when fdr was there in 1945, it was part of the soviet socialist republic. outside of the borders of its russian counterpart. we thought the visit was not technically in russia. it was under the control of russia. all of it inside the soviet union of course. if you said fdr was first u.s. sitting president to visit, you were right. nixon was the first state visit. thanks for being part of my program this week. i will see you next week. stay tuned for "reliable sources." just one week ago the syria story changing on a daily basis seemed destined for a congressional showdown over the president's plan to strike syria but then -- >> there's an important late

breaking development on syria. >> syria news is breaking fast and furiously. >> a dramatic turn of events as russia becomes the center of that story. we'll ask deborah amos about how that news is playing in the region and new comparisons to the buildup to the iraq war and we'll check to charlie rose about his exclusive interview with syrian president bashar al assad. plus, if you thought syria was the only big story this week, think again. >> it's that time of year again when apple announces that you no longer have the hottest phone on the market. >> apple's latest and greatest isn't the new iphone. it's two new iphones. >> the new iphone 5s is faster with a better camera and a fingerprint scanner for security. >> the annual apple frenzy leaves some reporters breathless. why the hype? do you know what happened in this parking garage? one of the most infamous sites of the watergate era may be slated for demolition.

we'll take a final look at no ordinary parking spot. all of that and the onion talking about 25 years of fake news. this is "reliable sources." good morning. thank you very much for joining us. cautious optimism is a common feeling in the wake of an american and russian agreement to set framework and timetable for remove of syrian's chemical weapons stockpiles. is the feeling widespread in the region and how difficult is it to report on it? joining me from lebanon is deborah amos. thank you for joining us. i want to get straight to news that damascus is going to welcome the international community overlooking of their chemical weapons. i wonder if some of the diplomatic efforts that we saw this week are at all going to translate into your job as a

reporter. in other words, have diplomatic operations put a thaw to reporting what's a difficult country and region to report out of. >> i came this week. i thought i was coming to be a witness to perhaps a u.s. strike on syria and it turned into a dapt diplomatic story overnight. it's been a dramatic swing for many reporters that came to the region. some of what we do won't change. we'll still continue to cover the refugees. there's been fighting across syria all the while the diplomats have been in geneva. that hasn't changed. it perhaps explains why the opposition in syria and the rebels are very much against this agreement in geneva. for them what they see is that only 2% of those who have been killed in syria have been killed by chemical weapons. everybody else has died from conventional weapons on both sides of the conflict.

second, because there's been this diplomatic agreement, it's clear that assad will stay for a while because both the united states and russia need him to be able to dismantle this chemical weapons arsenal. for us covering in the region, some of the story is the same. some of it moved to moscow, to geneva and to washington. >> maybe it's just a washington phenomenon but most coverage the past week was politics of it and what the heads of state were doing and how much we can read into these things. you have covered the refugee crisis extensively. do you worry that we may lose sight of the real horrors taking place on the ground there especially with the refugee crisis? >> i do. i think a lot of reporters are dedicated to making sure that story gets the same priority because that hasn't stopped. first of all, it's a crisis in every syrian -- for every syrian neighbor. i'm in lebanon where this september for the first time

ever you'll have more syrian children in lebanese schools than lebanese. one out of every four persons in this country is now a syrian. i'm going to jordan next week. we have half a million syrians who have come into jordan straining every resource in the country. i think we can't look away from that part of the story because it is so destabilizing for all of syria's neighbors. i'm not sure if that message has gotten through. i think that there's been a lot of great coverage of the refugee crisis but it is true one refugee is a tragedy and anything more is a number. it's always a struggle to find out how to tell individual stories so you get a sense of the magnitude of the crisis. there's been nothing like it in generations. it is the tragedy of the century as u.n. officials continue to say but we have to find ways to make people understand how

serious that crisis is and it does get overshadowed by the diplomacy especially this week because there was so much optimism about there was a breakthrough, a diplomatic breakthrough but this doesn't really change what's happening on the ground and i think that it's really important to remember that. >> there have been a lot of comparisons in this story to iraq not only because of the drum beat to war but use of chemical weapons. you covered iraq. you're covering syria now. are those comparison accurate or do you think that we're perhaps trying to fit something into a spot where it doesn't fit in terms of comparing those two different situations? >> i think maybe better comparisons are with rwanda and kosovo rather than iraq. also as a correspondent covering both, there's been such a difference in how open this conflict is. when i first got to iraq, we were excited because there was a blogger and we had river bend to read and how to there are thousands of bloggers and videos coming out.

free syrian army has seven youtube channels. there's never been so much information in a conflict. in fact, on the morning of august 21st, i was certainly alerted that something had happened because all of a sudden my e-mail was filled have messages and videos and testimonials from the ground. this is a different kind of conflict and different way to cover it. we know more. we have to verify more because many of us can't go to damascus they are restrictive in giving out visas. there are few americans in damascus. we have to work harder. we have more information to work with than we ever had in iraq. >> thank you very much for joining us. an important story. you're doing great work on it. thanks again. >> thank you. of all his interviews with numerous world leaders, none have been more timely. when charlie rose sat down last

week with bashar al assad, he became the first journalist to interview assad since his use of chemical weapons. charlie rose joined me earlier to share details. you have interviewed just about every big name there is. your interview with bashar al assad was not only a big name but it came during an absolutely crucial point in our discussion about syria. was that the biggest interview of your career? >> i think so. i mean, if you measure it by the response by the moment, by the quality of the conversation in terms of touching on the important issues and questions to be asked, i think for me it's always been important to make sure that you ask the right questions and that you in a sense have capacity to ask the follow-up question. often follow-up is more important. questions set a narrative in terms of understanding a crisis and here we had, you know, an

hour to do that. it came at a moment in which he had not been heard from, had not done other interviews with western reporters, by that i mean american. he did print publication and i think he had done german publications but he hadn't done an american television program in more than two years. so we hadn't heard from him. secondly, developments because of august 21st and red lines and the threat of a military strike made it a pregnant moment. >> we'll give you a chance to do media analysis or breaking. why you? why did he pick you? >> i don't know. they never said to me we're picking you because. the only thing he said was you have an influential audience. he meant the audience that we

believe watches charlie rose, the nightly pbs program. i didn't negotiate with him. i negotiated with his press office. >> did he seem nervous coming into the interview? was there a lot of small talk or strictly sit down and do the interview and head out? >> so he came in. i ask about how was living with the stress. he said it was difficult. hard time. i said about your family. he has a number of kids. two or three kids. he said, you know, they are old enough -- it was a human conversation. they're hoold enough to know something is going on but when i come home i'm not president, i'm a father. he gave us all the time that we asked. they made no editorial suggestions at all. there were moments when he would have to ask for a word because he didn't understand. i said to him don't you have any remorse and he didn't understand the word remorse so i said

sadness. >> i'm curious. you mention how -- you're in this position where you have a lot of different jobs. this interview is great example of how you are able to pot a lot of those plants with this one interview. obviously you're associated with cbs. your pbs show is sort of your baby and has been for decades. is there part of you that is particularly proud or excited that in fact that format in a couple of instances has proven more preferable for the interview subject in the sense there aren't a lot of shows that are ad free that you can go for the full hour and as you are seeing, now some interviews subjects are picking that show for that very reason. that has to be a big source of pride for you. >> it is enormous. i can't tell you. i've been doing this program with a very loyal and distinguished group of people for more than 20 years. y we have had a lot of important interviews with important people at difficult times in their

life. the interesting thing about the assad interview is people talked to me about the content of the interview. curious about how you got the interview. your question. they are also interested in -- they're always interested in what was it like in that room with that man. but in this case, what has pleased me the most is that some of the best journalists in this country and overseas have communicated with me by e-mail about how their own assessment of this interview and they have given it fair to say and i say this not to flatter me, high marks. >> we have to go. before we go though. you have been working on this interview since break. what other interviews do you have in hopper we may see three or four months ago? >> i'll interview the president

of iran when he comes here. the person i want to do more than anyone else right now is vladimir putin. >> good interview to get. thank you so much for joining us. appreciate it. congrats on the big interview. >> patrick, thank you so much. >> you can see the full version of my interview online on our website. coming up, if you are having trouble understanding the crisis in syria, our next guest might be able to help. ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ hooking up the country helping business run ♪ ♪ build! we're investing big to keep our country in the lead. ♪ load! we keep moving to deliver what you need. and that means growth, lots of cargo going all around the globe. cars and parts, fuel and steel, peas and rice, hey that's nice! ♪ norfolk southern what's your function? ♪ ♪ helping this big country move ahead as one ♪ ♪ norfolk southern how's that function? ♪

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>> covering any story demands that reporters stay on top of compounding events. that's even more difficult for a story like syria. it can be daunting if you are not familiar with the history. recently max fisher wrote a story called nine questions about syria you were too embarrassed to ask. the response was overwhelming. earlier i spoke with max fisher about why his piece struck a cord. m your article, nine questions about syria you were too embarrasseded to ask has gone viral. you were telling me that it has 3 million hits and usually you have done these lists before and they get about 100,000. whose idea was this article/list? >> it was my idea because i was thinking, you know, i have a lot of friends that aren't foreign

affairs nerds like me and they are embarrassed to ask questions about it. they say i know i should pay attention it israel or egypt or china but i don't want to say i don't know anything about it. just being able to go to people and say, hey, you're kind of embarrassed but you're always smart and curious and an intelligent person and i'll talk to you like i respect you but acknowledge you don't know where syria is on a map. >> some basic things you point out is number one what is syria? number eight, what's the big deal with chemical weapons? you have done these lists before and they haven't been as successful. what about this one hit that sweet spot for you or for your audience? >> people have known for a while that what's happening in syria is really important but sotorie like this are broccoli on the news plate. it's tough. you don't want to. they said, okay, i' have to lean about it but nobody is writing for people who are just coming into it. we have a tendency, people like

me who write about foreign affairs, to write for the other experts, to write for our friends at the council on foreign relations or we kind of make the mistake of assuming people don't know anything about it because they're not very smart and i should talk down to th them. i think there were intelligent people who were busy and didn't have time until right now and finally they said, man, i have to figure out what's going on. >> you have got the publisher's award at "the washington post" and buzz feed has done their own parity which is nine questions about the new iphone you were too embarrassed to ask. your new boss cited it twice in meetings and i don't know if you know this but the gossip blogger put it in his recommended section. how do you walk the line between doing this, which obviously has tremendous success, but also not making it seem as though you're dumbing this news story down.

>> right. you know, a lot of people say it's about lists. it's about the trick. it's this. it's that. it's actually simple. there is this diagram that we think about in foreign affairs news where people know all about the story and there's everybody else. and there's nobody thinking about the intersection between people who are really smart but people who don't know about what's going on in syria. you just -- if you just assume people are intelligent and if you just assume people can be smart and curious but don't know about it and you talk to, like, your aunt. she's a smart lady. doesn't know about syria. speak to her like a human being and then people will key into it. >> tell me what gap in current news reporting business this type of article was filling in a sense when i read a lot of these questions, why are people in syria killing each other, isn't every news article in essence supposed to answer those questions and maybe not your

music break but the basic facts should be included in a news story. are they not being included or do you think by teasing them out that's the real added value? >> i think they are included. i have huge respect for people like liz at "the washington post" reporting on syria for years. her job is to follow what's happening on the ground every day tracking developments. there's a lot happening. it's really confusing. it's really hard to write what liz is writing when she's got to keep on top of that and to also take a step back and take this pause and the internet has given people an opportunity to be smart on subjects but also a seventh grade civics teacher sometimes. people will dumb it down and patrol for clicks but there's a huge audience out there who will have moments that say whoa, whoa, whoa what is syria? >> before we go, there has to be

a ton of pressure on you now. 3 million hits. bosses saying i need a list like this every day? >> i'm resigning later today. i'll never clear this. >> it wouldn't be shocking if you did it again. did you feel this became so big there is pressure? >> i'm not worried about it. i think that it's really simple. as long as you just assume people are smart but people haven't been following it, if you remember those two things, then i think it does great. >> can you top this? >> never. never. my god, no. >> max fisher of "the washington post," thank you for joining us. >> to talk more about how the press took on many facets of r syria this week, i'm joined by andrea seabrook and emily cadei. bill crystal, is a yes. peggy noonan is a no.

a scorecard. follow your favorite columnist as america debates war. it seems as if the way we tally congress about their support, we tally pundits and their support of the war as well. is that good and normal and way discourse should happen or too much emphasis on what bill crystal thinks or what national journal scorecard says? >> besides the fact that these aren't people who have the daily intelligence to be able to know what's going on on the ground, just the idea that you can break down something like this into a complete yes or no situation, that's what we're set up to ask the question. yes or no. yes or no. it's actually a much -- the universe of ideas about this is much larger than should we go or shouldn't we and in fact surprisingly the person that made us realize that this past week was vladimir putin when he came forward with something we weren't considering.

>> emily, you have been covering foreign policy for a while. not everybody on capitol hill who are taking these tallies of what congress people want to do with regards to syria know as much about syria as perhaps you do. have you noticed colleagues on capitol hill or just around town having to bone up on syria, an issue a lot of folks used to covering budget or things like that are not as knowledgeable about? >> absolutely. you just see it in congress the last few weeks. the number of people that have suddenly come up to the capitol hill is enormous. all sorts of people who don't cover congress are really coming to this debate that died down again. it's a complicated issue for all of us. very few of us on the ground in syria. it's hard for us to judge some of the facts and figures that people are debating. it's particularly hard to get up to speed and congress is its own beast. the debate there is a very unique forum. it's been -- i've seen colleagues who just said that? that's so and so. >> does that bleed into

coverage? do you see so and so doesn't quite know the context in syria as perhaps they should or are reporters doing a good job getting up to speed, learning about the area and giving context? >> some of what we're seeing in some of these articles and this pundit list. it becomes more of a horse race than actually -- you lose context about syria because you are focused on the personalities in washington that people do know and the same way people cover campaigns, this is not a campaign but it's covered a little bit like a campaign. >> are you worried about that? obviously there is a necessary and good political context in the diplomacy world and here in washington. there are horrible things happening on the ground. there's a refugee crisis. are you worried now that debate has risen to heads of state level and in fact what's actually taking place on the ground in syria will get overlooked and we'll care about what john kerry says or what vladimir putin says. >> this last week it became who is winning rand paul or john

mccain? it's practically -- we all -- i include myself in the washington media. we click into this mode that covers the who is winning and who is losing, red or blue, which side is up and down instead of the fact that more than 1,000 people with hundreds of children were actually killed by a fog of chemical weapons on the ground in a civil war that actually in the long run determines or can be determinative of the middle east and that's a huge effect on the united states. >> emily, we'll throw up on the screen some of the breaking news tweets that we saw this week. "the new york times," associated press, al jazeera, we saw a stream of breaking news that it was coming in fast and furious that day. some held up. some didn't. as a reporter covering this beat when you get this onslaught of information coming in on breaking news, how do you handle it? how do you sort out what you want to focus on versus what

might be noise? >> i follow all of those people on twitter so i get inundated with that sort of stream. you have a few reliable sources and people on administration and on the hill you talk to to sort out what you should pay attention to and what the process is happening on the ground because like i said there's things happening in geneva and in new york and in damascus. it's really trying to -- reporters were as good as our sources. we have to help drill down that way. >> all right. thanks to both of you for joining us. coming up next from syria, to siri. what is about new product events held by apple that make tech reporters froth at the mouth? we'll ask one tech expert that was there. i think farmers care more about the land than probably anyone else. we've had this farm for 30 years. we raise black and red angus cattle. we also produce natural gas. that's how we make our living and that's how we can pass the land and water back to future generations. people should make up their own mind

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>> nothing gets tech savvy journalists more excited than the launch of a new apple product. the company's presentation may have lost spark since the death of steve jobs but tuesday's announcement of two new iphones attracted plenty of media attention. so let's find out if these apple events are really as much of a

love for reporters as i seem to think they are. technology columnist joins us now from stanford, california, an iphone store away from apple headquarters. why do you go to these things? >> i mean, they are the biggest events in the tech world every year. they are because of the history there. this is the company that unveiled the iphone and the iphone is sort of the biggest thing to come along in the tech industry in the last decade certainly if you look either by sales or money. it's kind of the biggest game in town. you want to see what's the newest thing and what they're going to do to keep pace and keep beating rivals and at this point it's particularly interesting for apple. this was the first product announcement they've had in about a year which is a long time for apple. they usually stagger these throughout the year and we're at

this time in apple's life where we're wondering whether they can stave off increasing competition from google's android platform and from rivals like samsung which use that platform and so it is interesting to see at this point what they're doing and whether what they're doing is going to work. >> i have two breaking news e-mails that day from "usa today." apple announces iphone 5c and nine minutes later apple announces iphone 5s. does it seem like a bit much in terms of coverage even if it is fair and balanced coverage, just sheer volume of it. these are big events but iphone hasn't had enormous overhaul in quite some time. to still see this kind of coverage now, does it seem like a bit too much for you? >> i wouldn't have sent you two breaking news alerts for that event. i guess, you know, it sort of

depends on what kind of outlet you are. if you are covering the tech industry, there is sort of -- i think that -- i don't think that the tech industry can miss out on these events and, you know, they cover other companies in the same way. the difference is that apple attracts mainstream press in a way that no other tech company does. so if microsoft, if nokia, if samsung had one of these evicinitieevents, which they do all the time, they don't attract the mainstream press in the same way because numbers are there. readersh readership. if you write about apple, you'll attract more readers than if you write about the latest samsung phone. i think they are catering to an audience that cares, whether justifiably or not more about what apple does than other companies do. >> do you get a sense that reporters will want to boycott these things? they think they are going to

these events and yet they're not exactly getting a new breakthrough product or if you're invited, you go to those things? >> i think if you're invited you go to toes things because they invite people whose job it is to cover these things. so if you're a tech reporter and you cover phone launches, you sort of have to be there. at some events they invite a wider swath of media and in those cases, i mean, it's debatable. if you write for a publication that doesn't cover the iphone or tech industry, it's debatable whether you should care about some new iphone announcement when it's not the latest and greatest thing. i think that this -- i actually think this announcement is more interesting, was more interesting than previous announcements or the actual

announcement wasn't but the fever for why you should cover it was. apple has been having trouble lately. the trouble is about their difficulty to sell their phones in lower price markets like china and india, emerging markets where they are beaten by low-cost android phones. they were trying to release this cheaper iphone that turned out to be not a cheaper iphone. it was the same price as they would have sold iphone 5 for this year. >> i have to bump in. live television. we have to go. thank you so much for coming on. one of these days i'll get invited to iphone unveiling. >> if you want to tell secrets in the same spot deep throat did, you may only have a little bit longer to do it.

>> you tell me what you know and i'm confirm. i'll keep you in the right direction if i can but that's

all. >> just follow the money. >> that clip we just showed you is hollywood's version of the watergate garage. this is the real version of that garage. we're in arlington, virginia, spot 32-d where bob woodward met his source. it is slated to be demolished in a couple years. how important was this garage to that watergate story? for this i turn to the professor of broadcast journalism at the university of maryland who has studied the role journalists played in the watergate scandal. this is the actual garage. >> this is the garage where bob redford made it famous. >> is that hollywood movie sensationalized this story? how important was this actual garage to the story? >> it was a great visual for

hollywood. it was much less important for history. it's exciting. it's dramatic. it's eerie. how much the garage mattered, how much woodward and bernstein mattered is something scholars are debating and more or less thinking is much less important than the movie portrayed. much less glamorous. >> we're here in arlington far away from the white house and far away from the capitol. why here? >> it was out of the way and it was on the way for mark as he drove home from the fbi. >> how many times did they meet and what did they talk about and what kind of information was exchanged? what do we know? >> we only know what bob woodward says because by the time the story was collaborated, he was sick with dimension. >> any reason to doubt woodward? >> no. they had a two-source rule at

"the washington post." this is one source. wo woodward said they meant met ou the way where no would would see them. >> around the 40th anniversary of the watergate investigation, arlington county erected a sign to mark this historic spot. many people walk by every single day without having any idea of the famous meetings that took place right here. even if that parking garage gets renovated, 32-d is demolished, this sign will be here forever. you actually noted this isn't entirely accurate. >> the sign like the prevailing mythology credit deep throat with more impact on bringing down nixon. >> is that because of hollywood and because of the movie? >> pretty much. the hollywood mythology lives on

separate from historical reality. there's a folklore in the public consciousness regardless of the reality. >> as a reporter, do you think we should care about parking spot 32-d being uplifted? >> not really. the whole thing has been grossly exaggerated. there are many more historical monuments of import torn down for commerce to build new buildings. as long as it lives on in popular memory, as long as signs like this bear witness, we remember it. the good, the bad and the ugly. >> resoproperty managers say th demolition is still some time off. when it comes to syria, is the onion editor in chief. [ male announcer ] when you have sinus pressure and pain,

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thus, it's not always laugh out loud. you can rub some people the wrong way but the onion bypasses the feeling of many taking themselves too seriously. the onion won't cop to even having an opinion. joining me from washington, will tracy. first of all, congratulations on 25 years. did you have any idea that it would make it this far? >> no, no. i didn't even expect to make it myself to 25 years. so for the company to make it that far is a tremendous honor. >> a lot of your coverage on syria is getting attention. it's been pegged as something resembling a serious issue campaign. and unfunny and no kidding, read "the onion" if you want to understand syria. how would you describe how you've been doing on syria? >> i mean, i think that -- i don't think we've taken a

particular side. i'd like to say that we sort of have acknowledged both of the dominant view points or the many dominant view points. so for us it's very difficult, though, because bashar al assad is a friend of "the onion." he's a close personal friend of mine. i'm eating dinner with him next week. >> right. >> so it's very hard for me to say things about my friend that i think would be damaging to his presidency. at the same time, the rebels, i would think that we'd like to support them, too, because we support the jihadist movement. >> are all of these articles, are we overstating it or reading too much into it or are you right that this is kind of a change in the tone of your site? >> no. i don't think so. i mean, i think what we've always kind of played the role here where we take shots at

everybody. i think we've done pieces that everybody sees as a support of intervention and other people as against an intervention. i think we like to keep people guessing and always what we try to do is bring attention to the issue in general because for a long time we were running pieces that nobody clicked on and nobody cared about syria because people weren't that interested in a prior month or two ago. we've tried to draw attention to it and humanize the syrian people as much as we can. >> it's interesting, obviously when you started your paper, now you're probably known for your digital op. but because of that transition, because your website is how a lot of people read "the onion," do you feel more pressure to be more tropical where back in the old newspaper reading days you could do more evergreen stuff? >> yeah, we certainly do -- we do just as much evergreen as much as we did before but

topical is more of what we do because in the year 2013 we have to kind of be on top of stuff. there's a little bit more pressure and more opportunity for us to get out there first and make a comment and make a very honest and candid comment that some of the other institutions can't do. for me it's part of what we do. >> obviously you've read a lot of the commentary about what you've all been doing on syria. what are you hearing from your readers? is it there a response on some of the more topical stuff more positive or do you get folks that just want the joe biden stories, not that there's anything wrong with that? >> i think our readers are terrified for us to know that if they want to complain or issue any sort of negative comment that we will intimidate them eventually hunt them down and

destroy them. >> perfect. >> so they live in fear because they are cattle. and i think that's really the mission of journalism. >> that's a great way to p respond to commentators online. will tracy, thank you. good luck on the next 25 years. >> thank you so much. next, what happens when reporters and "politico" switch jobs? plus, what happens when you put six news anchors in the same room at the same time? it's like the real world but journalism style. i'll be right back. la's known definitely for its traffic, congestion, for the smog. but there are a lot of people that do ride the bus. and now that the buses are running on natural gas, they don't throw out as much pollution into the air. so i feel good. i feel like i'm doing my part to help out the environment.

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all right. before i let you go, a few thumbs up and thumbs down for this week. the revolving door of journalism. for all of these reporting jumping ship from the obama administration, rick stengel will soon become to make such a move, the most recognizable, former "time" magazine reporter, jay carney, now, it's just not

the democratic phenomenon either and even the door does swing both ways there. are tons of former republican and democratic white house staffers on the payrolls of news organizations. let's face it. even if it is only about making a living and not about political agendas, the appearance of it threatens to make readers suspicious. reporting and politics is not they should know every single time they move to the other side of the microphone, they risk leaving the rest of us with a big mess to clean up, not a terribly nice parting gift. speaking of revolving doors, anthony weiner's bid to become may nor fizzled out and the question is who will snatch him

up first. of course he'd join a cable newschannel. i say, stop all of this. is cable news just a fall back for politicians? and is that just a backup plan for bored reporters? that's not the way it's supposed to work. six television reporters sat down with president obama on monday to talk syria. they all gathered together for a friendly photo op. cbs tweeted this picture and gave wolf blitzer credit for the idea. who says it's such a cutthroat business. and mansion reporter? yeah, that's an actual job. "the wall street journal" has an ad out for a reporter to break news on real estate deals each week in the paper's section on high-end real estate. new york's finest homes? nice work if you can get it. that's it for