for women will take your phone calls to me mills : tweeds. >> what i try to do is take a look at this and a larger perspective and go back and see how we got to where we are today , the main causes, in the trends and themes that run through our relationship. the odds with a goal of trying to write as an objective account of what transpired. >> middle east analyst on 30 years of hostility between the u.s. iran. part of book tv common c-span2. book tv. >> from 1997-2010. he recalls his arrival in the end of the 1990's when network news dominance was being

challenged by the group of cable news and rumors the stories that marked his career at abc. this is just over an hour. .. author of the new book "exit interview." david westin is presently the president and ceo of newsright, an ambitious venture to license original news content and collect royalties from aggregators.

newsright was launched more than almost six months ago and hopefully he will tell us a bit about it before the evening is a. he was president of abc news for over a decade from 1997-2010. during his tenure, abc news received 11 peabody's, 13 dupont, for polk, and more than 40 news and documentary emmys, plus more than 40 edward r. murrow awards. innovation was the hallmark of his administration. he created and built an array of special units for all abc news outlets, led by brian, hard-hitting investigative unit. and 2007, he announced the largest single expansion of foreign news coverage in history of abc news by spending -- sending seven are digital reporters to hotspots around the world. abc also airs john miller's interview with osama bin laden,

alas with the western journalist. and from afghanistan. as well as barbara walters interview with monica lewinsky, the highest rated news program in television history. before joining abc, mr. westin was a partner in washington, d.c. what he was also a law clerk to supreme court justice lou will allen junior. and oh, yes, before i forget he was president of abc network group for three years before heading to news decision. so please give a warm welcome to david westin. [applause] >> thank you very much, belva, for the gracious introduction. you can always tell a professional, can't you? thank you very much. i'm delighted to be here with you in san francisco tonight. i've heard about the commonwealth club for years, and a good friend of mine was just a

recently with her co-author for presidents club. she told what a great expense it was so i'm looking for to being with you here tonight. i thought i would try to explain a little bit why i bought this book. i had, i was fortunate having a rather unusual experience. i started in journalism as the president of abc news. i had not been a journalist before and that meant that i had a very steep learning curve. i have a lot i need to learn. frankly, looking back i had more to learn and i realize when i started up, but it also gave me i think a fresh perspective, somebody coming from the outside, and i was fortunate to be able to learn a great deal from some of the greatest journalists i think of the generation. and i wanted to share that experience with others who haven't had the opportunity to be behind the scene in a newsroom, particularly when our big breaking news stories. it wasn't difficult for me to find some big stories to talk

about, the death of princess diana which happened very early in my tenure, to the impeachment of president clinton and the trial, the tight election in 2000, 9/11 of course, and the wars that followed. there were a number of major news events that we are called upon to cover during my tenure, and i got to see and work with journalists as we struggle to do our best, to do right by the american people when we covered those. let me start actually with the death of princess diana. as i say, it happened early in my tenure. it was, if you recall, labor day of 1997. i've been a job about four and half months. peter jennings is one of the people i worked with. i got to know peter very well. we became quite close person and professionally, but back in the fall of 97, he was a great journalist, and is a great journalist was very skeptical of everything including me.

he was not at all sure why i was running abc news not being a journalist, and he was a very shy about it. and looking back on he was right. he was perfectly justified. we worked on a number of major projects during our time together, and agreed on almost everything. when we didn't agree, peter was right. but the first time we really clashed was over the death of princess diana, and it was not comfortable. it was labor day weekend as i say, so most people were a way that we can. and i find myself in the newsroom largely on without people like peter to talk to them because they were out of town. one of the first decisions i made was that we would prepare a primetime special to air the next night. this happened on a saturday night. we're going to air the special on sunday. peter called in about 11:20 p.m. when he caught up with the coverage. and i took the call on the newsroom floor just off-camber

from where our weekend anchor, kevin newman, was reporting about the death of princess diana. and peter could be very firm and very to the point. he said david, i understand princess diana has died and you're considering a primetime special. i suggest that is right, we're working on a. he said that issue right. i feel on over to you to tell you that if you a primetime special of princess diana, no one will ever take you seriously as the president of abc news. he i important have months into my tenure, i peter jennings, a bona fide legend, someone i have enormous respect for it telling i was blowing my first big news call. link by big margins within a larger listen to fall back on at that point. so i fell back on my family and i said to him, peter, i understand that she wasn't head of state, i have a sister back in michigan. i'm from michigan by the way. i have a sister back in

michigan, rebecca. and rebecca never reads tabloids but she's read every detail about diana's life since the moment she got engaged to prince charles. and i think there are other people. i said it's right. i will have nothing to do it. that was the end of the conversation. civilian thinking what have i done? iraqi abc news. in fairness peter galbraith in next morning, i got a call them, nine morning and said it, i'm in the car on the way. i have read all the coverage. you are right. i was wrong. and so i'd like to do the special. and i said peter, you are the principal anchor so of course you will do the special. but i only do you today that i've are signed up diane sawyer and barbara walters to anchor the special. [laughter] so if you want to do the special, you will have to do with the two of them as three anchors. and peter, to his great credit said that's fine to me. and so what happened was we had a two-hour special that night, that sunday night anchored by peter jennings, diane sawyer and barbara walters. now, in a particular instance,

which is as i said was unusual. peter out to was wrong and i was right but that's not the point. that's not what it took away from this. y. took away from this was a much more in what. peter was saying you have to keep in mind the line between entertainment and news. you have to be thinking about why you are reporting the story. are you reporting because it's a historical significance or are you reporting it because people just want to know about it? you have to keep that light in mind. there's nothing wrong with reporting things because people care about them. you should always be thing exactly what you're doing it. that line by what i think has moved substantially. i think of princess diana died to date there wouldn't be any debate about a primetime special, and probably it was right for the line to move what i did learn and i took away was the importance that there be a line and the people always be wrestling with the. there's no clear answer, it's not easy. and that was the point he was making. the most important story that i worked on during my time was of course 9/11.

9/11 happen on a tuesday morning. i was in my office. i tended to get in in time to watch good morning america at 7 a.m. i sort of kept an eye, i had deleted on nine monitors on my wall. believe me, that will give you add if you didn't have it otherwise, watching nine television screens all day long. but i saw out of the corner of my eye first it was on one of the cable news outlets, cnn, smoke coming out of the towers. because we were in commercial break, gma was in commercial. diane and charlie were anchoring down in our times square studio, and been fairly quickly came back out of commercial and we went to what we call special report to the full network, and they started reporting. there were reports that a plane had crashed into one of the towers, and then not long afterwards of course we all remember we saw the second plane come across the screen life. it was clear we were under attack. and we came fairly quickly to

the conclusion that was probably terrorism, and quite possibly al qaeda. that was because as belva already mentioned, my9 -- my first year, we interviewed bin laden, and osama bin laden had predicted that it would be attacking civilians in the united states. ironically to think back on it there was a big debate in a newsroom whether we would air the interview in '97 because most people didn't know osama bin laden, and some people thought he was religious something of a shovel, he was looking for attention. and in the end we did of course eric. so we jumped fairly quickly to the conclusion this was likely terrorism, and quite possibly al qaeda. it was a harangue this story for all of us. it was horrific, tragic, it was wrenching. i did learn various things from our coverage of 9/11, which was not only that they but we are on the air for about 100 hours straight, let principally by

peter jennings but with diane and charlie as will his head in evenings and elizabeth overnight. one of the things i've learned is how much we expect of all of our journalists in the time of crisis. something you may not have thought about because everybody wants to reach out to their loved ones and be with him and console them and be consoled, and that's a time if you're a journalist you out so they have to be there 24/7 and working around the clock. a sort of ironic, even somewhat humorous story, believe it or not, out of that day came when our newsroom late in the morning started getting e-mails from an e-mail account that we couldn't identify. and effective something, i may not get this quite right but if something like hot babe 364. we kept it in these e-mails and e-mails, what is this hot babe 36 for what. it took us half an hour or before realized it was george stephanopoulos. george stephanopoulos have gotten on the subway and worked his way down toward the world trade center and then walked down near ground zero and had

struck up some sort of a quaint ship with a young woman, and talking her into letting him use her computer. so he was down there desperately trying to report in what he was saying and what he was doing but it took us a half hour or more to realize it was george stephanopoulos. i also experienced fairly early on some of the pressures from the white house. because it was, of course was a terrible time for everyone. we did know really what was going on. we all felt under attack. also felt vulnerable. and the white house took a fairly aggressive stance early on with our reporting to the object particularly to peter jennings that first day because peter among the coverage i thought entirely appropriately talked about the fact we hadn't seen the president. he gave the first set of brief remarks down in florida and said he was headed back to washington but then they went on, for security reasons. and peterson presumably his security detail doesn't feel comfortable but the white house was none too happy and i ended talking to them on the telephone. they were telling me they felt

we were being disloyal to even question whether the president was at that time. another issue that came up in 9/11, actually came up the saturday afterwards. we are on the air for like is the almost 100 hours straight, and at the end of it we did a peter jennings special on saturday morning for children. peter you may or may not recall that several of these specials on very important topics where he tried to explain things to children to take their questions. we decided to do one on 9/11. we gathered a group of children with some experts together, in a studio, and took their questions and tried to explain things. and in the course of that special, one of our experts, a development expert, child expert, made a really telling point. for me, which was children don't process information the way the rest of us do. when children saw that video of the planes going into the towers and the towers coming down, they thought it was happening again but it was a new building, a different event.

and by that time this video had been shown hundreds of times across the cable networks. so on the car on the way home i called into our head of standards and said we have a problem with this but i think we are desensitizing people but we may be affecting children's we adopted a policy right thing that we would not show the moving video of the planes going in or the towers coming down. on thank you again. so from that day on if we did things on the anniversary of 9/11 we wish of still photos only because of our concern for how the children might be absorbing office. one of the great perks of my job, and it was a great job, don't misunderstand, it was really a great job, one of the great perks i got to fly around the world and talk to just about anybody i wanted. on the eve of the iraq war i went to the middle east and i had an extraordinary experience of sitting with ariel sharon in his residence when eating and talking what was going on in the middle east and the next day going to ramallah and didn't

with yassir arafat which was an experience. because when he was holed up in his bunker, the sort of largely damaged building, high rise building a six-story soccer so with burned-out hoax of cars outside it, and we went in and he helped. which was a great experience. i visited latin america, got to visit with president uribe of colombia and calderón of mexico, and also hugo chavez is a very intense gentlemen, now since has become ill as you know but i got to visit with them under a huge portrait of boulevard who he identifies with to a remarkable degree. i think it's fair to say. i got to travel with barbara walters to cuba for her second interview with fidel castro your that was a great experience, in part because i really was able to participate in, not only seeing the process that a

terrific interviewer like barbara goes through in doing an interview, the process by which she gathers together hundreds upon hundreds of questions, windows then how can she and i go down together, we would our questions the entire time so she has thought about which ones to us, which to combine, what order to put an end. there's a lot of thought and care that goes into a great interview that i think people otherwise might not appreciate. that's what makes it look financial when she sits down because she has really done her homework so thoroughly. we did all this work on this question, we are very proud of him, then the way it works i'm told with castro is that you go down and you wait. because he doesn't particularly schedule a time. they will let you know when it's the right time. so we waiting two or three days, and at one point a group of officials came to a with barbara, and were standing around with pleasantries, and the middle of the seniormost official said that we would like to see your questions, please. bar and i looked at each other

across the room uphold because interviewers don't give their questions before. we said i'm sorry, we don't give out questions. i was concerned i should castro might cancel the interview. but barbara was much more confident, and it went ahead late one night, but in the course of eight we learn that there was another journalist from another network who scheduled to fly in a couple days later, and we were both concerned, barbara and i were both concerned if this other journalist got the interview they would air it first and take away from what barber had done. so barber asked me to meet with foreign minister to work things out. so i met with foreign minister, you should have exclusive of this but you have to talk to the president. that's above my pay grade i can't make that decision. so i was assigned to meet with fidel castro to explain why u.s. television was more to have an exclusive. so we went around a school the

next day, barbara with castro and i was until, to talk to students about their experience. and i said at one point i need to speak with you, mr. president. with something we talk about. he said we'll get to. finally, went off to a side room, and i said this is been a terrific experience but i think it's a good interview. i think of a lot of things to say people wanted it but in order for this to happen, it's important a be an exclusive interview. i apologize for raising this but that's really the facts of life. he listened to me and to my delight, to my surprise but delight, he said that's fine, okay. it will be exclusive. we held our exclusive interview, which great experience. diane sawyer is someone that was a true privilege to work with closely for many years. diane has a lot of remarkable traits. she has versatility that is unprecedented. she can handle every sort of story.

she's very smart. she writes beautifully, but i think one of the things i respect most about diane is she is totally fearless, and that fearlessness can express itself in going to good morning america, which he did at my request is a lot more risk for her and then than it was outside of the time. which first agreed to she said i will do it for three months on one condition, and that's that you pull me out if it is going badly. and i said of course, i will protect you. then she was there for i think 11 years as it turns out doing a great job. her fearlessness also expresses itself any willingness to find storiestories of the people aret covering. things like the underclass in america, places like camden, new jersey, poverty, appalachia that she's been more than a year reporting on. indian reservations. sometimes the great journalists show their greatness in the stories no one else is covering. is not the obvious story. it's the one that is not being paid attention to that should be. we also had a fair amount of

fun, and one of the things that was most fun was the millennium, the millennium cup about the recall or not but abc news can we put on a program for 24 hours, actually a little more than 24 hours, but 24 hours straight where we essentially went around the world time zone by time zone as the clock ticked to 12:01. when i first took that idea to peter, peter jennings just loved it. right from the outset. embrace to come and he said but i want to thank her but i said for 24 hours you want to anchor it? he said absolutely. i want to do this. this is made for me. and it was in many respects because he was such a man of the world. he knew so much about the world. i'll tell you, about three days i think before the broadcast, just before he went into some rehearsals, went down to visit peter at his office and he was sitting all by himself in his office with a stack of three by five index card that must've

been, i don't know, 12, 15 inches high. and i said peter, what are you doing? and as best as i can figure is essentially try to make sure he knew every fact about the world for 2000 years. one moment after the other and i said to them, whatever happens with us, because it was a risk. we didn't know whether anyone would pay attention, whether it would be successful. no one will come away from this experience having any doubt that you know a lot, that you know the world. you can relax about that. that's not a problem. but it was a wonderful experience. and i treasure it. now, actually one of the biggest stories that we had during my time at abc news was not one we covered. it was about us, and but as i don't mean just abc news but about the news media overall. from '97-2000, 2010 which is my tenure, there was an enormous change in what the news media was in this country but if you think back on it, when i went to abc news in '97, fox news and

msnbc were about two or three months old. they essentially didn't exist but abc news didn't have a website. we created abc news.com my first you. much less what we have seen would search for news and social media and twitter and all the rest of the. so what is described is his has expanded dramatically. it is an enormously bigger tent. people talk about the news media now, they can cover a wide variety of things. it can cover everything from time-honored journalism, the way people like peter jennings and diane sawyer's, barbara walters do it and did it. to blogs to extreme opinion to gossip, and it all comes under some big umbrella of news media. i think a fundamental question is, does that change the nature of journalism? does it really change the commitment such as peter had toward making sure your covering something that's important, does it change the drive to make sure

you're getting the facts right, that you're checking and you are we checking. doesn't change the basic division between opinion on the one hand and fact-based journalism on the other? as i look around today, i see examples of both. certainly we can find things that are examples of extreme opinion and of bloggers and rumor, and innuendo and things. there's also some great journalism being done. again to come back to peter one more time, he was one of the early adopters, came to me in 2004, and said i really want to cover the 2004 conventions, gavel to gavel. and i know in this day and age are not going to do that on the network. cannot going to take the time to do that, but i've heard about this streaming video thing, and streaming video is still a fairly new thing for most of us. and so we started something called abc news now with the democratic convention in the

summer of 2004 where peter jennings and can gavel to gavel coverage of the conventions on a streaming video that the internet made possible that otherwise wouldn't be possibly george stephanopoulos is a terrific reporter, a great journalist, and he really is embrace social media and internet aggressively. on the evidence is a fair about that all of us probably might cringe at a bit on the internet. i do think that any income and this is really, i've discovered through the process why i wrote the book. when i set out a bunch by the book because i thought i've got to see things i wish other people could get to see because it is richer, it is harder, and in many ways more valiant than what i had appreciated great journalism really was. but as i've gone through the process i've realized there's a further related reason why i really care about what i talk about in this book, and that is i don't want this to be

nostalgia. i don't want is to be left to the past and is it wasn't that great we peter jennings? wasn't that great with ted koppel? wasn't that wonderful, they did great journalism back in. are examples today of wonderful work being done. i want to make sure the quality of work continues well into the social media whatever comes after social media age that we are encountering. there's a fundamental question about whether all these changes will make us better, more informed citizens, or whether it will reduce all the great work that is being done to some lowest common denominator. and ultimately, this is one of the most important things i think i'm ultimately it's not just up to the journalists and it's not just up to the people who run news organizations. they have an important say in what gets done in journalism today. the public also has a very important say in what gets done. i learned at abc news that even

the very greatest journalist and even the best dp attention to what people are coming to. it's inevitable. if you care about what you're reporting, you care about how big your audience is. if you don't you're keeping a diary. you are not really a journalist. by definition, if you really care about the importance of which were saying you want as many people to pay attention as you can possibly get. and what that means is, if everyone rushes to the latest salacious rumor or the latest celebrity skin or something like that, there will be more of that coverage as a practical matter. on the other hand, if people seek out the really high quality great journalism being done, there will be more of that, too. you have a say that everyone in the audience has to say. and a responsibility i think and what journalism ultimately becomes. in the end the biggest surprise for me today in journalism is not that the things that make me cringe. given how big that tends to become it is an inevitable. and is probably healthy in some

respect because there's more news and information than ever before. people are spending more of their time. whether it is healthy or not it is inevitable. that's the what is going. but the biggest prize in a summit that are things that make me cringe. the biggest surprise is there so much great work being done. in the early days of abcnews.com, charlie gibson used to say, bemoan the fact when you look at the top 10 stories in terms of traffic on the site, only three or four of them were what he would think of, or i would think of, as a substantive important new strip and i was always say, the good news, unlimited number of choices is still three or four of the top 10. they can go to any bizarre view they want and they're still coming to some very important stories, which is terrific. i'd like to believe this will continue. i would like to believe some of the time on her journalism of people like peter and ted and diane and barbara have done will continue into the future. i think there's reason to

believe that that is possible. as i say there's a lot of great journalism being done by the old mainstream media as well as by new media. but ultimately it will be up to all of us, and the thing i really want people to take away from this book is our joint responsibility to reward the great men and women who are working in journalism by giving our time and attention. and thank you very much for listening. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much. david westin, former president of abc news, and author of the new book, "exit interview." now it's time for the audience questions, fun part. we will go back over some of the things you've all read talked about as we hear a little more in depth, and as you can see we do have a great number of questions. and most of them are not repetitious.

i thought the first one was interesting. is there a particular event that has occurred since you left abc news that you would have liked to have led to cover john? >> that's a great question, and i have an immediate answer. there are two or three things, that the one time i've had any inkling of regret are saying boy, i would love to be there for that was when they got osama bin laden. that was the one time. when i heard that, part of that which is to come full circle because i've been with that story, and abc news, we work hard every reporting the al qaeda store, the osama bin laden star. that was a star yes, i would've loved to of been there to cover. >> i imagine that's an affliction. okay, when you've had the opportunities to be right at the forefront of some really big stories, in what way does the approach to reporting an ongoing

event, how have they changed over time, such as, is there a difference in what we're covering the iraqi war? or now i guess the afghan war. >> the big change that happened during my tenure in iraq -- didn't exist before the 2003 were. the idea of really being factored, particularly television monopoly, is what technology makes possible. because now anyone can have a camera, just about anywhere anytime. you can also transmit out, going back to the iraq war were still in the stone age in terms of telecom communication to get up a sat phone and things like that. whereas today, it's advanced much beyond the. you can get fairly high quality streaming video just about anywhere. so i think that has changed coverage a great deal.

i think overall for the good the other thing of course, another story that would be nice to cover was the arab spring, and the advent of social media, and twitter, and the posting on facebook and things like that the things we're seeing in syria to the present particular challenges. we have some of the stories of the demonstrations in iran, how you that the and make sure you're not being manipulated when it's not your people, not your camera person taking the video that you can check on. and you're getting it in over the transom, presents certain challenges but i think overall it's a good thing because we have access to more information, more video than ever before. >> that's a big debatable question, certainly for reporters that are out there and know the old ways. the inability to vet, to know, to affirm what you're delivering are the actual facts. how much does that bother you? >> bother me, first of all its

inevitable. so try not to be bothered by things that could happen anywhere but what does is it presents certain challenges and an increase responsibility on the editorial process. we certainly have this, for example, back in iran. there are ways to check things, to figure out is it possible that that happened and where those people in that place, and what else do you know about the source, that are not different in kind from what reporters have always done. we've always had sources of some sort or the other. and it's always been a challenge, and also what makes us nervous to some extent because you know no matter how willing you bedded sources you could be wrong. somebody could be misleading you. and it happened in some notorious examples. so i think it increases the responsibility on the editorial is as big and i think in general more information is something we should resist his journalistic is just a question of what we do with it, how we vet it. we do have responsibility to make sure it is right.

>> you volunteered to take over as president of abc news. it was a step down for you, according to this writer. then you had to wait 15 months, can you explain why you volunteered? >> this is an "exit interview," i talk about this in the beginning. step down, and the organizational chart it was a step down because i was head of the network and news reported to the head of the network to it was not a step down certainly looking back on it now but i don't think i felt it was at the time. because abc news is and was a very special organization, and to be able to run the day-to-day has a lot of challenges, but a lot of rewards. so i didn't come i never thought it was a step down, but it was, that's right, in the organizational chart. i took it for good and sufficient reason but not for the reasons you would like to be. i've not had a lifelong quest to run a major news organizations.

i have been a lawyer and he said in washington and then i had been general counsel of capital city, the parent company. and i had worked with the journalists at abc news as their lawyer and then supervisor of the network. but it wasn't something i was questing for. is a matter of my predecessors, coming toward the end of his tenure, and our needing to find a successor. i try to do that as ahead of the network working with my boss who now runs the walt disney company but if we try for several months. it was a pressing issue for us. because we care about abc news and wanted to make sure that it was able to make the changes that when you were going to have to be made. i kind of folded dick cheney in a sense in the sense that i tried several things, none of them were, and andy and i reluctantly said to bob, i think i can do the job but i'm not sure i want to. bob said i think you could do

but i'm not sure i want you to be the. we talked about for a while and would ultimately concluded i would do. i thought i would be a transitional figure really. i thought i would go and do that for two or three years until someone else came along. the surprise to me, i loved it. i have been blessed with a number of really great jobs working with great people, there's nothing like running abc news but it was a fabulous job but i didn't know it when i took the job. i just blundered into it. i got lucky. >> will investigate in journalism continue to play as much a role in the field of journalism as it has in the past? >> i hope so and i believe so. you mentioned in the introduction the investigation we put together at abc news when i was there with brian ross and others, and we invested in that

at a time when it was a lot of pressure on resources. we put more resources into. partly because i believe in a. it's one of the principal responsibilities of journalism is to hold people accountable, to find out things that people in power, whether government or otherwise, people in power would rather you not know. i think is right at the core of what great journalism is. but i also think that it can be justified, as a business matter. because if you think about it from any world where there's more and more outlets, many of whom will tell you different versions of the same thing, and exclusive investigative report is something that you really own. you can rise above the crowd and get attention. and you can draw an audience, too. i also saw that i believe in the internet as we went to the internet. if we had a significant investigative report, our traffic would spike immediately.

it would go up. so the good news is i think this is one time you could do well by doing good when it comes to investigation. so i actually am hopeful for investigative work, but let's be clear. it costs money. this is one of the things i do talk about in the book is the business of journalism is right next to journalism. if you don't care about the business side, you don't care about journalism because really good journalism requires the best of money. and i always took that very seriously, that i needed to manage the business side so we can do the journalism because i care to much about the journalism. >> scattered throughout, some of the other questions bear on the same topic. what is your view of the blatant right wing reporting of fox news? is there any objective reporting done anymore? and let's see here, without completely blurring the line between news reporting and

editorial comment. >> well, you've hit on a sore spot for me. as i said in my remarks, one of the changes was the advent of cable news, and particularly fox news and somewhat later in this nbc. which change the environment. again, to just go back and think what our mindset was and how wrong we were, when fox news and msnbc were first announced, we thought why does the world need free, 24 hour breaking news channels but why is there three of them? we missed the fact that what fox news was doing was something different. it was mixing polemics and it was a very powerful combination, and it's a brilliant business model. understand, this is a brilliant business model. and msnbc now to some extent appears to be taking a chapter of their boat. the recent brilliant is because we are supported by advertising, then what matters is getting as

big and broad an audience as you can. against anybody goes out of your audience makes you lose money because you don't get as high ratings. when you go over to the cable area, cable is supported every bit as much by subscription fees as it is by advertising. so when you go to, as we go to subscription fees, passion counts more than the size of the audience but you can make more money by having a smaller audience that is passionate, because if you have 10% of the audience, or 15% of the audience who says to the cable provider, i will turn off my cable box give you don't have that channel on, then you can command a normal straight out of the cable operator. a good, really smart business. you see in other parts of cable. it's not just news. you can see that, hbo to some extent as a matter of passion, deep engagement. it's not as relevant by people who care about have to have

their hbo. disenchantment and a decent way has deep engagement industry success. when you go over into news, what engagement has turned into the i don't have to but it is partisanship. so you have rights and you have left. and that in itself is not necessarily evil. we've always had opinion in newspapers. there's an editorial page, an op-ed page to what is the problem is the blurring of the line. it's when you mix the front page with the op-ed page that i think that's dangers. i think journalists owe people more than that. they all want to tell you now i'm telling you because i believe to be true. as opposed to i'm telling you this because i wanted to be triggered or even worse potentially, i'm telling you this because i think you want it to be true. that is really a danger. mainly for society. i think our republic is weaker. we're not going to solve our problems if we're just taking of sides and making up our own facts. it's that moynihan quote,

everyone is entitled to their own opinion but no one is entitled to their own facts. [applause] >> what, if anything, can be done about it? can you name five tv news anchors who do not violate that line? >> what i can do is i can name five television news anchors who care about the life and to struggle mightily not to violate. the fact is we're all biased. everybody is biased. in the book i talk about it. i come from michigan as a civic i went to the university of michigan bo schembechler as a coach but if i covered a michigan football game against ohio state i would be biased. i might struggle really hard not to be biased but i would have a tough time doing this. the question is not whether they're biased to the question is are going to fight against it or do we just give in? i think is the difference between the two because the fact that everyone is biased doesn't mean you can't struggle to be

less biased as the postage is embracing it and saying that's fine, i'm biased and will go with it. so absolutely. george stephanopoulos works really hard not to be biased. anchors. jake tapper. but brian williams understands this. diane sawyer thundered -- diane sawyer understands this. it's really valuable that they're trying, and what i really want people to realize, it's not all news is created equal. there is a difference. there is a difference. and i saw in my experience with a struggle behind the scene to try to do the right thing. >> how much do you think the absence of a strong federal role, the sec and regulatory, and i don't mean in telling you what to say, what to do, but just with various regulation, keep the news organize, with the disappearance that hand that was there for so many years. >> well, it's changed the nature of broadcasting.

i mean, the fcc and the federal government has never regulate cable the way they did broadcasting. on the three going back into the '50s, and in before the with the radio act that they are public airwaves so you are holding something in public trust and you have an obligation. my own understanding, and earth days of television, the bill paley's of this world, general sarnoff, essentially, not explicitly, but effectively made a deal with the government, and they said if you let us run i love lucy or make a lot of money, then we will build a really good organization. and so i personally think it's a mistake to think that there were these wonderful people who just decided out of the goodness of heart they were going to invest a lot in this. i'm not sure that ever happened to it was a good solid business decision made but it was

informed by the federal regulation you talk about. with deregulation, that went away. and so, the rationale for news had to shift. it came also frankly at a time when broadcasting was expanding dramatically, "60 minutes" came on the scene and went into primetime, which is a wonderful program to this day. the data that is just the they also made a lot of money off of it. so again, it's a mixed decision, and some new set to start justifying itself i return to shareholders. as well as reflecting well on the company and be good for the brain. by to think that the change in federal regulation -- you can argue whether that's good or bad because, in fact, the federal regulation did get into i think some speech regulations and issues, and there were some issues about that. but the fact is, it's different. there's no question about it. >> the elections and the old equal time rules --

>> fairness doctrine equals time. >> are those missing element is now or is business doing better? is journalism better with them gone? >> you know, i think those were valuable things, although broadcasters certainly resisted at the time. they were valuable things at a time we had three networks. you can find anything. that's why part of our point is we are to be our own editors now. it used to be the fact that there were a few trusted editors national whether it was print it's not true anymore. everything is out there. all of us as citizens have a responsibility to be more discerning, to be more thoughtful about what we are watching. one of my pet teacher people who complain about the latest celebrity scandal and all the coverage of it, and then recite to me every single detail about it. so it's pretty clear they're spending a lot of time paying attention to it, and i want to

say well, just don't watch it if you don't watch if they won't do as much of it. i do think we all bear a certain responsibility. >> from your experience in the 2000 i can and the national election since, how is the nature of political coverage, in particular, changing due to innovations such as the internet and social media? can you expand on that, some of your thoughts about both of those? >> there are two, at least to i think fundamental changes. the new cycle has turned from 24 hours a nanosecond. i mean, the time to respond, to react and think, it's constant, and you can think that that's a good thing because we all have more news, but also things get misreported or just spurious reports get out there and take over and sometimes just get picked up by some mainstream media before they can get denied, which is a real problem.

it's a real danger because people form an impression that they will hear something and it sticks to the back of the mind and they still industry even though it has been totally disproved. so that's one issue. the other issue, this is on a continuum that i saw, because in early days of my tenure we already have presidential candidates, for example, moving away to some extent from news outlets and starting to do late night talk shows and daytime talk shows and mtv and things like that. so you didn't have to go to peter jennings or ted koppel or barbara walters for interviews. you go anywhere. has now exploded in social media, so that political candidates go directly to their people. it's all done on twitter and it's all done in facebook, and it's all immediate. so the roll is a more challenging one i think for some of the more mainstream traditional news organizations. they have to be the curators of

the. they have to go after it and correct the mistakes and really put it in context after the fact. they are not gatekeepers anymore. the people who come along and vet, often after the fact and cover what is said that is wrong. >> i want to remind our audience that you're listening to the commonwealth club of california's radio program, and our guest is david westin, former president of abc news, was discussing the inner workings of broadcast journalism. we will continue with more of our audience questions, and you certainly have sparked -- this is a card, a person sitting here in the room with you that says i was in paris, france, when 9/11 occurred. we watch british, french and italian media because american reporting was so far behind with information. why? >> that's the first time i've heard that. i didn't see it. certainly wasn't intentional.

we weren't holding anything back. it's interesting. my perspective is quite different on that haven't been in the control room with peter on the floor and things. our challenge was we were getting information in so quickly that we couldn't vet it and will really happen, one of the things just haven't been in the newsroom, the feeding was we didn't cast our minds back to, it was so unthinkable what happen. first there were planes flown into the two towers, and then was a plane flew into the pentagon. at the time the first tower came down from peter jennings on the air couldn't live effort. he kept correcting a reporter who's on the scene saying you mean a piece of the building fell off? no, no. the building came down. a psycho some part of the teacher couldn't believe. it was unimaginable what was going on. on top of that we now know looking back exactly pretty much what happened. the two towers came down, they had an attack on the pentagon,

the plane in pennsylvania. but at the time there were reports there were all sorts of other planes and there were other buildings under attack, and there were bizarre with ports that normally in another world we would've just dismissed. but given what had happened you could ruled anything out. so we were frantically trying to vet these things, and at the time, and they do not blame the government for this, we would not getting anything out of the government the federal government had shut down. vice president cheney had gone to a secure location in a bunker. president bush was on air force one, and again, they were doing that because they were worried about the security of the country. but it left us by ourselves out there try to figure out, try to vet these things. so i'm not exactly sure what information was reported first in england and france. that's the first i had heard it. but the one thing i can promise you if we were not only take anything because we felt we shouldn't. by the way, not on 9/11 itself

but in the two or three or four days after that there were requests form the white house go back on certain reporting. that they thought was i'm sure in good faith, their sister for national security that we push back on and said we don't think that's a good idea, the nation had it since the government was agreeing with immediate people think that the indie media site going to be able to trust anybody. so we're not going to be able to do that. >> i want you to read the book but i've got to take is one the exciting chapters in our own connie rice's role in exiting the wishes of the white house on that. so you seem emotionally involved in the debate about what you should do, and putting her patriotism against your news judgment, i guess would be the way. and you have something in the book that you talk about wearing a lapel pin. >> that is in the 9/11 chapter. it was a couple days after 9/11

itself, while again we're still on the air nonstop, and i was in the control at the time and i had our head of communications, a fellow who dealt with the press and things, who said we're getting press calls asking why your people on the air are not wearing american flags on their lapel. because some cable people going to wearing -- by the way, they ended up with flags in the backdrop and bumpers and promos, all over the place. and i thought about it for a minute or quit policy at abc news long before i was there that no one with any kind of lapel pin on the air. the rationale was when you're reporting the news you should be reporting the news because you believe it to be true. you should have any perceived allegiance to any particular cause or organization. and at the time, this is due to this day, all of the members of the administration always have a

lapel pin on. always, whenever they appear to have a lapel pin on. what i thought was to things. one is, if we start wearing lapel pins, are people going to think, they're sort of identify with the administration and they're telling you things that's the administration's point of view. and it's a time when we all i think felt intensely patriotic. because we've all been attacked. we have thousands of our innocent civilians killed. but i thought sooner or later there will have to be some parting of the way she. will have to report on the administration in a way that distances ourselves. i don't want people getting confused. the other think i'll be perfectly honest, it flashed through my mind because these sorts of things come up and you don't have a lot of time to think about it, any response. and i thought we do have our principal anchor who is canadian, and what's going to happen when i go to peter and said peter, you have to wear an american lapel pin?

peter subsequent became an american citizen and was intensely patriotic, but at the time he was not. that made me think we're going to start differentiating whether they were a lapel pin or not? so i said no, we're sticking with a policy. it was very controversial and they came under a fair amount of personal criticism for that position. by the way, i respect people on the other side of the. i think it was the right decision. >> you were, at least in my reading of it, it really activists. you're right there in the control room. you were involved, you were there as many hours as many other people who were working for you. talk a little bit about that part of your management style. >> i don't think of myself as a micromanager. at the same time, particularly with breaking news, you have to be there. you have to be in the process.

for several reasons. one reason is that you don't want to expose your people-celtic you need to be in a position to back them up and say we talked about this, i agree with the decision. and that's to the outside world. it's to the corporation, to any number of people. and if you're not involved with the process in making decisions, in a position to back them up, then you're really not doing your job. your job correctly. also, a news or position like that, particularly and breaking news, you can go wrong. it's very exciting. let me make this clear. being in a life control room with breaking news is very exciting. so i don't want to out like it's something burden. but part of the excitement is you can go wrong in an instant. you know, you're called upon to make certain judgments. two ago with the store, do we not go with the story. and if you get it wrong, it can be pretty bad.

and if you have someone like peter jennings was so great at breaking his, he was a that is journalism, but agree. you can say let's take time out now, we'll take five minutes and go off tthe site and have a conversation. so i would go down on the set and talk to peter off to the side and say what you think about this? so you have to be there to participate in the process but you couldn't do that from a remote distance. as i said it wouldn't be fair to peter or producers in a control room, then if it goes wrong it will be on your head. i had to be in position to say i was there and i decided that. >> you write about close calls, wondered whether you made the right decision. do you mind sharing one little short story? >> the 2000 election. we got that election wrong twice in one night. projected it for vice president gore relatively early in evening in florida, and that we had

pulled after couple of hours at 2:30 a.m. we projected it for then governor bush, and then had to pull down after a couple of hours. and the fact is in retrospect, it was a tight election. you couldn't project anything that night. the margin of error was greater than the margin of the difference of the votes. and i particularly regretted it because we were last. on the second call at 2:30 a.m. all the other networks, cable and broadcast at all projected for bush, and we clearly just held back. i was in the control room and asked me to want to overrule? no, we will go with the decision. our decision is yes is okay. i could have been not a hero but in a lot better position than it was testifying before congress about how we could have gotten something that important that wrong wrong twice in one that. >> you've encourage people

several times tonight to watch look and listen. but with the new rules around expenditure of funds and the abundance of commercial messages, is there a chance they could overshadow the news version of events by running just volumes of these one-sided? that's what they're supposed to be, they are paying for it. you know, messages. >> it certainly looks like they are trying. it looks like they are trying to overcome the news organizations, and money and politics is a much bigger topic than i think it's something that all of us would be concerned about. i was concerned about, we tend to cover politics in terms of artisanship right and left and i don't think we spend as much time as we should, follow the money we should. they can explain a lot of what goes on. but all i can say is it's up to the news organizations to do their best, to counteract that when our things being said that

is wrong in political commercials and advertisements to call about, to shine a light on it. but ultimately there's truth. we have to trust the people. we have to trust the people. ultimately, the long-term to be discerning and to be smart enough and o be skeptical enough the way peter was skeptical to discern the truth and make the best decisions. >> i wish is one of them had we crossed some lines, the formula we once knew does not, cannot be as reliably counted on by good news organizations? so much social media, so much twitter. so much, so many commercials. ..

more appropriate than the field of journalism and anderson the challenges facing news today. >> there are, of course, legal issues that came up that i news about to be that can be everything from the can start investigation to the bush verses court decisions. if you recall, i could speak with some confidence about the way the supreme court worked.

so the more brunt point that -- for my time was that journalism and law and respect in one very -- maybe i should say journalists and lawyers. the hallmark of our really good lawyers know what questions to ask. that intersected and overland quite a bit with what a really good lawyer does. >> what type of discussion with you have today with your team in deciding how to cover critical issues today where it is so quick to get information into their hands? would you do it any different? >> i think basically it is the same in this respect.

the question is, how much of the truth then you learn about something that matters. that is sure whether it's happening quickly or slowly. you have to resist its intention to go quickly. the second thing is, always be willing to correct yourself it turns out of was not exactly what i thought it was. i think the basic quest for truth is the same whether it's social media or more traditional media. >> we have reached the point in the program wears only time for one more question. could you explain your new role, how to make. >> here representing a number of newspapers and the associated press in developing a business model to sustain traditional

journalism. the basic eddy is, there is huge growth, but almost all of it is on the internet and mobile. much of the internet -- the information being consumed ultimately comes from newspapers but is on third-party site. the question is can develop reasonable licensing ways so that we can still afford the reporters that the real need in this country. >> thanks to you. we also want to think of our audience. >> is there and nonfiction of barbecue would like to see pictured on book tv? send us an e-mail. this weekend with the help of local affiliate time warner

cable book tv breezier interviews for local officers in louisville, kentucky. an important union base of operations and a major military supply center. after the war the city emerged even more prosperous than before. next we hear from author of two centuries of black louisville. this is just of five minutes. >> relocated right now at second and main street. the child of the river. founded in 1778. emptor americans, increasingly important role.

simply too cold. you have a number of african-americans who were so whatever your. >> from second street all the way down to eighth street roughly eight to ten. this is where the african-americans would be kept for shipping for the down the river. when the move wins kentucky and louisville maintained slavery. >> kentucky was divided during the civil war.

perot is as divided as any product because little was the major population center on the river. it became a major installation for the union army and one time or another might have had over her thousand troops. the minutes to discuss strategy. a very, very important place. african-americans in louisville, you had people to be enlisted an amendment. most uniquely you have the local free black community that embraced providing them with medical care, food, clothing. over time families gathered here and the federal policy.

there was a 10-acre refuge decamp near where we're standing right now. you had a black man from rochester, new york. superintendent. he alone was taking black soldiers into battle. main street market street that we saw earlier. very unique experience. the we are at fourth and chestnut looking to the south. in my youth this was the main shopping district of blue. of course it was a syringe into shopping district. african-americans would not turn close to look at restrooms.

we had some early demonstrations around 1937-58. it is really in 1961, the winter of 1961, there was a major campaign against segregation. we call it the nothing new for easter campaign. you had high-school students and college students that to the street. literally every day. ultimately this campaign and the voters' registration campaign built the back of segregation. 1963 we had a public accommodation ordnance ahead of the 1964 civil rights act. standing at tenth and mohamad on the street right now. once called wall street. euros a statement essentially in

the area where blacks lugo was born. two young african americans who had inherited build the the money were able to get a what will be to sell them some property that was on the health of the time. this is the property going for the back up to seven street. of course on this property about 1850's you had about eight independent black churches. a small but thriving community. of course, this is with the african-americans in louisville had come a distinctive community in later years this movement would grow. it would never be entirely but until after 1940, but it would become predominantly so. of course but the 30's, '40's : fifties this was the center.

the great nightclubs. all lot of local color. nowadays the struggling community and with housing project on one side will apartment complex and really. be assured we with communities rebuild it. >> for informational this and other cities visit c-span.org / local content put tv attended a book party for colonel the ellis, former pow who spent over five years in prison in hanoi. party attendees include senator john mccain and orson swindle.

this is about 45 minutes. >> hello. good to see you. thank you for coming. adopting we have met before. >> i was somewhat concerned. and did not speak so well. >> moving around. >> some day you have to tell me what this is all about. >> i have my managing director from aublishing company of his of the great job. get to see you. how are you doing?

wonderful. wonderful. i remember this one. she spoke. hellish you doing?ñññ she wants to be here. >> of. >> and about halfway to they book. >> out get right to you. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] back to. [inaudible conversations]