and we were going out and exploring a lot of archaeological digs. i looked up and we have a crane that has been flown in, and a crane is swooping in over the trees in the middle of africa. it never occurred to anyone to say, is this the right expenditure of money? or should we be concentrating on the correspondence, concentrating on deploying on the stories that we want to bring you as opposed to that one shot. i still remember them standing there, because they have those beautiful and expressive faces and they are going. >> some of it has to do with rededicating what is at the heart of we should be doing. >> there is an eruption of

stories all over the world. we have seen in the first three months of this year, do you feel the american people are really interested in foreign news that does not include american casualties and american troops but the masai for example or what is happening in indonesia. our american people absorbed in the world? >> i believe the american people are absorbed in any thing new and will make them feel smarter and make them feel more part of a community on this globe and give them a better grasp of the globe. i will believe it until last countdown on the last broadcast. i know it is true.

i know it is true. >> do you yourself as anchor of "world news" divide the show? sometimes you do a whole show on one story. on a normal day, do you divide it up as foreign and national? >> no, there is no implicit quota of any kind. it is only the complexity of what we are telling you. are we doing what "world news" does this evening? someone was saying to me when i was out with richard nixon working on his memoirs, this is not the book, this is a book. this is not the the broadcast. we have tomorrow night. this is a broadcast and we will be back again tomorrow night with more.

>> if you don't look after the budget, do you look after the ratings? i know >> you won't believe this. [laughter] ratings of filter into me occasionally. sometimes when someone looks very glum but i don't check them are . i told our executive producer to check someplace else because i studied his face afterwards. i would rather not. i get as excited as anyone when i know something we cared about connected with an audience. i love that. but i simply don't want to be hostage to that theme what about abc, the corporation itself? >> i assume they do. abouty don't talk to you

it? >> note: in the most general terms, really, truly. >> they don't sit you down at the end of the year and speculative they had done something or spent money going to japan? >> >> no, and i can honestly say to you -- this is "candide," but i don't know of a single time in my entire career when i could not cover the story wanted or a broadcaster was on could not cover the story they wanted because of money. i have never heard that. they have never said we cannot afford to cover that story. >> do you remember 30 years ago that you could do these kind of things without anybody questioning it because the budget was so much larger and there were fewer people watching after you with money?

there are many more people today want to have you on monday. you seem to be in the middle of the storm without affecting you. if >> i am not insulated. i believe if we go to the management and we say we need to cover this story, we get to cover that story. i think that there are decisions probably made that don't always come to me, but they don't bring them to mate. if we feel that this is central to what we do, we can say let's do it. look at the way we covered the middle east. truly, with a number of people deployed in the number of countries and a number of nights, i have no idea how much that cost. i would never ask. >> did you have an urge yourself

when christiane amanpour was in egypt? >> i what i did go there but she was christianne on port. she has interviewed more bark more than i have. if anybody can get through that square and get to mubarak, she can. >> let's take a quick break so we can remind our viewing and listening audience is that this report and i am talking with diane sawyer of abc's world news. women, do you feel that women in the business have a fully arrived? do they feel they have to break ceilings and all? >> i think that women have arrived in many ways in many

venues. by and large, the business part of what we do is not as accelerated as the on air part of what we do. i always think that some of it has to do with you are on tv and you can see who is doing what. you can make your decision on the air. there is a feeling that some local stations that it is still sometimes a bit of a struggle. around the globe, it is inconceivable mountain that we should climb together, linking arms to climb together. looking ahead judy woodruff and thinking about the days long ago -- i wonder how many women were there on those convention

floors. there were not so many of us. we had a giant headsets on running around trying to nab people. i believe that with every broadcast ad agency -- at network news as a female anchor. i think that is an achievement and it makes a big difference. i had to do a conference once at the sun valley, idaho in front of corporate moguls and i called jack welch. i asked him what he learned about putting rocket fuel behind women in the workplace. the more women you have in management, the more when you have on the board, you have a direct correlation to the success of the company. there is. that is a business piece of evidence.

he said he learned numbers. he said he had learned that it is not about having women. it is about having some number of women and i don't know what it is yet. if you get women in a room including a news room and you have a certain number, maybe more than 1/2, it is a different news room. he said that is what we have to concentrate on, that number, not just having women, but having the number that actually controls the gps of a great organization. >> if you look at the number of women now covering so many of the war zones, tsunamis, dangerous stuff, my sense is that there are more women out there than men covering the news.

that is my impression. there has been extraordinary progress in that one area. >> i don't think there is any hesitation anymore. you get to go to every story. you remember them. >> when you were first at cbs and you were the first female reporter/anchor at cbs, what was it like? >> i had no idea what i was walking into. mike wallace, incredible mike wallace. [laughter] i knew i was in trouble when the entire group of the 60 minutes correspondent walked down ball on something important and ended up in the men's room. [laughter] that must be useful to know what they are going to do next. i had a certain obliviousness

because i think they were -- new kids always got a bit of an initiation. >> when you went to abc, was a better by that time? >> it was different because "60 minutes," i walked in as the first on-air correspondent there and it was a lot of learning. it was hilarious and wonderful, too. i like to think i gave as good as i got. i like to think it was like going into a circuit training course and by the end i had muscles i did not know i had. when i got to abc, i was a co- anchored with sam donaldson going in, it was understood that we were there and started together and it was quenelle biting and it was a disaster in

the beginning. we were a saturday night live skit. many nights, we were a skit on saturday night live, we were so bad. [laughter] we were pretty bad. >> you were not that bad. >> you should of called me and told me how to fix it. [laughter] [applause] >> jumping channels, want to ask you about social media. we have seen and discussed a lot of that. it has played a rather major role in the coverage of some of the stories in the middle east. you come on your program, have used footage provided you don't know -- provided by people you've done n't know.

how'd you feel about using that kind of material on your show when you really don't know the origin of a lot of the stuff? >> we always tell you where we got it. >> but if you say you got from youtube -- >> i think our viewers know the frames of pedigree you have 1 foot is like that. we also call and do our very best to verify everything we put on the air. there have been many things that might have been electrifying television that we don't put on the air because we cannot verify it is a true representation of what was happening at that moment. >> it is a question when you get into something that is so fast moving >> definitely >> you pick up footage because

you don't have people there. the tendency on television is to show something and if you have something, it seems to me that the temptation would be to use it even without that extra check. >> but we really do try and we really do try to be as judicious as we can when we are looking at something that is not a lot of people singing on "american idol." we tried to be as careful as we can because we have seen it and we have seen it in situations where we never want to change the story based on something we don't know as much about as we can. >> i don't know whether you recently saw brent scowcroft talking about the new type of communication in terms

of fashioning a new political outcome or attempting to throughout the middle east. he said that new communications revolution has had more to do with the changes in the middle east than anything else brent scowcroft said. do you share that view? >> it is impossible not to see. it is impossible not to see and the stunned -- and be stunned by immediate pyre-light of hope that goes on when people are hearing from people who are connected to them and will stay on line with them. when those first signals start coming out and somebody is responding and you know there is a voice there and that the voices hearing you, it is

impossible not to believe it is a whole new force in the world. i interviewed mark zuckerberg and he said this will be a giant force for democracy. you can hammer me all you want for believing that we have to go big, bold, and abroad rather than let it be driven by such privacy constraints or such considerations of privacy about having to un-friend somebody. he would take his chance on fri ending the world to see what they have to say. he absolutely believed that this would happen variant >>

fascinating, in this world and communications, there is fox news. [laughter] i was wondering what you thought of them. [laughter] >> i watch fox news. i watched msnbc, too. i watch cnn. i will be in rehab for serial nos watching some day. i will go to some betty ford wing sunday and cure myself. i think you can learn so much from the excitement of the people on fox news about what they are telling you. and about what they are bringing to every story. i think the american people are enormously smart and they are enormously, collectively so discerning about making their own judgments as they move from

msnbc, as they move from fox news. i don't think ideas can be labeled with the people who hold the money spectrum. i think people can make their mind up about ideas. i think that the people who hear something are surrounded by a lot of information and can check it in many ways we could not check things before. i am not going to -- i'm not kidding, i am a universal water and i learned. >> it is a noble sentiment on your part. [laughter] >> do you not watch? >> i wanted all the time. [laughter] -- i watched it all the time. it is not so much fox news as opinion in the world news and

that you have a stunningly upbeat -- >> i think people know when they are getting opinion in the world news. and getting distinction between the two -- >> just like you'd like to get challenged by some of the dinner table, you can't believe they said something. socrates might have said that is how we learn, too. >> there is no to a question about that. i am talking about the world news. this is where you were raised and where you have been had a very hypothetical for a long time. in the world news, people might like to believe that the news is where you get information, not opinion. we are now in a world where

there is so much more opinion, it seems, then straight, hard news. no matter how gloriously intelligent every person is, it may be difficult on occasion to distinguish one from the other. you say the american people will make that decision. >> i believe they do. i don't know about news. i think thoughts are still the currency of what you and i want to deal in. we know that we have to bring to the fact that we seek out every day the same degree of passion and enthusiasm and you don't know this but i can't wait to tell you this that we see in opinion journalism. this may sound like pollyanna, but i see like it is a way for us to strengthen how much we

believe in the fact that will anchor your opinion. and keep introducing those. we are not subsumed by opinion journalism. we are not. >> i hope you are right. i really do. what are your sources of information? >> you may wear the white look every day? >> where you learn things? >> i don't know where to begin. i at least scan or read as much as six papers in the morning. watch"good morning, america." at 3:45have to get up in the morning every year.

i get into the office and we are scanning the e-mails coming in from our team around the world. they are fantastic. i wish we could simply introduce you sometimes to the debates that go on at abc news between terry moran and jake tapper. i read the daily beast and the drudge.drune i can see a complete quilt of screens on the air and i could see what is going on and we collect in and out all day. >> do you have a favorite website? you mentioned to the daily beast. >> , i checked in with each of them. i check in with the new york times website.

>> do you eat during the course of the day? [laughter] >> copiously. >> let me ask you questions about ethics in journalism. the wikileaks story -- if you're the editor of the new york times and you had the chance to get hundreds or thousands of the interesting, even fascinating but top-secret cables from the u.s. government, what would you do? would you put them on the air? >> each of us has our of star we steer by. we reported on them. that was a way of putting them on the air. ? but that was after the york

times broke the story. >> yes, we would have done what he did. it was said that people trust sad revolutionaries and you have to somewhat less than the contradiction of these moments in journalism. if you are reluctant or likely to the philosopher being dragged out of the cave, if you are duly reluctant to do any thing that might inadvertently compromise a life because you don't know who is being exposed, that is your beginning. i assume they did everything that they absolutely could. you just have to make your individual news organization decision about how much time

you have and what the proportion is. there was a lot of thit. we know those guys around the world. one guide is writing that cable that suddenly shows up in wikileaks. i am sure somebody thought nobody read his cable. what we learn from them and what we would have broadcast from them would have been what we thought truly eliminated the world. because of the proportion of what we do, it would have been less. >>bill argued because it was news. after due diligence, he felt that however embarrassing it might of been to the u.s. government, it was news and he wanted to run with it and he did it and he is not sorry about

that. do you bite into that? >> that is his reasoning? then i do. >> does that mean that almost anything after due diligence isa testble? >> no, and we don't know where the line is. we do make decisions about some forms of criminal brutality. we make decisions that they are not broadcastable by our particular show. i think we have to watch out for universal's. s. i hope we are in the business of looking at the constellation of

the question presented every time and but but there was a universal standard applied to everything, i am not sure i would know how to behave as a reporter. we do make judgments about what encourages copycat criminal behavior. we make those judgments. what i am trying to get at also is it is not only universal values that there are national interests that are in ball. involved. the anchor as a series of special responsibilities, does the anchor of a special responsibility to the national interest of the country? does that run through your mind, also? >> yes, of course. >> but to the point of saying that because of that, i will not

run those cables? no, there were put out there to embarrass the united states and i want to participate. >> would you have run the pentagon papers? >> different story. >> would you have done it? >> absolutely. >> because -- >> the pentagon papers were released to the public by one person angry at one war that he thought was unjust. julian assange appears to have a broader mandate in mind. he has said he is there to embarrass, to bring down, to eliminate. is he a journalist? is he like diane sawyer? is he entitled to all the privileges of a journalist? >> does someone have to be a certified journalist before you will accept the information they bring you? >>no. i was asking you. [laughter]

wait a minute. let's go to another subject. [laughter] in the 1970's, you worked for presidents. nixon you're both in the white house then and you followed him out to california. those are extraordinary times. you had a great seat in history as it was unfolding in front of you. please help me understand your continuing loyalty to president -- to a president that had lied to the american people and gave birth to the watergate scandal, help me out. >> it wasn't even just about that.

in a funny way, it was how i lived up to what my father had always taught me which is if you walk away from someone at the worst time of their life, that is also a choice. that has implications. for who you are and who you want to be. i have been there to go to china with your brother. i had been there through all the times to the end of the signing of the treaty of the vietnam war and there were a handful of us who are asked to go. i was asked to go for a very specific reasons which was mysteriously, i got up and read everything in the morning, i had read some many things that for the first round, one of lawyers

said to me that you can tell it what we are saying is not true based at least on what the reporting has been. for me to say no and that moment -- in that moment, was for me to assume that i had some -- i guess personal sanctimony that i don't have. i do believe that people can redeem themselves. i saw what was done. i saw it on the inside. we all know how what a ghastly bruise that was. but i was one person asked by one other person in the worst

moment for them and i would not have known -- >> i understand that there was another answer. >> i could have saidno and i thought i was going out for a few months. i went out 28 and came back 32. [laughter] i did not know what would happen at each stage and the choices that were made to stay and do it. i could have no said, but there were people who resigned and wrote books and letters. i will never do that. i just won't. >> president nixon had an enemies list. i know it because i was on [laughter] it. would you have known about it >> ? no. >> how difficult was it for you to make the journey from political partisanship to

objective journalism? you have done that quite well. >> even though my father was in republican politics in kentucky which not many people were, believe it or not, i did not go to the white house as a partisan. i went because i had been a weather girl. i had written -- i had been a really bad weather girl. i was a bad weather girl. my father died and i was with my mother for a year at home. she asked me if i would go and do something else because she felt that i was staying there for her. i began to look at other things i kind of wanted to do. truly, i looked around and thought it would be interesting to work at the white house. i came to washington an interview with the news division

at the same time and was rejected. i ended up at the white house because i thought would be interesting. it was not one president or the other. it was to learn what that crucible could possibly be like. >> if you had one more interview who would berocliv, with? >> i think the pope. >> sure, i would like the other pope. john paul xxiii. >> this one is interesting in his academic -- we have written letters and i suspect i won't. >> what is your sense of the future of american journalism? >> me?

i think everyone of these students in this room, i swear, will go out and change the world for american journalism. [applause] you are going to do it. i think we simply don't begin to know the enormous power of passion delivered in all of these different fora, on-line and off. we don't begin to know what it will be like when we are connected globally in a way we have never been connected before and that we see what we say here on the air will make a difference and help those women who are dying of my maternal mortality in afghanistan if we simply believe we can do it. i think we have not yet

experienced what it is to stand arm in arm has journalists -- as journalists are in fact that we know that can be a believer -- the cap that can be thelever which can move the globe. >> we are out of time and i am at -- i am happy to abolish that. let me thank our wonderful audience including the international women's media foundation. [applause] and the many people all over the country that was kalb report. to those of you out there who still cherish the role of a free press in stimulating a free society and finally, my thanks to the incomparable diane sawyer, a life in news, bless you. thank you so much [applause] . i am ka martinlb, good night and

good luck. -- i am marvin kalb, good night and good luck. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> ladies and gentlemen, we will have 15 minutes of questioning, your opportunity to ask diane sawyer a question recorded that means you ask a question, you don't make a speech. if you go on too long, i will be impolite and cut you off.

we will start here. please, please give us your name and any organizational association you may have. >> i am a sophomore gwu , what is the most fun part of your job and what is the most difficult part of your job? >> the most fun is the college and getting to wrestle a story together. that is how you know you are intellectually alive. the hardest part is hair and makeup. [laughter] if i could do radio, i would do radio in my bathrobe. the, you at 4:00 in the morning with eyeliner, it was misery many mornings. i never liked the grooming part of television.

i have always loved what we get to talk about every day. people are paying you to be curious. what is greater career bless them that every day? >> thank you very much. next question, please. >> i'm a freshman at the george washington. you have had such a great career. is there any definitive moment or opportunity you had that got your career jump start? >ed? >> coming back from japan, my first story was three mile island. when i got to cbs. i had been there a few months and i had been paralyzed with fear because i watched marvin kalb and all the people that

were there. the first thing they gave me to do was a little radio story to write, 30-second radio, and two hours later i was trying to write it. a co-reporter said she threw up the first story. i am speeding up in my car to three mile island and they thought the reactor would blow off. wait a minute,roger mudd is not going. they think i am expendable and that was going through my mind recorded. i covered this story because there was a lot of intricate nuclear information to impart.

i would take the list of everybody i could get a hold of. i got every single name of anybody who had ever worked at three mile island. i would call them when i got home and see what they knew. eventually, i worked my way through to some people who told me really what was going on. inside . >> i'm a student at george washington university and a part-time reporter for campus radio. my question about the nixon administration was taken. i'm a member of college republicans. you were involved in republican politics earlier in your year, helping nixon right is memoirs. what role do you have in politics aside from reporting? keith olbermann was recently

booted off the air for donating to campaigns. what involvement do you have? >> one of my proudest things is that my husband, and he will tell you if you call him, he does not know my politics. he has no idea. [applause] no one has any idea. i meant what i said earlier -- i did not come as a partisan. i love it, but i love it as someone who loves hearing all sides all the time. >> yes, please? >> i may freshman at gw and i was wondering what advice you have for young people, especially women looking to break into the realm of media? believer that you can still go to small markets and learn a whole lot about becoming a reporter.

i sent my godson to a teeny weeny little market someplace in nebraska. he wrote me a note and told me how to -- and he -- and i taught him everything except the sheep gnawing through his microphone. [laughter] i love local coverage and i love what you learn. the more you can actually believe in your heart that it is not about technique on the air, it is about what you have to say a. it is about the confidence in your eyes and you must love the subject matter. if people are not curious and don't have the stamina and drive to end to that question, don't do this for a living. do something else. >> law is a great backup profession. [laughter] >> i am a senior at the george

washington university. he started anchoring "world news tonight" and you're also anchoring "good morning, america." how did you do both? >>really grouchily. , itter years of those hours was sometimes a physical achievement just to make it out of the morning with six different wake-up calls. i am just bone tired. sometimes i think i can make it through a day for an interview. some of you have seen me as recently as today. i think i can't do it and by george, when i get there and

start reading and think about what it is a i will get to learn an answer, i swear it takes care of you. it is better than a b-12 shot. that was the only thing that enabled me to do it. i just came back from south dakota on a story i was doing where we stayed up all night, came back and went to japan, stood up all night every night, came back, it was libya. we can to work on the weekend on libya. if you did not love the material, i don't know what you would do. >> ask for a raise. [laughter] >> i'm a freshman at the george washington university. in the beginning of your career, being such a pioneer for women in the industry, did you anticipate the amount of success if you have acquired a thus far? >> you are very kind but i never thought in those terms at all.

i did not know where it was going. i was just operating in a modicum of panic. there was a man and the washington bureau and he pulled me in and asked me if i was sure what to do this. he said he did not think i would go very far. [laughter] i thought that was ok. i like covering the postal negotiations, too. that was all right with me. i never saw a career. i just saw what i got to do that day, that year. >> good for you. >> i am made when gw alum. get you're asked where you

your information, you only mentioned u.s. for american- based media. is that to say that you do not obtain information from foreign- based media outlets? >> i do but i tend to do that through our overseas bureaus who report in every morning. the report was in the local newspapers, what they see on television, what the stories are. they are really, really good. >> we have about four minutes left. i notice at least 15 questioners. i will arbitrarily decide to hear some of the questions from the a. the first people in -- the first three people in a row, ask your question. >> i have heard stories of reporters who reported on 9/11 or hurricane katrina who had a

difficult time doing their job because of the human suffering. have you had those moments in your career? >> yes, please? >> too many of us here tonight, you are our roll modle. when you were a college student, who was your role model and who did you find influential? >> i am an international student from taiwan. when you are at age 25, why did you think the white house wanted to hire you from being a weather girl? [laughter] i really want to know. >> see if you can do all three in one minute. >> ok, the woman i admire the

most -- i have a mother and and who are intrepid. at the white house, i have no idea what they thought i was going to do. i did not be there. -- i did not either. i was not just a bad weather girl, i did not have contact lenses and i did not deal with the west coast because i could not see the west coast. i had big glasses. [laughter] look up yourself. what was the third question? i still have a photograph of memory but i don't have same-day service. >> covering tragedy. >> thank you very much, you

young whippersnapper variant [laughter] . [laughter] >> it pulverizes you. it practically takes you down. if you believe that your job is to make other people feel something and maybe respond, then you just pick yourself up and go do it. >> 3 in a row. >> we have not heard from many delegates yet and we have two delegates who have questions. >> i am from palestine. i am not a student but i have a question -- as a woman and over all those years, have you had moments where you have felt discriminated against as a woman? >> another delegate question?

>> would you be interested to pay attention to this country when they are in the that position with a dictatorship killing people. presidential candidates are arrested, 56 people are facing 15 years in jail and we still have kgb. would you come there and cover that? questionset those two answered first. >> i did a story once on have a nice day racism. we were sitting outside the saddam hussein's palace and the producer and i wondered if we

could catch the ultra high frequency racism. we did this story and it is still being shown in some places in some universities. i have always felt that their reflexes that i encountered that were not discrimination as such, but were embedded reflexes. you have to steer around them and come back three or four times and prove yourself in other ways. i know, again, it is there in endemic ways and it is part of the job of all the rest of us to make sure that we go out and the the hands that i was talking about, the hands to go out and say we know what you are experiencing, we are here, and we are here 1 billion strong to

be on your side. >> ok, yes? >> over the years, you have reported on some much devastation. how have you remained so strong and persistent when reporting such heart wrenching stories? >> again, i think they are the people that need as the most. that is why we do it. they are the ones counting on us the most. how can we possibly say it is too tough for me. you can't say that. row.o or three an erod >> many journalists and students are worried with some much downsizing that it seems the

only way to break in to the industry and make a career is to be unpaid for a long period of time. how you suggest us to break into the industry and make a career. ? >> the second person, please. >> i am the president of hope for tomorrow. thank you so much, diane sawyer throughout your career. as a woman and an anchor and as a woman, i come from kenya. how do look at africa being called that country with women in the media in africa when you are anchoring, how do you look at women in africa compared to men as journalists and u.s. and anchor, how do you advise to work with them locally and

africa? -- in africa? >> i'm from east los angeles, california. you mentioned a student journalists are inheriting a new media that contains the world. what would be your advice to someone like me that comes from a community that is full of negative press like gang violence? >> you've got 30 seconds. [laughter] this is like television. to the women in africa, we need as journalists and it is the most profound respect and we salute you. also, when we travel, we depend so much on women journalists to be there with us helping us open our eyes and ears. about not being paid, i think there is a seismic shift and

there is a whole lot of anxiety about getting the job that locks in because there is so much general uncertainty out there. if you possibly can sometimes, try to spend the two weeks or one month in something even if they can't pay you because i know too many people in those two weeks and that month who got the job. it is simply someone seeing what you can do and be willing to come in and do anything. i know there is that uncertainty but i also know that many of the people we see at abc news had a door open that way. about the gang violence, we will take at another time. >> my apologies to all of you did not have a chance to ask a

question. we are out of time i want to extend goodbyes to all of the people, all of the women reporters and executives from all over the world who are here tonight. god bless you and continue to do all the work you are doing. [applause] thank you all very much. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011]

[no audio] >> tonight, we will look back of the shooting of president ronald reagan on march 30, 1981. the panel includes the secret service agent who pushed president reagan into a waiting limousine and the doctor operated on the president. it is hosted by the newseum, live coverage starts to 7: 30 eastern here on c-span. >> the cspan video library is

valuable for following congress. committee hearings are produced and are being gathered and archive in one place. the cspan video library, find out more, read our video library blog and watch what you want when you want. "washington journal" is next, we will take your calls. on our schedules are a couple of events about the political unrest in the middle east. the moroccan foreign minister will talk about the challenges his country faces. that is at the brookings institution at 10:30 a.m. eastern. and from the carnegie endowment for international peace, the president of the american university in cairo will give her perspective on the recent changes in egypt and the arab world. that is live at 1:00 p.m. eastern. and coming up this hour, an update on the situation in libya.