responsibility and more creative control. and more things to do. and every time de t he would knock it out of the park. so now i done know what it is now, 2032, whatever, 2013. so this kid who started at this show in 1999 as a pa sitting with his naked ass on a toilet in time's square has been our executive producer for the last five years. a tremendous story. and has gone from that anonymous beginning all the way to this. >> i smokey the bear a loved american icon have been given [bleep] for money. >> jon: all right. come out here, rory albany. get out here. this is the guy. get over here. (applause) this is the guy! we're going to miss him. he's all grown-up.

your moment of zen. >> let me get this straight you're asking me if it's hard to get laid off of a job i've held since 19 fricking 44. >> yeah, yeah. >> is that what are you asking me. >> i this that is what i asked you, yeah. >> let me ask you a captioning sponsored by comedy central ( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: welcome toot report. thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen.

>> stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! stephen! >> stephen: thank you so much. nation, thank you for joining me in here, out there, all around the world. mr. and mrs. america. nation, you know it is day 10 of the government shutdown. you know what day 10. let me actually just add that to my frequent shutdown punch card here. right there. oh, hey! i win a free c.d.c. ebola morningy. all right, that's fantastic. now, folks, tonight, tonight, there are dramatic new developments in the obama-boehner shutdown debt ceiling tag team death match. there has evidently been some progress in that they have found new things to completely disagree about. all right, that, information, that is the big news. but i've only told it to you so

far. i haven't newsed it at awe. ( laughter ) and we all know that is the ultimate show of a tv newsman. you may not then because you're not in the biz, but we in broadcasting tend to model ourselves on our heroes heroes. sean hannity modeled himself on ground beef. ( laughter ) i myself, i myself, look to the unshakable confidence of the bill o'reilly, the reassuring statesmanship of peter jennings, and the being on tv of bill hemmer. ( laughter ) but fox news anchor shepsmith has always been my personal hero, so personal that i've kept it from everyone, including myself. ( laughter ) you see, shephas a fool-proof internal barometer for when the country needs a break from this kind of washington infighting. so instead, he reports on a daredevil being pushed out of a planed in a coffin, the video of

which shep does not have. >> there we go. that's the clouds. and in a little while the plane will fly by there, moments away, from my understanding, plane will fly right by, and they're going to push a guy in a box that looks like a coffin, and he will float, and his parents will be proud. guy flying through air. try to imagine. , everyone together, close your eye. >> stephen: they're closed, shep. my mind is a blank canvas, paint me a picture of the news. >> there's a man in a box trying to disconnect handcuffs he does not have a key. he's racing feverishly. the g-forces are very strong, the flying continues, who, who. i don't know. oh, here we go. was that it? zoom in now. no, that was a breakup in the

feed. ( laughter ). >> stephen: folks i think we'll all remember where we were when we didn't see that. now of course the uptrained viewer might look at shep's misreporting and ask why? i reply because, shep. >> kitty cat meow, $1,000. snooki's pregnant. >> stephen: now keen-eyed fox viewers may have noticed that shep smith has been absent from the airwaves for last month. this week, we found out where he went-- to the future of news. >> we've been busy while i've been away from your tv box. we brought in a lot of new tools to hup bring you the news. this is the new hub for breaking news coverage for all the fox news channels. we call it the fox news deck. >> stephen: it's like star truck polo deck. it feels like you're surrounded by news, but it's all an

illilization. and, folks, the star shep enterprise observes the fundamental rule of tv journalism-- bigger plus electric equals information. jim. >> this is a piece of equipment that has been installed, and never been use used used in broadcast television before but it allows me to manipulate this 38-foot-long video wall. for instance, i can take a picture and bring it over here. take this lady who has been evacuating from a hur kane zone and move it over here. ( laughter ). >> stephen: it's incredible. shep can move around images of devastation with the flick of his controller. it's like he's playing wii tragedy. ( laughter ) ( applause ) ( cheers and applause ) and the news deck gets its info the same way you do-- from some guy on twitter. >> it's not a secret that a lot

of people get their information from twitter and beyond. so what our hope is over the days and weeks and months and years ahead, that we're going to be able to vet much of this for you. you'll see on the left-hand side of this massive wall is what we have newsworthy for this hour at least. these are the matters we're investigating and over here the maefts we have confirmed. >> they're cloem combing through twitter and verifyin verifying tweet and this just in, there's confirmation stase serks in fact, a total chunk-o. that's an exclusive. now, unfortunately these breaking tweets are still being aggregate bide an outdated technology called people. >> these people over here formally producers, now information specialists, who take what information we're gathering from social media from our properties around the world, compile ttake the social part of it, and make calls and internet checks and otherwise to get

things confirmed. >> stephen: these formally old-fashioned producers have been updated to information specialists. it's even on their resumes which they're sending out as we speak. ( laughter ) ( applause ) and just look at how they do their internet check. >> they're all working off brand new computer technology. we call these bats. big area touch screens. >> stephen: big area touch screens. that's a bit technical. let me explain. they took what experts call an area and applied a process known as naik big. make big. using these bhats fox information specialists can swipe through cyber space like in the movie "minority report," except fox news does not report on minorities. ( laughter ) ( applause ) now, nation,im so-- folks, i am

so inspired by the fox news deck. so tonight, i am proud to introduce the the "colbert report" info news veranda. ( cheers and applause ) welcome 3 welcome to the info news verand where we are committed to bringing you the mostest of the moreness. now, just how large do we go? this is now my iphone. 7 ( laughte. ( laughter ) ( phone ringing ) i'm sorry hold on. i can't talk now,nana! >> hello? >> stephen:nana, i'm doing the newsing. i've got to call you back. i love you. >> hello? >> oooh. >> stephen: she'll be fine. she'll call back. shep may have a 38-foot video wall but a have a 38-story video

climbing wall. the climbers formerly news producers now called information sherpas scale the wall to bring you a story. it's a dangerous job but should they fall to their death that's just more news for the wall. ( cheers and applause ). thank you. he will be missed. ( laughter ) we call it the big unbelievably large l.e.d. super hyperinformation technology. or bull( bleep ). ( cheers and applause ) that's trademarked. here at the news veranda, we are focused on bringing you the news, like a kitten focused on a laser dot. in fact, we employ the industry's top feline media managers who-- who scamper around the cage-- look at that-- who scamper around in a cage--

come on, scamper. ( laughter ) scamper around. scamper around now. scamper around a little bit. scamper. come on. scamper around. ( laughter ) ( applause ) whose floor is made of ipads. okay. you see they sift through the entire intirptd, and whatever they step on is then hyper-commed to the info news miranda dot matrix printer. each printed news item is fed directly into our cutting edge new news separator, which separates out all the news, and the resulting nanoinformation is up-shoveled to our kinetic jurno chamber. ( cheers and applause ). where the most grabbable stories are hand selected, and delivered

to me have a news falcon. news falcon, report! thank you, noble friend. news falcon, away! ( applause ) once i know it's breaking news, i perform an analog data trmp to our social media coordinator, tweet box. who then programs his laser cannons-- let me just get that in there. here there you go. who programs this laser cannon to etch the headline directly on to the face of the moon. ( laughter ) then and only then do we fact check it. can we check that?

which kwe check that? okay. she might not have gone too far. i'm so sorry, we can't run that story. tweet bot, unverify news. okay, good work tweet bot. that was not news. >> that was not news? >> stephen: no, it was not. >> what is news? >> stephen: well, all of this is news it's giant screens, kittens, you, me, all of it. >> master is news. >> stephen: oh, master is big time news. that's a confirm what tweet bot, no! i created you! back! back, you monster! news falcon, attack! no! no, not the kiteps! attack the robot. >> must end news. must end news.

>. >> stephen: we'll be right back!

( cheers and applause ) >> stephen: welcome back, everybody. nation, if you are a loyal viewer of the the "colbert report," you know i called out a

street artist. this vandal is spending october turning walls in new york city into priceless works of art. i do not want to encourage this temporary artful dodger because his glorification of graffiti could lead our kids down the wrong path, to a life of crime-- or woarts, our scooz. this past mond i specifically forbade him from painting on the wall of my studio, and, therefore, transforming it into a million-dollar work of art. imagine my surprise this morning when i discovered this incredible work of art on my studio wall. ( cheers and applause ). now, folks, i don't know who is more impressive-- how he captured my likeness or how he knew what i look like before i body wax. now, at first i thought this was banksy. but it turns out the work was signed by hanksy, who evidently is a well-known street artist

whose work uses celebrity iconography to address the efesmeral nature of fame particularly with terrible puns. his other works include hemuel l.pd jackson, and meth rogan. powerful stuff. really makes you not think. here i assume i am stephen col-grizzry ofly. but like banksy, hairchgzy's identity is a mystery. who culd he? hanksy's first street art featured tom hanks who happened to be my guest last night, and that's when the light bulb went off. hanksee, sounds like yangtze. there are three gorgeous members of one direction, the other two

are... one direction is another way of saying one way and my constitute stooudio is on a one-way street where hanksy put his art. it's all a cryptic code like the da vinci code starring tom hanks. tom hairchgz must be hanksy. and i gotta say. you see, you see. click, click, click. i gotta say i'm a little upset that he used the spray paint i left in his dressing room. i told you, tom, that spray paint was for huffing only. pail giamatti understood that. i don't know what to say. i'm sorry, banksy, but it is too late for you to put one of your highly sought after masterpieces on my wall because there's still only lots of room left. by the way, next week we're on vacation, so i wouldn't even know when you did it. we'll be right back. ( cheers an a a

>> stephen: welcome back, everybody, my guest tonight broke the armstrong keating scandal. big deal please welcome reed

albered gotti, and vanessa o'connell. let's get your bona fides out here. reed and vanessa you both work for the "wall street journal," correct? >> exactly. >> stephen: you cover white collar crime? >> correct. >> stephen: and you cover-- >> i've been covering vices like tobacco, alcohol. >> stephen: so together white collar crime and dope equals lance armstrong. because your new book is called "wheeled men: lance armstrong the tour de france and the greatest sports conspiracy ever." first of all, lance is a friend. >> i know that. >> stephen: i stick by my friend. i'm loyal to the end. my first question is, do people still like him? do people still like lance? how is his popularity doing? >> not stow great. >> stephen: what does dlance do that was so bad?

honest to god. it's just a bicycle race. you know, it's like what little kids do with bells and streamers. why are we holding his feet to the fire over this? it's not the tour du america. it's the tour de france. you know what i mean. why? he fooled some french people. ( laughter ) >> it's really not just about cheating in cycling. cheating in sports, you're right, it's not a crime in the u.s. but what this book is really about is the whole conspiracy around covering up for the cheating in that race. and all the people who sort of told the truth over the years and who were confronted with lawsuit, threats from lance and the people around him. i mean, that's really the story. >> stephen: so what did he do? how did he get away with this. he won seven times. how do you not get caught while you're doing it but get caught years later. >> that's what we found so amazing about the story. there were allegations that came out year after year, and somehow

this thing kept secret, and he almost got away with it. if it weren't for a bunch of coincidences at the very end, i mean, he would have-- we never would have known about all of this. >> stephen: what was he actually doing to his body. this race thsh tour de france, one thing i'll say is it seems impossible. honest to god, it's days in a row going up hill and down hill in the pyrenees, things that would crush a non-doped human. what was he doing? how was he super charges himself? >> it evolved. it started out with human growth hormone and testosterone. >> stephen: i heard that's delicious. he was on the t-gel gel? >> well, gel or patch and this evosmed into higher octane type of doping, e.p.o., edgar allen poe is a blood-boosting drug. that was the 96 name or lance armstrong called it butter as a

code name. >> he kept it in the butter compartment in the refrigerator. >> stephen: and when they caught him they said, "i can't believe this is not butter." ( cheers and applause ) wait a second. so, but, okay, so what-- your initial reporting on this was when? >> we started reporting on it really together back in 2010 when we broke the story of floyd landis, his former teammate -- >> stephen: who is the guy who won after him? >> correct. and he tested positively after that. >> stephen: and floyd larked on lance. nobody likes a squealer. what did he do when he narced on him. >> he called him a liar. he had a point. he denied usin use performance

enhancing drug. >> if he had been nicer to floyd, this might never have come out. but he was a jerk to floyd, and as a result -- >> stephen: payback is a bitch. >> stephen: he owes the postal service-- who was a sponsor-- long green. >> the postal service paid $40 million over the years to his cycling team and now he's being sued by the u.s. department of justice in a whistleblower lawsuit that could end in triple that. so 120 million. >> stephen: wow, wow. i'm glad they're going after lance instead of the heads of any of the banks on wall street. ( cheers and applause ). this is where the real white collar crime is. thank you so much for joining me. vanessa. thank you, so much, reed. the book is "wheeled men." we'll be right back.