>> reporter: cnn -- ♪ >> reporter: new york. >> bon appetite. that does it for me. the news continue next on cnn. paul ryan got quite a media honeymoon when he was picked. you know he works out, he goes hunting. he makes his own polish sausage. it lasted for, oh, a long weekend. then the coverage turned skeptical and sour. >> tonight ryan is on the defensive over whether he asked for millions in stimulus money despite voting against president obama's stimulus package while calling it wasteful spending. >> "roll call" and "the hill" featuring articles about republicans freaking out about what paul ryan's addition to the ticket means for every other republican on the ballot in november. >> is all this legitimate scrutiny for a vice presidential contender or a pushback against a conservative congressman? and what about the chatter that his selection would lead to a

substantive campaign debate? not so much. bob schieffer talks about landing the first joint interview with the republican ticket and why he didn't throw any fastballs. >> seems to me the purpose of the first interview with these two men is to try to give people a little idea of who they are. and to try to find out, number one, why mitt romney chose paul ryan and, number two, who is paul ryan. >> and we'll ask schieffer about another presidential debate he's moderating this fall. plus, the legacy of the long-time editor of "cosmopolitan." >> you just say, no, i'm still a woman, i'm still sexual. i'm still smart. i'm still interesting. and then you go about trying to be those things. >> we'll talk to gale she ehee about helen gurley brown. i'm howard kurtz and this is "reliable sources." when paul ryan stepped on to

the national stage last weekend, the media spotlight shined rather brightly on his personal side. >> his message is he's been going through the iowa state fair, et cetera, has been, listen, i flipped burger at mcdonald's, i'm a regular guy. >> he's an avid bow hunter who likes to pose with his kill. and he's obsessed with fitness. a devotee of tony horton's p96 workouts. >> vice presidential candidate paul ryan talks about his grueling workout routine. can you show us the throwing elbows move? >> it's this here. and then it's the number-one growing sport in america. the abs and core, you get on the floor. >> but journalists soon got off the floor to look at the wisconsin congressman's record. >> now ryan also admits when he looks back on some of his own votes, he feels "miserable about policies that added to the deficit," too. >> while ryan might be the running mate, it's his record driving much of the debate. ryan's budget with deep cuts he

argues are needed and big changes to medicare, eventually adding a voucherlike system to seniors to shop for their own health care. >> and the liberal pundits mounted their own assault. >> tonight, mitt romney is running away from paul ryan's record, but not as fast as paul ryan is running away from his record. >> so what should we make of this rather dramatic pendulum swing in the coverage? erin mcpike, for "clear plirks." jonathan martin, senior reporter at ""politico."" steve roberts, long-time "new york times" correspondent, prompt professor of public affairs at the george washington university. how much pushback are you getting from the romney campaign as you and other journalists raise questions about his record? >> not a huge, significant amount. i think they expected the scrutiny to come. they have put in place a staff, though, of folks around ryan which i find interesting. two of the aides, former capitol hill aides. the romney folks i think have put folks around that can

explain some of the details about his budget blueprint that perhaps the typical campaign operative couldn't quite digest. so i think that to me is notable. but the pushback has been less about ryan, i think more intent on -- more intense on the general issue of medicare and want reporters to know we're not going to take this lying down. in fact, we're going to go on offense about what president obama would do to medicare under the acl -- >> i want to circle back to. that first, steve roberts, what explains the seeming lurch as we saw in some of the clips, talking about ryan's fitness routine? i've never been the p90x workout. i will confess that on national television. to whether he misled on seeking federal stimulus money and other details of his capitol hill record? >> well, the first blush was the kim kardashianization of american politics. this notion of putting something up this on the web that will attract attention and media hits. that -- there's one story, pardon the expression, in "politico" about his hot bod.

please -- >> not mine -- >> but quickly, people got serious. the fact is if you're going to run for national office, you've got to expect this. and the -- and no one really knows quite how white-hot that spotlight gets, howie. even the thoeft experienced person can -- can be thrown back on his heels. let's look at rick perry, look at rick santorum, a lot of lot of people who went down this road before. >> and erin mcpike, when journalists look at the budget-cutting record, turning medicare into a voucher program, all of that, the romney campaign said, well, that's not the romney plan. of course, he picked paul ryan because of his policy record on these issues. >> he actually picked paul ryan because he likes paul ryan the pest. >> that's good, too. what -- the best. >> that's good, too. what's the most prominent record? >> the ryan plan. >> yes. >> republicans i've spoken to said they were unsure of the narrative that the romney campaign was trying to push to begin with, and by picking paul ryan it goes from trying to

stimulate job growth and fix the economy to let's slash the budget. >> why does that leave reporters trying to ask questions about and hold ryan accountable for that record if the campaign can say, well, you know, he's just the v.p.? >> it forces us to ask the romney campaign, okay, what is your plan? if it's not the ryan plan and budget, what is mitt romney going to do differently than what we've seen in the ryan plan? >> a lot of the best reporting doesn't ask the campaign anything. it's gone out and looked at his record. and the best example is going back and looking -- you have a tease on this. about the fact that he has asked for stimulus money for his hometown. he hasn't quite walked the walk of his ideology. >> criticizing the obama stimulus -- >> there's been some good reporting on that. >> let me circle back, the point you raise good medicare. it seems to me that a lot of news organizations have tried hard to do the basic fact checking here. without getting into all the details, republicans accused obama of cutting $700 million

from medicare. the same savings applied in a different way is in the paul ryan budget. i have the impression now campaigns don't care about fact-checking, how many pinocchios you get awarded. they are just trying to push through and drown out any attempt by the media for truth squadding. >> to the point earlier about the frivolous report being ryan and his body or habits, what have you. i think there's a place for both, right? people want to know about these -- as human beings, their family, ad vocations, he likes to go noodling for catfish. that's fine as long as we can get both things in there. serious scrutiny, as well. i not this room for both. as to your question about the fact-checking, you're absolutely right. the campaigns believe if they can muddy the water on an issue like medicare, then the pinot yolks be damned. and all they want to do -- especially on the republican side -- is find a way to blunt the attacks about the ryan blueprint for medicare. the best way they think to do that is to talk it the medicare

cuts under president obama's health care reform plan. and so to answer your question, the issue of whether or not some nonpartisan fact-checker says -- says x or y, they'll point to that when they're under attack. >> sure. >> when they're doing the attacking, know they tonight care. they don't think voters are going to take the time to look up the president clintolitifact "washington post." >> when i was at the "washington post" i did fact-checking of ads for five campaign cycles starting in 1992. it was a novel idea. when i or other journalist would write that an ad was misleading, false, it would be taken seriously. campaigns would have to respond. now i have the impression that the campaigns -- actually like when you make a -- make this into a controversy because it keeps the original dmarj the news. >> well -- charge in the news. >> well, exactly. stories that i read the past couple of days and even this morning on the back and forth over medicare, they start with the attacks that are lobbed from both sides, and later on in the story, they say what's true.

for example, the $716 billion that the president took out of medicare to put into obama care, paul ryan took that same $71 6 billion in his plan and re-routed it. now that's something that we read further on duown in the stories. but the attacks are most important in media coverage now. >> i've used many of your columns ywhen are you doing tha in my class, journalistic ethics. there's always a problem, as you know, for a fact-checker because you repeat the untruth to the debunk it. at the same time, i don't think it's totally irrelevant. you will see the four pinocchios showing up in the opponent's ads saying, see, they're a liar. and it can come back to haunt you in terms of your credibility down the line. >> one difference now is that the campaigns were -- you couldn't do it a decade ago, they can blast out the message, even those shown to be clearly

misleading on youtube, facebook, twitter. >> you crude oil more platforms. >> drudge link -- you control more platforms. >> a drudge link. >> focus groups, voters said the same thing over and over. it's all negative, we don't believe either side. they've become cynicalundated f campaigns and groups. they don't know how to sift through it all. because some charge has four pinocchios, a voter may pause, perhaps, but the -- the focus groups that i see, voters now more than ever have really tuned a lot of it out. they believe both sides are guilty of being faultless and pushing distortions. >> in "politico" this week they did a piece that got a the of play in which unnamed republican strategists talked about how they think ryan hurts the ticket and other congressional candidates for the gop. most of then as the piece acknowledged, not quoting by name. isn't that giving a free pass?

>> we were candid about that. and basically saying, look, folks don't want to put their names the charges. if you don't want to read farther, that's mine. that's a conversation happening in the political community. we as reporter want to capture that conversation. the challenge for us in trying to too so in a what i that you can get it in print, but you respect -- people who don't want to have their names used, it's a question of do you not represent what's happening in a political operative community or do it in a way that you have to do a lot of blind quotes? we choose the chose the latter because it's such a hot issue going on. >> do you have a problem with that? >> i do. you go back to the "politico" stories about herman cain, a good example with blind quote that were not backed up with -- with specific sources. and i understand the point. i want it get into the paper the because, but -- >> the -- that was controversial to women -- >> eventually. but not on the day that it came

out. i do have a problem with stories like this, unnamed sources. i -- i gave that "politico" story to my ethics class, and they gave it about a d. >> dropped out of the race -- that was my story. dropped out and multiple women came forward and said that he had sexually harassed them. look, that's a different story entirely from republican operatives grumble being the ticket. >> still, put names on it. >> i've got to go break. >> it's not always an option. the operatives don't want to be seen as criticizing their party's nominee. it's the world we're in. i wish it was different, but it's not. >> you two take this outside. let me run some commercials here. when we come back, what happened to the media chart better -- on the high-profile campaign. ♪ [ male announcer ] its lightweight construction makes it nimble... ♪

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we were talking before the break about a "politico" story quoting unnamed gop operatives as saying paul ryan hurts this ticket. you tried to write a similar story for "real clear politics"? >> dimpt i had heard that a lot of republican operatives thought there was no way they could pick paul ryan. my editor said we cannot run this. we did a watered down version -- >> because? >> because he didn't want to have those blind quotes in the story. >> let me move to the question of when ryan got picked, people, including me, said, boy, given his record on budget cuts and medicare, we'll have a substantive debate in this campaign. instead we'll have -- you know,

the obama campaign, excuse me, the romney campaign accused the obama campaign of running a campaign of hatred. the spokesman pushing back saying romney is unhinged. what happened? >> well, i think it's happened on two levels. i do think that you have such a -- a level of anger, the "washington post" today had a very interesting study of how the sharp spike in partisanship among the electorate, where people feel very strongly about their views. much more strongly than they did a few years ago. and i think that animosity and that -- genuine anger, i don't think it's faux anger, the genuine anger is showing on one level. at the same time, there is a serious debate about the future of medicare. there is a serious debate about the size of government. and -- they're both happening at the same time. >> is all of that, and yet erin, tmz put out a photo of a few years ago of paul ryan shirt ools -- this ran on "the daily beast," as well, where i work -- and it probably got more clicks

than all of the medicare stories put together. >> and the "washingtonian" put a picture of a shirtless obama on its cover a few years ago. this is not a new thing here. and president obama got a lot of coverage about his life and his personality when he was running for president. so the fact that we're talking about that with paul ryan for a couple of days doesn't phase me at all. >> if the candidates and their surrogates are throwing mud at each other, kind of incendiary language, of course we have to cover it. i wonder whether that warfare, the flap of the day stuff, has come to dominate the coverage. >> i think it -- it has. and i think there's also a reluctance for some reason to call out one side -- when one side or the other is being more egregious in terms of throwing out mud. the tendency to say a pox on both of their houses. no. it's hard to say which side is being more egregious and making accusations. we should slink from that. >> the throwing of the mud is the big storyline of the campaign. what either side would do is not being covered. take this medicare debate, for

example. each side is trying to disqualify the other side. there's no talk of what the solutions would be. >> briefly, jonathan. you wrote this week about vice president biden and his team trying to influence on the trail the reports filed -- initial reporters who get in and share their findings with the larger groups of reporters who can't get into small events. what did they do? >> right. they -- myself and colleague, they attempted to edit some of what was being put in the pool report. and that's just a no-no because those are -- of and for the journalist. >> they tried to change it or tried to persuade you to change it? >> they tried to offer their suggestions about what should go in there. is perhaps the kind way to put it. and those pool reports belong to us. the only reason that the white house is involved with them is because they -- they're the ones that sent them out to the rest of the press corps. the romney campaign has set up a way where it's the journalists who send them out. there's a google group or

whatever, that's probably the way it should go forward. the technology nowadays allows us basically to put them out amongst ourselves. i don't know -- why the white house is still involved putting them out anyway. >> jonathan, steve, erin, thank you very much. next, presidential candidate who's been stiffing the reporters who cover him. and it's not the one you might think. map if there was a pill

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and she flew and she flew, into the sky and beyond. my name is annie and i'm the girl who dreamed she could fly. powered by intel core processors. ♪ in each campaign psych teleseems the working press, by which i mean the beat reporters who follow the candidate and issues, not anchors given a few minutes of airtime or info.-tainment types, have less access to those running for president. i have harped on, maybe been obsessed with mitt romney keeping his press corps at arm's length. for a year and a half, he wouldn't appear on a sunday show. fairness requires me to point out that romney has changed that strategy a bit. he held two news conference this week and has given interviews to "60 minutes," "cbs this morning," brian williams, gloria borger and others. president obama has been a different story. yes, he pops up in all kinds of

forums, even talking about his favorite music and chili on a radio show the other day. there's been a drought when it comes to the journalists who cover him. msnbc's andrea mitchell pressed the point this week with obama's spokesman. >> why hasn't the president had a news conference for either the traveling press corps on the campaign or for the white house press corps? he's not met the white house press corps in the east room officially since march 6. when is he going to be accessible to other other than "people" magazine and "entertainment tonight"? >> the president has been available for questions each week on the campaign trail. there's no doubt the number of outlets there and that americans get their news from is more diverse than it was even from four years ago. >> true. there are more ways to communicate these days with twitter, town halls, and the like. but that is no substitute for dealing with the white house press corps. and we ought to keep making an issue of that with a president who's running to hang on to his job. ahead on "reliable sources," some folks at fox say the media

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we're all accustomed to the partisan media. what was noteworthy on fox news is how there was a counterattack on any media scrutiny of paul ryan even on the most basic questions. >> paul ryan has actually proposed a budget, a pathway to prosperity, that anybody can read. if voters do their own homework and not rely on the liberal media. >> there's been a lot of misinformation put out by the mainstream media and pundits. >> some reporters are nothing more than left wing ideologues mass indicating as journalist. and mitt romney's announcement of paul ryan as his v.p. nominee was no different. >> joining us to examine the allegations of bias, amy holmes, anchor for glenn beck tv, in washington, david shuster, nationally syndicated radio host and correspondent for "current tv." david, is any scrutiny of paul ryan's record being dismissed by

some as being the work of the bad old liberal media? >> if it is the bad old liberal media, i'm surprised that brit hume falls into that category. brit hume did one of the most brilliant, aggressive, but fair interviews of paul ryan that we've seen since the announcement. he washington at fox news. i think the mistake that some people make is they assume -- and maybe the romney made the mistake of think figure we go on fox news we're going to get softballs. then a journalist asks about the loopholes in your budget, and paul ryan can't answer them. the media says he's not providing information. >> there's a difference between examining a congressman's record and piling on. do you think there's been piling on by the press? >> it might be surprise you to hear, the answer is no. and it seems to me that in fact a lot of journalists know paul ryan well. and that's giving him a better of -- i wouldn't say cover, but maybe fairer coverage than, say, sarah palin got four years ago, you know, this time four years

ago. where i have seen what seems to be a bias is the idea that mitt romney is responsible for paul ryan's legislative career. four years ago when president, then-candidate obama, tapped joe biden to be his v.p., you didn't see the scrutiny. over six term in the senate, he was number four in leadership. president obama was not sort of drilled and peppered with questions like take responsibility for joe biden. >> one difference is that romney had endorsed, at least in principle, ryan's budget, the one that passed the house. so it's not like he just had never met the guy -- >> sure. but as then-senator obama said, he chose joe biden to be on his ticket because of his foreign policy experience. well, joe biden had voted for the iraq war. he had advocated for partitions of iraq. and then senator obama was not asked aggressive questions about whether or not he agreed with these policy position. >> let me play sound for you. it's not just commentators at fox making the charge. a number of romney surrogates in interviews in cnn and elsewhere

seem to be trying to brand or label correspondents who ask skeptical questions as being in the tank for obama. here's john sununu, former governor, top romney spokesman, talking to soledad o'brien. >> stop this! all you're doing is mimicking stuff that comes out of the white house and gets repeated on the democratic -- blog boards out there. if you're going to mouth what -- >> i'm telling you what factcheck.com tells you. what the cbo tells you. what cnn's independent analysis does -- >> she had been asking about ryan's budget plan, medicare. and newt gingrich on another show also said you're in the tank for obama, almost sounds like a talking point. >> john sununu sounds like somebody who hasn't taken his medication and can't hear well. if that's the message that the romney campaign wants, if that's the kind of surrogate, keep putting him out there. the problem that a lot of journalists have had in trying to figure out where romney's position is is mitt romney. on the one hand, one day he'll say, yeah, i support the paul

ryan budget. the next day, i have my own plan. the next day, i support his budget plan. the next day, reporters say, what are the details, we're not going to tell you until after the election. it's as if reporters don't know what his position is. >> amy, it's politics -- these guys can say what they want. when somebody like sununu or gingrich says, you know, sununu particularly said you shut put an obama stamp on your forehead, are they working the refs or making an unfair charge against journalists trying to be straight? >> i think we've seen and we've talked about this a lot in this horse race coverage that oftentimes the candidates are asked to respond to here's the white house charge, here's the other side. i think what john sununu was responding to with soledad o'brien, there was a screen grab she was reading from talking points memo, printout of the blog site, known as a liberal leaning site. i have no problem with a journalist asking questions from, say, here's what some liberal bloggers have to say about your plan, can you answer those charges and those criticisms. i think that obviously those charges need to be correct and

fact checked, but it also has to be done on the other side. do we see journalists taking blogs right wing blogs, and asking liberal politicians to respond to conservative criticism of their policy positions, and i don't think we see that as often. >> amy's right. the argument that president obama wants to protect medicare, yes, he can make the argument. but by extracting $700 million away from providers, in other words, no cuts to benefits, but nobody's asked president obama or joe biden, okay, what about the part of the report that says something like 15% of hospitals may go under because of this extraction from providers. that's a legitimate, fair question. i think there's a legitimate fair answer, but we haven't seen that exchange. >> both sides should get the searching questions. speaking of biden, the press was not easy on the vice president when he told the crowd in virginia that romney and biden want to put y'all in chains. talking about banking deregulation. does it seem to you that -- that he deserved the critical coverage that he got? >> i think it was another -- i don't think even joe biden said

he didn't intend for it to come out that way. the problem that republicans have in this is that the republicans themselves have used words like shackled and unshackled. when you play the entire context of what biden was saying, it's clear to everybody watching that he was talking about the deregulation of wall street. yes, it was perhaps an inopportune statement, but look, joe biden has made these things before. i think that's a side issue for the campaign. >> amy? >> i think we also heard this drawl that he pulled out to speak to this audience, to pander and i'm one of you, and what does that mean? joe biden has a history of making sort of peculiar, i'll put it that way, racial remarks. talking about walking into a 7-eleven, you can't walk into a 7-eleven without hearing an indian accent. the day that joe biden launched his own campaign, he was quoted in the new york "observer" as describing senator obamaarticul. almost as -- bewildered that an african-american politician could possess those. >> got to wrap it up. >> larger context there. >> measure people not by what they say but their policies. i think the policies of the

candidates on this issue are clear. >> i wish the press would stay away from this ridiculous speculation that biden's going to be dumped for hillary clinton. i don't believe -- it's getting play on fox, by the way. david, amy, thanks for stopping by this sunday morning. after the break, bob schieffer landed the first joint vancouver with mitt romney and joe biden. a conversation is next. no. no. let's see if we can change that. okay. i mean, look at these smart phones! oh wow! cool! yeah. will you tell them how cool it is? this is the htc evo 4g lte on sprint's super fast network. really? with sprint? yup. cool! well she loves her new phone and you love the price. yup. come to walmart and see for yourself. the only network with truly unlimited data. and now find the htc evo 4g lte at a special price in stores today. now at walmart. oh you're checking in. will you tag me? nope. she's so funny.

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the presidential debate moderator were announced this week, and there was a little more diversity on the gender front. cnn's candy crowley will handle a presidential debate and abc's martha raddatz the vice presidential debate. and jim lehrer and bob schieffer. i spoke to the host of "the face the assassination" from -- "face the nation." now you moderated debates in the last two election cycles. given the high stakes will you be nervous when this starts?

>> well, i'd be a little excited, that's for sure. i'll certainly be up for it. no question about that. i don't know. maybe i will be a little bit nervous. >> what's the biggest -- >> normally i'm not, but -- >> normally you're not. you obviously spent many years in front of the television cameras. what's the biggest challenge in a debate setting when you have 60 seconds, 30-second response, and you know the candidates will come there and have their canned sound bites and prepared zingers. how do you break through that? >> well, what i'm hoping for is that they will break through that. basically the way we've got it divided up now -- i think that six 15-minute segment, i'll pose a question to start the first segment, ask one of them to comment, get the response from the other, and then my hope is that they'll be so ready to counter attack as it were or -- or counter the argument they've heard that i won't get in a followup question. that they'll go back and forth. i think that would be the best possible thing that could

happen. last time around, i remember i would get in every once in a while. but in this kind of foremmat whh is looser than debate in the past, i think we'll get genuine back and forth. that's my goal. i'm kind of the referee there. these -- these debates are not about the moderator. they're about the two guys who want not to be president of the united states. and so i'll do the best i can to get them involved in this conversation. >> well, the two candidates for president actually debating each other would certainly be welcome for people trying to make up their minds. are you, of course, the timekeeper, moderator, facilitator, maybe the whistleblower when somebody makes an outrageous claim. you and jim lehrer, who's done this a few more times, kind of the old bowls in among the debate moderators this time. cnn's candy crowley, moderating, first woman in 20 years at the presidential level. and martha raddatz doing the

v.p. debate. do you think it's good to have diversity in the lineup? >> absolutely i do. these two women are both friend of mine. i've known them for years. there's nobody better in the profession than candy crowley and martha. there are a lot of good people out there. but these two, there's -- there's nobody that i would put ahead of them. and yes, i think it is a wonderful thing. i'm the father two daughters and have three granddaughter. i think women should be involved in this. most of the people coming into journalism these days, howard, not like when i got into it, when it was -- all a man's game. most people know coming into journalism are women. i think it's only natural that we would have two women doing the debate. i think we're lucky to have the two we do. >> overdue. it was last sunday that you had on "60 minutes" the first joint interview with mitt romney and his running mate paul ryan.

how did you land that? >> i was home when the phone rang. >> that's all it took? you picked up the phone? >> you know, most of my career, howard, has been being next to the phone. when it rang, i always tried to grab the phone and answer it before somebody else did. but the truth of the matter was i had gotten in from new york very -- about 1:00 in the morning on saturday morning because there had been storms in getting from new york back to washington. >> right. >> put me behind. and then i got up at 5:00 in the morning because it was announced that he was going to announce the running mate. i came in for the special events coverage from that. went, stayed at the office, and i was writing the tease to the broadcast in my commentary and stuff like that. finally about 2:00, i just gave out. i went home, and i told my wife, i said, i got to lay down and get some sleep. so about 2:00 i laid down. and i must have slept several hours because she came in and woke me up and said, they're on the phone from romney headquarters and want to talk to

you. i picked up the phone. it was somebody from the romney staff. >> you might have thought that you were dreaming. >> no. i said -- they said, would you be interested in interviewing governor romney and paul ryan on "60 minutes" tomorrow? i said sure, great idea. >> how left wing did you have to think about -- how long did you have to think about that one? >> i said maybe i ought to call the executive producer and see what he thinks about it. of course we did. >> let me play a little for our audience of that interview. >> okay. has this sunk in on you yet? >> it has. >> congressman, this is going to change your whole life. what did your family think about it? i have to say, democrats seemed equally delighted about this because they said that they think that congressman ryan's budget plan with its overhaul of medicare, with cuts in social programs, education, it's just going to drive voters their way.

how do you respond to that? >> well, what i respond is very simple. that is america has a choice. a very clear choice. >> what was your thinking going into that joint interview? some critics said they thought the interview was soft. >> well, i mean, look, this was an introductory interview. it seems to me. it seems to me the purpose of the first interview with these two men is to try to give people a little idea of who they are and to try to find out, number one, why mitt romney chose paul ryan. and number two, who is paul ryan. so that was -- that was my purpose and kind of the general line that i took in this interview. and i think -- >> it's not like a face-to-face interview where you grill somebody on the issues. this was different. he was being introduced to the country, in your view? >> yeah. that was the way i went at it. >> you were there, you answered the phone. you woke up in time. now we know how you got the

exclusiv exclusive. bob schieffer. thank you very much. >> thanks. >> i love that he was taking a nap. we also wanted to talk to candy crowley, of course. she is off on vacation this week. coming up, the legacy of helen gurley brown, who changed women's magazines forever.

the word "legend" get tossed around too much when a public figure dies, but i think we can make an exception for helen gurley brown. from her book "sex and the single girl" to her tenure at "cosmopolit "cosmopolitan" she had an impact on the future. >> single women having a better sex life that not there married friends. >> really? >> yes. i'm getting so much mail, david said, why don't you start a magazine. we didn't know you couldn't do. that we did up a format, and it got to "cosmo" which was failing. they said we could try the format on their old, dying magazine. >> david was her husband. what was she like as a person, what's her legacy? joining us from new york is gail shehy, the pest-selling author and journalist.

and gail, you wrote for "the daily beast," my web site, about your experiences with helen gurley brown. in particular, the first assignment she gave you not long after taking over "cosmopolitan" in 1965. tell us about that. >> it was terrific. it was to go to paris on pan am and follow the secret life of stewardesses, as we called them then, to see if they had romances that they weren't telling their boyfriends back home about. and they did. so it was a shocking story in '65. and i worked for her for a year writing the same story over and over if n different venues -- >> about women having fun, shall we say, in the bedroom? >> well, actually, career women, young, working women, who she invented. we still have that -- that was 50 years ago. she invented the young, working, single woman. who was told you can have the same prerogatives that young, working men have, which is to have a long, lusty sexual life before you get married if you

even do marry. she never mentioned children. which was left out of marry. she never mentioned children, which was left out of the formula for you can have it all. >> very interesting observation. we live in a sex-saturated society. in the somewhat straight-laced early '60s, what was the impact of sex an the single girl and the changes she made at cosmo. >> it was dynamite, scandalous among religious groups for young mouseburgers, which is what helen considered herself. she had a poor grabbing bround, a crippled sitter. she was a horatio albert hero. she was pock-marked and flat-chested and skinny. she transformed herself and then she told through her magazine later on told other women,

working class women, how to do it for themselves. >> she seems, from what i have read about her, to be somewhat of an eccentric character. was she difficult to deal with at times? >> she was gushy. nobody ever complimented you as much as helen gurley brown. she would wrap you around her finger and you would do whatever she asked. >> a lot of editors would like to have that formula. this wasn't just marketing. she told you she enjoyed lots and lots and lots of sex until she got married at the age of 37. >> she had a very romantic life with her husband, claimed to have been faithful for the 45 years of their marriage. although, in a later book, she wrote when she was in her 70s, if sex is getting a little old, borrow some of your friend's husbands, which created an uproar, as you can imagine. >> she was provocative. >> cosmo is known for all those cheesy cover lines.

how much did it change women's magazines and the whole culture of publishing in that spheres? >> totally. i mean, i think most women's magazines have some element of sex and the single woman and certainly of cosmo. the formula is self-improvement, which is a classic american formula. it goes back to dale carnegie. self-improvement and reproductive health and lots of ser sex and romance. we see it in oprah's magazine and reader's digest. we see it in the current magazine. she leaves out two crucial things that helen curgurley bro says you have to do if you are going to be a successful single woman, work hard and be self-disciplined. >> it is amazing how much the culture has changed.

some woman would object to the notion that you have to have a man or catch a man to be fulfilled and satisfied. gail sheehy, thanks for joining us and helping us to remember the colorful career of helen gurley brown. nice so tto see you. the controversy over fareed zakaria continued. the "media monitor" is straight ahead. from the eye-care experts at bausch + lomb. as you age, eyes can lose vital nutrients. ocuvite helps replenish key eye nutrients. [ male announcer ] ocuvite has a unique formula not found in your multivitamin to help protect your eye health. now, that's a pill worth taking. [ male announcer ] ocuvite. help protect your eye health. you want to make sure it goes up and stays up. [ chirp ] with android apps, you get better quality control. so our test flights are less stressful. i've got a lot of paperwork, and time is everything here.

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time now for the "media monitor," other weekly look the ahits and errors. toure is known for provocative commentary, specially on racial issues. on msnbc's "the cycle" talking about mitt romney's krit sim of the president, he went too far. this includes language you may find offensive. >> this is part of the playbook against obama, the other zation, he is not like it. it is a heavy thing to say. i don't say it lightly. this is niggerzation.

>> i shouldn't have used the "n" word. for that, i'm sorry. >> i'm glad toure apologized. there is no place for that inflammatory language. fareed zakaria's suspension is coming to an end at "time" magazine. both organizations placed him on leave after he said he lifted parts of a new yorker article without attribution. that was a serious mistake as he has acknowledged. time says, we are satisfied it was an unintentional error. krchl nn has said, we have completed our internal rue vee. the process was rigorous. we found nothing that merited continuing the suspension. he has apologized for a

journalistic laps. they will work together to strengthen the procedures. he will resume at cnn and the magazine in the coming weeks. finally, jay leno is taking a sizeable pay cut. "the tonight show" is laying off at least 20 staffers and might have fired more if the comedian hadn't offered to reduce his compensation. what's funny about this, not funny hawaii, is that "tonight" remains the number one late night talk show. the salary that had been around $25 million. he probably will have to buy fewer of those expensive antique cars. that's it for this edition of reliable sources. i'm howard kurtz. if you miss a program, you can check ut out on itunes. we will be in tampa next sunday morning, 11:00 a.m. eastern for the republican national convention. hope you will be able to join is there. state of the union with candy crowley begins right now. i'm jim acosta in for candy