trying to assert executive privilege or suggest it. attorney general eric holder is a member of the administration. he's our attorney general. he's testified up on the hill over half a dozen times. i think at this point it seems like it's a bit in the weeds. you have timelines. what did he know? when did he know it? now the mainstream media is really going to have to grapple

with that and not just a he said/she said story but what's the real truth of the matter? >> one another point. one lesson from covering the clinton era is do not ignore fringe stories. the fringiest stories of the clinton era eventually led to that man's impeachment. they burst into the mainstream media and don't go away. >> let's be fair in just pointing out that underlying this investigation is a very serious matter in which many guns were let loose in mexico. supposedly monitored by justice department officials. one agent, brian terry, ended up getting shot and killed. fox news has been pounding this story for months and months. the theme we saw a little at the top is what is obama hiding. >> i think to say the media isn't interested in scandal is preposterous. we love scandal. i love scandal. that's the theme that really drives us. >> what's the scandal? >> it's a scandal of government but not a political scandal. what's the worst case?

the obama administration was continuing something basically going on under the bush administration. you know, did they try to cover up some embarrassing things afterwards? there's just -- there's nothing conceivable that would bring this into a major political scandal here. i think that's why people have been slow to get on board. it's not an ideological thing. i think the media would love to have an obama scandal to cover. >> i would agree to this extent. eric holder doesn't look like a classic noncooperating witness. he's testified a number of times. let me toss it back to amy with this question. when the president invoked executive privilege, the media certainly reported. but i would say didn't pounce on videotape of candidate barack obama accusing george w. bush of hiding behind executive privilege. >> indeed he did. i thought you were going to play the tape. president obama, then senator obama, pouncing on president bush. yes, the media got interested in this idea of hypocrisy. i think we saw jon stewart made great fun of it.

in terms of the mainstream media and their interest in this story, i think part of the reason really is the partisanship of the media. i mean, brian terry should be a household name. this man died at the hands of guns that had been illegally pushed to mexican drug dealers across the border without the mexican government's knowledge of this. when he's saying it started under the bush administration, that's a little spin by the administration. the operation under the bush administration was different from this one. i wonder if it's too technical in terms of these details. but in this story we actually do have a smoking gun quite literally. >> a little bit of spin? >> i mean, you know, they had -- the program had other names. it's technical. this notion of gun walking started in 2006 and has been going on since then. i think issa's committee was terrific and sensible in doing this investigation. but it's interesting the fight over executive privilege now is not about anything that led up to agent terry's death. it's about things that happened

months after agent terry's death. by definition it's not about the core scandal. >> i want to follow up, amy. you're accusing the media of partisanship. are you suggesting because brian terry unfortunately was killed in the line of duty, border patrol agent, is not more widely known because the media were covering up or minimizing this on behalf of the obama administration? >> some could say gun control or walking guns across the border. but really at the heart of this is someone whose life was taken by illegal gun selling being pushed by the administration. i don't want to get into the details exactly of this case. however, i think if this were under the bush administration in this exact same instance, i think the media would be all over this. they would be exploding these characters. we know exactly who's who. we see missing girls in aruba and know more about that. >> why the media spends a lot of time on missing girls a whole separate issue, right, amy?

i think one of the things that, you know, these things become so partisan so fast. >> that was true when democrats were demanding democrats from the bush administration. i covered controversies during the reagan administration where democrats were demanding documents. >> both sides become intrenched and marshal arguments to benefit their side. frankly then the facts get a little bit out of control. there are allegations now that the administration was pursuing this policy to somehow crack down on gun control in the united states. >> right. >> so, you know -- >> pushed by the nra among others. i want to move on briefly to the veepstakes. you had a report on abc news by jonathan carl this week about the status of one senator, marco rubio, which is romney campaign reacted to rather quickly. let's roll it. >> abc's john carlos learned one of the most highly tout and popular choiced, florida senator marco rubio is not even being considered now by the romney

team. >> that's right. this is a surprise. >> the story was entirely false. marco rubio is being thoroughly vetted as part of our process. >> dana milbank. when abc said rubio had not been asked to turn over hundreds of pages of paperwork on financial and other interests, romney comes out and says he's being vetted. all depends on vetted. did he knock down that story? >> i don't think so. this is the reason why it's preposterous for us to speculate on the vice president. there's one person who knows this. maybe one person. that would be romney. maybe he shares it with somebody leading his search committee. we have no ability to report on this sort of thing. maybe it was true when abc reported it. but romney can instantly make that untrue. we have no power over this. inevitably we speculate, come up with dozens of names. in the end the vice president will something else. >> way too much reporting on the veepstakes and who's being vetted and not being vetted. it's certainly important to look at the actual candidates who are in the mix. look at their records. the ones that might actually be

in the running. >> fictional short list. a list probably -- so and so is being mentioned. politico went pretty heaven. amy holmes again, heavy a day or two later saying tim pawlenty, nowadvisers. i'm reminded of 2008 when nobody thought it was going to be sarah palin. >> absolutely. the scorecard is not good. no one saw sarah palin coming. no one saw dick cheney coming. when bill clinton chose al gore and the conventional wisdom was he would never choose a fellow baby boomer from the south. he wants geographic diversity. i looked at this story. i was thinking this is the kind of thing lindsay lohan does every day. head of hopper would have been proud of this. campaign manipulation. media hype. it's a win/win for everybody. marco rubio's selling a book. the campaign is selling a storyline. the media is selling newspapers. >> i would not have expected the

lindsay lohan reference. >> always like to work her in. when we come back, politico sus penlds its white house reporter for negative cable comments and tweets about mitt romney. was he way out of bounds?

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america's natural gas... putting us in control of our energy future, now. morning, boys. so, i'm working on a cistern intake valve, and the guy hands me a locknut wrench. no way! i'm like, what is this, a drainpipe slipknot? wherever your business takes you, nobody keeps you on the road like progressive commercial auto. [ flo speaking japanese ] [ shouting in japanese ] we work wherever you work. now, that's progressive. call or click today. joe williams is white house correspondent for politico. he's now been suspended for the what the website's editors call conduct that fell short of our standards for fairness and judgment. especially unfortunate way. part of this has to do with what joe williams said on msnbc. let's take a look. >> romney is very, very

comfortable, it seems, with people who are like him. that's one of the reasons why he seems so stiff and awkward in some town hall settings. why he can't relate to people other than that. but when he comes on fox and friends, they're like him. they're white folks who are very much relaxed in their own company. >> dana milbank, did joe williams go too far as a reporter in what he just said about mitt romney. >> i think he's wrong in the sense that romney is equal opportunity uncomfortable with all people. on the merits i think he was wrong. i suspect that that comment by itself would not have gotten him into trouble. i think it was in combination with other things he had done. you could see how, look, when we're saying things unfiltered on live television you can sometimes say something that's not quite right in a way that wouldn't happen in print with editors. >> you're saying there's a pattern? >> that's certainly what his editors at politico were saying. there was a pattern. that's a different mat zbler amy holmes, when williams says there are white folks very relaxed in

their own company, did that strike your ear as being what racist? >> i don't know about racist. not particularly insightful. it doesn't really give us any insight into mitt romney. agree with dana in terms of him being awkward and stiff, isn't that mitt romney's rap? you don't need to throw race into the mix to inflame the situation. it sort of reminds me, too, back in 2008 and the coverage of president, then senator, obama, and the idea he was so comfortable with groups. yet at the time mike allen told me that actually president obama was quite stiff and cool and aloof when it came to reporters. in terms of people's public versus private persona, there can be a real difference and di v inju divergen divergence. >> he didn't get into trouble for what he wrote for politico but comments he made on msnbc and twitter. >> look, i'm really reluctant to

criticize people who say something off on television. >> because tomorrow it could be you? >> yeah, tomorrow it could be you. we speak a lot. we tweet a lot. sometimes we're going to say something that is off. look, politico encouraging their correspondents to go on television. >> yeah. >> they encourage them to tweet. it's a very different environment than when you're writing. one of the things that prevents bias and makes sure that reporters are doing things in a fair way and in a publication is many layers of editors reading the copy and getting that stuff out. you go on tv or on twitter and you're much more unfiltered. >> if a number of your comments are all in the direction of being somewhat negative toward romney and not negative toward president obama and you're a white house correspondent you've got a problem. >> i'm not excusing it. one of the issues is when you go into the lair of a very ideological host, whether it's on msnbc or fox, sometimes the questions are geared to sort of bait the reporter into being

much more ideological than they would be in print. i don't know exactly if that was the case here. martin beshear is a man of the left. he may have baited joe a little on that. that doesn't excuse him. i think it's a danger for beat reporters who try and avoid that. >> it points to a much larger problem we're all dealing with now. that is when you tweet something or when you make some remark on the show, well, i'm saying that for the "washington post" or for the new yorker or in this case for politico. and people may not make a distinction that, well, what you write in the newspaper or the magazine is actually edited and careful. otherwise you might just be popping off. it's treated the same. >> let me briefly touch on one other issue here in this segment. you had this odd coincidence where "the washington post" and "new york times" on successive days had front page stories about bain capital. "new york times" saying bain got big fees when companies it bought failed or went bankrupt or lost a lot of money. "washington post" talking about companies taken over by mitt romney former firm, bain capital, outsourcing jobs over

seas. ed gillespie saying this morning the post report was shoddy journalism and at no time have enough details. what do we make of this? >> pajama clad bloggers unite. these sort of technical he said/she said wsh we talked about this before, stories tend to be left all over by the log sphe -- blogesphere. mainstream media is catching up. one camp makes an accusation. the other camp rebuts it. the media reports on the back and forth but doesn't actually get into the meat of the matter. >> this was real reporting about a company -- the experience which for mitt romney is one of his central credentials running for president. whether you think the stories were overplayed or not. >> i think it's legit if you're going to run on your record at bain and you're giving that as the central reason why you could get this economy moving in a way that obama hasn't, basically every aspect of that record should be picked over. >> and both candidates have made bain an issue. on both sides. it's completely fair game.

bain has jumped into this and is defending their record. in the case of the post story bain was working with them extensively on that. i don't think the romney c campaign wanted to get involved. >> you reject the charge of shoddy journalism? >> there has never been one column mention of shoddy journalism in the "washington post." >> thank you, everybody, for stopping by. we'll bright back. we all need it. to move. to keep warm. to keep us fed. to make clay piggies. but to keep doing these things in the future... at shell, we believe the world needs a broader mix of energies. that's why we're supplying natural gas to generate cleaner electricity... that has around 50% fewer co2 emissions than coal.

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ryan lizza of the new yorker and cnn still with us. you said the other morning -- km kmuz me. you said a n a recent interview twitter and forms popping up online are ruining political media. >> giving the interview while riding amtrak. >> no more off the cuff. >> i just finished this long piece about obama and -- >> second term. >> second term. talking to a lot of white house officials, campaign officials. and the experience of getting administration officials, campaign officials on the record is regarder for me than it's ever been. i've been doing this for 15

years. people don't want to sit and have a conversation like we're having right now. because they live in fear of making a gaffe. they live in fear of saying -- especially the policy people. they live in fear of saying something stupid that gets the campaign in trouble. >> the private sector is doing fine. >> the private sector is doing fine. the general election so far since the primaries ended, it's basically been a gaffe a week. that's what gets covered. i wasn't saying that twitter specifically is the problem. it's one more 24/7 medium where stuff gets amplified and the campaign has to spend all their time pushing back on stuff. >> if there were no twitter and -- >> it's not just -- >> you're part of the problem. you're on twitter. you're part of the problem. i'm part of the problem. if there were no online forums like that, cable news specializes in jumping on the gaffe of the day, gaffe of the hour. >> i didn't just mean to pick on twitter. it's a cable news problem, blogging problem. it's the obsession with the political press corps of grabbing a quote often out of

context and hammering these guys when quite frankly i think we know better. because the two campaigns do it to each other, we cover that, get in the middle of food fights. >> you're saying collectively it's our collective fault as journalists that politicians won't talk to the media or won't talk to the media in an unguarded way because they fear this kind of selective -- >> when you do a big interview with a politician, your goal is to break news right there. >> because they're trying to stay on the talking points. you're trying to get them off message. >> there's nothing wrong with breaking news. sometimes the breaking news is let's just get them to say something a little off and that will go viral. i understand the sort of incentives for that. but, look, i do it, too. i remember running a piece last year where there was a line in the piece, obama's leading from behind quote. >> which became very famous. >> i would defend that quote in the original context. >> it was in the context of libya. >> it was a very specific context. totally defensive. >> the only thing anybody remembers about this piece. >> exactly. 12,000 words.

it went viral on the right and hammered the administration. >> you're making the case briefly to administration officials, this is a long, seriously reported, seriously thought out piece. come talk to me. they are skeptical or hesitant because of this -- >> it doesn't matter if they trust you 100% to get the context. >> it's not only you. >> you can post a transcript. doesn't matter. it's going to get ripped out and go viral. these campaigns are all about messages for both sides. anything that strays from that message they live in fear of. >> all right. ryan lizza, we'll see what of this conversation gets tweeted out. >> during commercial. >> thanks very much for joining us. ahead on "reliable sources" the "today" show prepares to dump ann curry. chris cuomo sits down with reyer rielle hunter. was john edwards' mistress worth an hour of primetime on tv? the stress of the day,

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joining me is cnn's foreign affairs correspondent jill dougherty as we watch these continuing live pictures from what could have been a very different scene had the former prime minister won. the question is, how does the administration take this? we haven't heard from them yet. >> not yet. there's likely, we believe, to be some type of statement coming from the white house. but i think you'd have to say, if it had been shafiq who was the former prime minister, you would have had probably a much more guarded reaction. after all, right before that election, the military had -- had taken over again. they had dissolved the parliament. they had taken things back into their hands. if shafiq had won, you would have been going down that direction of the military still controls things. where did democracy go? so with morsi, the voice of the people is there. so it's easier for the administration to say, democracy continues, we hope. of course, they're not going to

jump on a band wagon -- >> isn't that the big question now? isn't the big question, does democracy continue? will the military cede control to him? there's no reason actually looking at this to believe they will. >> absolutely right. in fact, what they did before was they took a lot of power away from him. the president, any president right at this point, would have much less control. the military crucially, at least at this point, control the budget. they control who is going to be writing the constitution. and the president basically as one reporter in our briefing at the state department said, he can order lunch. >> next big question just quickly. what do we need to know next? >> i think you need to hear from morsi. what does he plan on doing? tuz he feel he has any power? does he really move forward on the democratic issues that they need to move on? candy, he does have to work with a coalition. and in parliament, the muslim

brotherhood still needs other parties to do what they want to do. >> jill dougherty, our foreign affairs correspondent will be with us at noon. cnn will provide continuing coverage of developments in egypt throughout the day. "reliable sources" with howard kurtz will return after this break.

ann curry had been passed over once before. so it was in her contract that if meredith vieira left the "today" show she would be become the co-host. that one year ago is what happened. >> welcome to "today" on a thursday morning. i'm matt lauer. >> i'm ann curry in for, i guess, nobody this morning. me, myself and i. >> it's nice to be able to say that, isn't it? >> it's crazy. i can't believe it. it's such a thrill. >> curry had been known as a hard news reporter par shooting at the trouble spots around the

globe and interviewing world leaders. >> i know people, mr. president, who i believe were innocent who were tortured. >> translator: it's possible. i don't have such information. >> but curry and matt lauer never looked like a comfortable pairing. this week nbc began negotiating with curry for a new assignment. what exactly went wrong? joining us in chicago, maureen ryan, television critic for the huffington post. in new york, adam buckman, television krit for xfinity. and david zorack. ann curry is a world-class journalist. she is at her core a hard news reporter. >> ratings is the answer. as everyone has reported. >> "good morning america" catching up. >> "good moshing america" catching themg. even though it was only for a couple days in the last 16

years, that's psychological. that made a big, big difference in terms of what they can sell advertising for over at abc. we know the morning is the ball game in terms of news divisions as profit centers. you have to get that right. so the psychology of morning television, where you have this kind of family and people have to feel comfortable with it, if that doesn't work, they know it. even though she's only been in there a year, nbc has a right to make this move. i wouldn't criticize them. what i'd criticize them for is the way they're handling it. >> maureen ryan, well matt lauer is clearly the megastar at the "today" show after years of getting it done, it often seems in these situations like it's the woman who takes the fall. >> well, i -- you know, i'm alive to that possibility. but it seems like katie couric obviously did amazingly well there for many years. i just think it's a very strange skill set to have. it's a very distinctive thing to

be able to do, to have that warm presence in the morning. honestly, it's no reflection in my mind on ann curry. i think it's just a reflection of this is a very specific skill set and a specific mood and tone people are going for in the morning. i feel like you kind of either have it or don't. i think she's a good reporter and an excellent person to have. i would agree with david that i do feel to some degree she's been hung out to dry. that's not really that fair to her. although, you know, nbc has to look at this in the bigger context of things at nbc have not been going well for a long time. i actually think giving her a year was fairly generous. >> the reality, adam buckman, is that a hard charging, very successful correspondent is not necessarily a great morning host because you have to be able to flip from world crises to doing the cooking s ining segments. >> she was not inexperienced in this. she was the second tier substitute on the "today" show for 12 or 15 years.

she was not an unknown quantity. she's being scapegoated. she has been a part of the "today" show family for years and years and years. always a credible substitute. always seemed to get along on air with matt lauer. frankly what i've seen of the "today" show lately is many of the segments are stale and ill considered. i think the show has major sort of general problems. i don't think ann curry was the problem here. >> right. let's keep in mind it's still the number one show. i'm not disputing what adam says. you hinted at this before. is it humiliated that the story leaked to "the new york times." nbc hasn't commented. nbc certainly hasn't denied she'll be gone. this weird limbo. >> i don't have a lot of sympathy for a lot of people on television. seeing last week when the ladies home journal excerpts came out from an interview she had done. >> i have that here. i'll put it on the screen. before the news broke about her likely to be leaving, ann curry said it's hard not to take it personally, talking about criticism. you worry, am i not good enough?

am i not what people need? am i asking the right questions? when people say negative things or speculate, you can't help but feel hurt. >> and she talked about being there, i think, five years or ten years. sort of her down the road plans for it. you take away this whole pr spin where they can say, oh, it was a mutual move or whatever. it's really embarrassing. also that little graphic, the little script that ran under her by mistake -- >> i think we have that. >> it may have been a total accident. >> then in the snarky, mean media world in which we live online, they just pound her every day. did ann curry show up for work today? that's horrible for her to have to go through that. >> does nbc risk this becoming a messy breakup? i can't help but remember the debra norville situation several years ago. she was perceived as a home wrecker after jane pauley left

the show. is this perceived -- >> i think maybe it's turned out to not be a great fit for whatever reason. i do think there are other possibilities of other problems within the "today" show. i don't at all -- i wouldn't at all put this all on ann curry. i think nbc has had a lot of pr problems. i think in the grand scheme of things nbc has done wrong, i don't think it's going to rank up there in the top ten. pretty insane top ten. i do think there's going to be a perception problem that they -- that who's in control here? they can't control the story. it's playing out very s mely, very publicly. sort of like the conan o'brien situation but in the morning. >> we all the feasted on that. let me jump in here. i want to play a clip from something that aired on abc's "20/20." an hour long interview with chris cuomo's rielle hunter. let me show you that and we'll talk on the other side. that would not be the clip. >> what do you think the reaction is when the woman who's

sleeping with the husband starts talking about the wife who is now dead from cancer? >> there are a lot of people that'll go, wow, i understand. i get it. there are a lot of people who will be outraged. >> adam buckman, abc it tos credit no longer pays for interviews. is an hour on primetime with john edwards''s mistress worthy of that kind of prominence? >> the reason we're talking about this today is because this is a program that deals with television news and talking about what things were appropriate and what things were not. you know, yes, that show came out of the abc news division. but it was really no different than, you know, an entertainment show that would air in primetime on a slow friday night in the summer. it was preceded by an hour of -- collection of videotapes of people caught on tape losing their tempers, including a lot of celebrities such as alil al qaeda baldwin recently.

in the context of that itd really broke in news. was really aired for the purposes of promoting her book. >> her new book. right. let me jump in here. we're short on time. >> giving her an hour was 60 minutes too many in primetime. especially how abc had that blocked because of 20/20 programming. jerry sandusky news breaks 15 minutes into the story. they don't break. >> they had a graphic showing he'd been convicted on 45 sex abuse charges. what did you think of chris cuomo's questioning. not an easy situation. >> i thought chris cuomo did a decent job of it. what could he do with this moony answers she gave him? honestly, outside of stop everything and say this is crazy stuff. it's not okay to do this stuff for love. >> rielle hunter is on the book tour now. she'll be on piers morgan this coming week. after the break, critics are ripping sorkin's new show. are journalists being a tad sensitive to criticism?

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producer aaron sorkin is famous for the west wing and the movie about facebook, the social network. he's taking on cable news in a series of hbo. part of cnn's parent company called "the newsroom." it debuts tonight. take a glimpse. >> will? >> don't talk to me unless you absolutely have to. >> i absolutely have to. i thought this would be a fwood time to get a couple things straight. >> i'm on tv in 190 seconds. >> you've got my contract. the thing you have to know is betwn 8:00 and 9:00 you are completely mine. for an hour, five times a week, i own you. >> she is his producer and his ex-girlfriend. plot revolves around that. did this sorkin series capture cable news or the real newsroom in any way? >> to me, it really didn't. there are certainly aspects of it of people in conflict reporting stories that seem familiar. but it's all about the greater glory of the news anchor.

which i don't know that that's necessarily -- i feel like the age of that sort of news anchor as star who's going to set us all straight, they keep referencing cronkite and murrow and these kind of giants and so forth. but i feel like the news industry operates in a very different way. you know, earlier in the program people were discussing, you know, twitter and blogs. you know, online journalism and so forth. i don't think aaron sorkin really cares about that world. he's kind of recreated the news ecosystem from the '90s. i don't know if that's really that accurate to me anymore. >> adam buckman, daniels plays that wacced out anchorman. sorkin says this has nothing to do with keith olbermann, even though he spent time hanging out with him as he was getting ready to do this. the anchor is one strange dude. does this work as television? >> it didn't work as television for me. i watched the first episode. i thought, well, this is okay for a premier episode, a television pilot. sometimes they get going. for me when i watched the second episode a couple of days ago, actually, i found it difficult to actually get through the episode. the characters are given to a

lot of sorkinesque speech making. this worked on "the west wing." for me it didn't ring true for what i know about news rooms, that people speechify and sermonize and are that earn eflt with the stories they're working on. none of the cynicism that you and i are accustomed to. >> you and i will disagree. that's long, endless, wind bag pompous speeches that are so self absorbed, they just went on and on and on. i thought it just drained the energy out of the program. >> wind bag, pompous, i think you might have given away your feeling a little bit. you're very clear about it. i read the review. >> i wanted to like it. i like sorkin and i like doing something on cable. boy, these speeches. >> howie, i do like it. in fact, i think it's one of the best 20 pilots i've seen in the last 20 years.

here's why i think, adam doesn't resemble any news rooms he's seen today. i think sorkin is reaching for something very way up there that's hard to reach for. i think he gets enough for this to be an outstanding series. that's a newsroom. and an ernestness and a sense of purpose we have lost in the media. i don't think it's just cable news. i think it's across the board and i think it's particularly true in the national press. you know, in the reviews that have criticized them primarily have said, oh, it's so -- it's like a high school speech when they say we are here to serve democracy. well, maybe it is like a high school speech, but that's why we're here. if we remember that, if we remember that, almost everything else makes sense. and today almost nothing makes sense to most people. >> you need a television series. maureen, is there anything to the notion that it's basically journalists reviewing this and journalists are maybe a little

offended by the which cable news is den graded on the show? >> i completely reject the idea that people are reviewing this negatively because it's striking too close to home. are you telling me a guy who won an oscar for a movie i really liked or made a tv show i really liked, i had it out for him. i don't think it works as drama. >> thank you, everyone. still to come on this program, msnbs manningals a tape of mit. a new yorker writer engages in plagiarism of himself. the media monitor, straight ahead. honoring america's troops. which is actually quite fitting because geico has been serving the military for over 75 years. aawh no, look, i know this is about the troops and not about me. right, but i don't look like that. who can i write a letter to about this? geico. fifteen minutes could save you

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time for now for the media monitor. our look at the hits and errors. emily afterfi who writes the advice column for "slate" disclosed three issues of sexual abuse involving serious groping

and fondling before she was 20. the late rather bryan. afterfi didn't report the incident at the time and says, quote, i'm aware i'll be assailed for besmirching the memory of a distinguished man. as the mother of a 16-year-old daughter she finally felt compelled to go public and that took guts. ever since george bush senior seemed surprised by a supermarket scanner, the media had been on the lookout for out-of-touch candidates. msnbc appeared to catch mitt romney at this. >> take a look at this. mitt romney has not been in too many wawas. >> press a touch town keypad, touch this, touch, this, there's your sandwich. it's amazing. >> it's amazing. >> but as first pointed out by a

blogger named super mexican, here is the problem. that clip was deceptive li edited. he started out talking about a doctor being entangled in paperwork, here is how the anecdote ended. >> it's amazing. people in the private sector learned to compete. it's time to bring competition to the federal government. romney wasn't amazed by the touch screen but the context between a supermarket chain and the government. that kind of editing is enough to give you indigestion. andrea mitchell played the full sound bite the next day but expressed no regret for the early editing. we told you about a bogus account that the e.p.a. was flying shy spooi drones. megan kelly aired this collection. we identified the ir craft as being unmanned drones. in fact, the epa is flying these missions and taking pictures from manned aircraft.

we apologize for the confusion. >> at the risk of droning on, journalists can avoid many of these mistakes with a single phone call. here is an existential question, can you plagiarize yourself? the answer appears to be yes. jonah lara wrote material he left written. other examples quickly resurfaced. the new yorker slapped an editor's note expressing regret. lehrer told "the new york times" it was a stupid thing to do and incredibly lazy and absolute lutity wrong. how do you screw screw up the -- there there was in "the miami herald" a piece by carol bernstein and bob woodward. maybe a young copy editor never heard of them. that's it for this edition of "reliable sources." if you miss a program, you can go to i tunes on mondays and

download the podcast. i'm howard kurtz. state of the union with candy crowley begins right now. the hope of last year's arab spring turns this year to an uncertain arab summer. you are looking at live pictures in tahrir square in cairo. where thousands are celebrating the election of mohamed morsi. i'm candy crowley in washington. we want to welcome viewers from cnn international to "state of the union." the announcement came about 90 minutes ago, defeating ahmed shafiq. christian amanpour is the global affairs anchor, also with her is correspondent ben wedeman. let's go back to the moment this was announced by effectively the elections commission in cairo. tell